With that she left, and I was left feeling that maybe I should check on her later in the day.
At least to double check that she was all right.
That was purely for her benefit…wasn’t it?Chapter 4Dad, you’ve always been like a father to me.
-Coffee Mug
Mercy
Two days later
There was a knock at the door, and I peeked my head out from under the blanket I was hiding under.
Literally hiding.
The only way I could sleep was if the lights were on, the TV was blaring, and the comforter covered me from head to foot.
It’d taken a little getting used to, but I’d managed it. Especially when it was the only way I was able to sleep.
Looking at the clock, I groaned, knowing it could only be two people.
Nobody else would knock on the door at six thirty on a Wednesday morning.
Maybe if I ignore it, they’ll go away.
I sighed as the knocking continued.
Throwing the covers off, I walked to the door.
I guess I should’ve expected it. I’d been ignoring them for going on three days now. There was no way they’d let me ignore them forever.
Not that I wanted to... I just didn’t know what to say to them.
‘I’m okay’ didn’t sound very good. They knew I wasn’t okay. ‘I’ll be alright,’ was closer to the truth, but hell, who knew when I’d be alright.
Shoring up my defenses, I opened the door to my mother and father.
My dad looked ready to beat the door down, and my mother was pulling out her keys getting ready to use them.
“You know,” I said swinging the door wide. “Most normal people sleep at this time of day.”
My dad snorted and pushed me aside to enter, but my mom stared at me.
“If you were sleeping, I’d have not let him come. But we saw your lights on, and we all know that you sleep with all the lights off,” my mother tittered.
Sometimes mothers thought they knew everything.
Although she would’ve been right just four days ago.
Then, I would’ve never had a light in the house on.
Now, I couldn’t sleep without them all on.
Which also let her know that I wasn’t ‘alright.’
“That just goes to show that you don’t know me as well as you think you do. I was sleeping,” I teased.
I hadn’t meant it to come out sounding so tired, but it had, and my father who’d been busying himself making coffee turned around to study me.
My mother stopped until her feet were touching mine, and pulled me into her warm embrace.
“I love you, baby,” she whispered fiercely. “If I could take your pain for you, I would.”
She knew I needed her. That’s why she’d showed it like she did. How she knew, I didn’t know, but she did. It must’ve been mother’s intuition or some shit like that, but I broke. Right there in her arms, I broke.
I let go of all the pain I’d been holding in for the last three days.
I told her everything that’d happened.
I told her how I couldn’t sleep with the lights off, because when I did all I could feel were his hands on me, violating me.
And she listened.
She did what any mother would do, and listened to everything I had to say.
“Oh, baby,” she cried softly.
My dad’s arms wrapped around me and my mother, pulling us into his strong embrace, causing me to cry harder.
“It’s okay, baby girl. We’ll get through this,” he promised.
I wasn’t so sure I believed him.
I’d told myself the same thing over the past couple of days; yet, here I was, day three after the incident that I didn’t like to put a label on, and I was still barely functioning.
I cried in my parent’s arms, much the same way I had that first day in Miller’s, grief pouring out of me.
It was cleansing in a way.
I was nowhere near better, but I felt like I could breathe.
It’d been an altercation I’d been avoiding for a few days now, and I felt free to finally have it off my chest.
After a long while, my dad finally pulled away from us, giving us both a kiss on the forehead, before he started puttering away in the kitchen.
It was only when we smelled the bacon that my mom and I finally broke the embrace.
But she did it only so she could cup my face.
“I want you to know I’m here, honey. Day or night. You need me, I’ll be here,” she promised.
“Alright, during the day I’ll call you. At night, though, I’ll probably just call daddy. He’s always up later than you are,” I teased.
She frowned at me, giving me a narrow eyed look and said, “He’s not up much during the night anymore. Only if it’s something really bad, that is.”
My daddy was the Fire Chief for Kilgore Fire Department.
He was the big wig that got to sit behind a desk and ‘push papers’ so he said.
He didn’t like it anywhere near as much as he had when he was an active duty firefighter, but it was safer for his heart.
Daddy had had two heart attacks within the last four years, and he’d slowed down a lot because of them.
He’d had to leave his high stress job, but luckily he’d still got to stay in the fire service. Most didn’t have that option.
“Daddy, I want some pancakes,” I said as I walked into the kitchen hand in hand with my mother.
My dad looked at me crossly over a bowl of batter. “You think I don’t know that?”
I smiled.
My father always knew how to make me feel better.
His pancakes only got cooked when it was a special occasion, like Christmas or a birthday.
He said they took too long. I really thought it was because he hated standing there flipping pancakes while everyone else ate without him.
“Thanks, daddy.” I smiled, kissing him on the cheek before taking a seat at the table and waiting patiently.
“Anything for you, baby girl. Anything,” he promised.***“We’re really here to see if we need to cancel our cruise,” Mom said once we’d finished breakfast and they were heading to their prospective jobs.