“Uh, no,” Burt replied cautiously, almost like he was waiting for me to scream out again. “We became close friends and when I told him about my childhood, he looked into it, and told me what had come of the investigation into the cult. On the night that the authorities raided the compound, the men locked themselves in the kitchen we all used to eat in and killed themselves – apart from one man.”
“Your father,” Tabby guessed.
The visible tensing of the muscle in his jaw accompanied his nod. “Yeah, he decided he didn’t believe in the cause enough to die – unlike his brothers – so he hid, thinking he wouldn’t get found. Obviously he was, and they arrested him for false imprisonment, abuse, rape, and many other things. With the statements they’d gotten from the women and girls, they’d had enough to charge and sentence him to thirty-five years in prison. He was murdered by a fellow inmate after three months, justice for what he put those women through.” That was an understatement if ever there was one. “After I heard this, I was sickened by what I’d put your mom through,” he looked at Tabby, “and the fact that I didn’t know you, so Ben helped me figure out what to say in a letter, and in all the subsequent letters that I sent. Regardless of what I wanted – which was to meet you and to apologize to Olivia – I didn’t have that right after what I’d said and how I’d acted, so I continued to send letters hoping that one day she’d open one and give me a chance.”
“But she never did,” Tabby whispered, looking at me with tears in her eyes. We knew this situation well because we’d discussed it after Liv was born: every child should know both of its parents, so long as it was safe for them to do so, obviously. If Larry had signed away his rights and been an asshole to me, but had then come back wanting to know Liv, for her sake I would have considered it. Depending on how he’d been an asshole to me, and how he’d lived his life, I’d have arranged supervised visits with a professional until I could trust him. It would all entirely depend on his lifestyle, the recommendations of the professional, and more than likely a psych eval, too, but I would have let it happen for my daughter’s sake. Tabby’s mom had protected her from Burt, but she’d also protected herself, and while you couldn’t blame her for that, Tabby could still be hurt that she hadn’t opened his letters and then thought outside of the box for her daughter’s sake. Unless she’d known about the cult, though, because times and mentalities were different back then, so…
“Did she know about the cult?” she asked, her mind going where mine had just started to. If Olivia had known, it might have been more excusable because she could have been worried he’d gone back to it.
Shaking his head, he murmured, “No, I didn’t want to taint her beauty with it, not when I’d already done so much to her.”
And this was where I had a problem. Olivia had been hurt when she’d found out he had other women in his life, and she’d asked him to give them all up for the baby she was pregnant with, when he’d said no, she’d ended the relationship, and closed the door on him. As a woman, and as a mother who had gone through her pregnancy with a cheating, abusive husband, I got it – you wanted them out of your life and away from you. The hurt and embarrassment that you felt was extreme, and you want to be released from its hold on you. Then there was the child, because you didn’t want your baby to experience it either. I got it. That said, like I mentioned before – for my child’s sake, I would have eaten all of that if it hadn’t been for all the illegal and other factors involved with my breakup with Larry. Every situation is different, and I was hugely aware of the fact that everyone reacted differently, but I would have wanted him in her life if he’d just been a cheating asshole.
“How do we know there weren’t other things that you’re not telling us?” she snapped, asking a pertinent question. Unfortunately, I had a feeling I knew the answer to that already, even without having a full background check done on him.
Someone in the room had, though, and he was the one who carefully answered his wife. “Baby, I can tell you from what I’ve seen that there’s nothing illegal involved here, not even a parking ticket. That’s not to say that words weren’t exchanged, but the only thing you have to go on is what your mom told you, and now what Burt’s telling you.”