Ryder nods.
“How old were you when it happened? Did you…？” I trail off.
My brain can’t comprehend this. It literally cannot wrap itself around the fact that Ryder’s mother was murdered by his own father.
“I was six. And yes, I saw it happen.”
I reach for his hand and find it cold. I entwine our fingers, infusing his with warmth, urging him to continue.
His eyes grow strained. Features tight with pain.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I finally say.
That gets me a dry laugh. “Really? Because the whole reason I’m here, the whole reason you’re upset with me, has to do with me not sharing. So, what, now it’s okay not to share?”
“I just mean, you don’t have to give all the details. It’s enough that I know—”
“That my father’s a murderer?”
I feel horrible now. I barely spoke to him for four days because he refused to tell me why he doesn’t want to be called Luke. And now I know the answer and it’s fucking heart-wrenching. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed him to talk.
“It’s fine,” he says, noting my dismay. “I’ll talk about it. It’s just… there’s no point. It’s in the past.”
“A past that affected you. Severely enough that you can’t even use your own name.”
Ryder’s answering exhale is unsteady. He’s quiet for so long I think he’s done talking. But then he speaks.
“He wasn’t a violent man. I know, it’s ironic to say that, considering what he did to her in the end. But he didn’t beat us. Never laid a hand on her, at least not in front of me. I never saw bruises or bloody noses. Sure, he could be an asshole when he drank, but it’s not like I lived in fear of him.”
“So he just snapped?”
“I don’t know. I was six. I didn’t know the inner workings of their relationship. I know they argued a lot. I don’t think she was happy, but she would put on a brave face for me.” Ryder rakes a hand through his hair. “Hell, maybe he was beating her and she just hid it really well. Honestly, I don’t know. The night it happened, I remember waking up to shouts. I snuck out of my room, poked my head into their room, saw the suitcase. It was half-packed, so I think she was planning to leave him. And I guess, yeah, he snapped. When I came to the doorway, he’d already pulled the gun on her. He was telling her that if she walked out the door, he was going to put a bullet in her brain.”
My heart starts pounding. I picture a six-year-old boy standing there, watching his father point a weapon at his mother, and it’s unimaginable.
“Neither of them saw me at first. But then he noticed me and shouted for me to go back to my room. But I was frozen in place, too scared to move. She tried to go to me, but he ordered her not to move. And then they started fighting again. She told him that pointing a gun at her only proved why she had to leave. That he was too jealous and possessive and unstable. She said she couldn’t do this anymore. He asked her if she still loved him, and she said no. That’s the part that’s etched into my brain. Like, why did she say no?”
He shakes his head in disbelief, then barks out a harsh laugh.
“Why didn’t she just lie? This guy’s pointing a fucking gun at her head. I get it, people aren’t always thinking clearly in scary situations, but…Christ. Tell the man with the gun you love him. But she didn’t, and it got her killed. The second she admitted she didn’t love him, he pulled the trigger. Just like that.” Ryder snaps his fingers, amazed. “It was so loud. I’ve never heard anything that loud. My ears were ringing. Mom’s body fell to the floor.”
My heart rate is dangerously high. I wasn’t even there, and I feel the fear, visceral in my bones. “Did he try to hurt you too?”
“Not at all. He just walked out of the bedroom, told me to follow him. We went to the living room, and he sat on the couch, gun on his knee. He asked me to come sit beside him.”
“Oh my God.”
“So I did. He picked up his glass of whiskey from the coffee table and just started sipping it. Someone must have heard the shot and called the police, because it wasn’t long before we heard the sirens. It was only about five minutes before they showed up and took him away.” Ryder uses air quotes to repeat himself. “‘Only’ five minutes. Longest five minutes of my life. Five minutes of sitting on the couch with him while Mom’s body was in the other room, bleeding all over the floor.”
I feel like throwing up. Gulping through the nausea, I wrap my other hand over his hand, trapping it between both my palms. “What happened after that?”
“He was arrested. Child services got involved.” Ryder offers a shrug. “Dad didn’t have any family, and the few family members on Mom’s side didn’t want to step up. So I got thrown into the system.”
“Did it go to trial?”
“No, he pled out. Life in prison with the possibility of parole. I had to give a witness statement to the police, though. They asked a million questions, and I didn’t really understand any of them because I was six years old. All I knew was that my mom was gone.”
His eyes become misty. Before I can stop myself, I reach up and stroke the underside of my thumb over the moisture there. He flinches, just slightly, but doesn’t push me away. He leans forward, pressing his forehead against mine as I wipe away the tears.
“Anyway, that’s it. That’s the story. I share a name with the man who took my mother away. And every time someone calls me that fucking name, I hear her screaming it that night. When I was in the doorway and Dad suddenly noticed I was there, he spun around and pointed the gun at me. Not as an intentional threat. Just instinct, I think. But Mom screamed, Luke, stop. And Christ, I still have nightmares about it. I hear her screaming my name. His name.”
I climb into his lap and lock my arms around his neck. Holding him. But I don’t know if it’s more for his sake or mine. This chilling glimpse into his childhood has shaken me.
“So that’s why I hate it, all right? I don’t want to think about him. I want to pretend it never happened.”
I pull back and meet his red-rimmed eyes. “You can’t, though. Because it did happen,” I say quietly. “I can’t even imagine how painful it was, how painful it still is when you think about it. But pretending it’s not there doesn’t help anything. Isn’t that what you always tell me? To just let myself feel things even if they’re not pleasant?”
Still, I get it now. The reason he put on that aloof front. This catastrophic event that shaped his childhood left him in self-preservation mode. Protect yourself at all costs. I don’t blame him one bit.
“Trust me, I felt it all,” Ryder says hoarsely. “I felt it all the time. And then I was done feeling it. It was time to move on. I decided to go to school on the East Coast and get the fuck away from Arizona. Put it all behind me—my dad in jail, my mom dead, those godawful foster homes. All fucking behind me.” He gives a dark laugh. “The one thing I can’t put behind me, though, is my own name.”