She’s not leaving this room until I get it.
“Why?”
She looks down at her shoes. “If I don’t get Quinn home, there will be consequences.”
Not for Quinn. Because she’s never stepping foot inside that home again.
“The first five years you were gone, I left my window cracked open every night…hoping you’d come back for me.”
But she never did.
She closes her eyes, like my words upset her.
Good.
“I made you a card every year for your birthday until I was eleven.”
And every single year, my dad would snatch it off the table and call me stupid because I couldn’t write or spell well.
But I tried. I tried so fucking hard.
Because I wanted her to know how much I loved her.
I cried when he’d tear the card into shreds and remind me that she was never coming back.
But I didn’t cry when he beat the shit out of me.
I wanted the pain.
“The first week you were gone, I got it so bad I couldn’t walk. I kept calling out for you, hoping you’d rescue me.”
But she didn’t.
She clutches her stomach, like she’s going to be sick. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry. Does it hurt, Mom?” I laugh but there’s not a drop of humor. “You know what else hurts? Being a human ashtray. Being forced into a scalding hot shower. Being beaten with a bottle, a bat—”
“Stop it!” she cries out. “Stop!”
“Answer the question.”
Clamping her mouth shut, she shakes her head. “Just give me my daughter so I can leave.”
“What about your son?” I roar so loud she jumps. “What about the son you abandoned?” My chest coils and bile surges up my throat. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t talk about him.” Leaning in, I get close to her face, this way she can’t ignore me like she has for the past fifteen years. “You tucked me away in a closet. Just like the picture of me Quinn found.”
“Phoenix,” she chokes out, but I don’t care about her tears.
She never gave a fuck about mine.
“Why, Mom?” I kick the coffee table a few times, sending shards of wood sailing across the room. “Why?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” she screams. “I wanted to take you with me, but he wouldn’t let me.”
Shocked, I stagger back. “My father?”
He never wanted me. A fact he never let me forget.
“No. The man I left your father for.” She blows out a shaky breath. “He was a cop who came to our house on a domestic dispute call one night when a neighbor called the police. He was sweet and kind…asked me to meet up for a cup of coffee so we could talk.”
“And then you ran off into the sunset. Leaving your kid to fend for himself.”
She wrings her hands. “I didn’t want to. It’s why I didn’t leave your father right away, like Chad demanded. I had to protect you.” She holds my gaze. “You’re my baby boy. I couldn’t leave you, Phoenix.”
I ignore the way the dead thing in my chest constricts. “Then why did you?”
She looks away. “Because I got pregnant with Quinn.”
I stay silent as I process what she’s saying.
She takes the opportunity to continue. “I was going to get an abortion, but Chad begged me not to. He was leaving for Chicago because he’d been offered a job on a force that paid more, and he wanted me to come with him. He said we could get married, and I’d never have to live in fear again because he’d take care of me and our child. There was just one problem.”
A tear falls down her cheek. “He didn’t want you to come with us. He didn’t like having a constant reminder that I’d been with another man.” She swallows thickly. “I had a choice to make. I could either give myself and the child I was carrying an opportunity to have a good life, or…” her voice trails off.
She doesn’t need to say the rest. The choice she made is the one I live with every day.
“How’d that work out for you?”
Sadness swims in her eyes. “Same as with your father. Things were great…until they weren’t. Quinn was two when Chad put his hands on me the first time.” Her face screws up. “She was five when he started hitting her.”
And fifteen when it stops. Because the son of a bitch will never touch her again.
“You’re not taking Quinn.”
The same way our conversation started is the same way it’s ending.