I understand the mathematics for this course, but I just don’t understand any of the minutiae around selecting statistical methodologies or tailoring it to my populations. It’s not intuitive to me like the actual math is and it’s even harder now that I can’t seem to concentrate on anything.
My mind wanders from subject to subject, landing anywhere and everywhere except for where it should be—on the professor right in front of me whose course I don’t understand. My thoughts flit to my cast, to how I’m going to finally get the cast off on Tuesday. Maria said we could borrow Tina’s car, so at least I don’t have to take the bus. I’m still going to miss my morning section for population modeling because of the appointment, though. So much for catching up on the material.
My phone vibrates as a text message comes in, and I surreptitiously sneak a glance at the screen beneath the table. It’s Sheriff Marino. He’ll be at my apartment sometime around 4:30. I still don’t want to talk about my father, but I have to get it over with sooner or later.
The projector flips to the next slide and the professor babbles incomprehensibly as he points to the screen. It’s a three-dimensional, planar depiction of microbial population migration across a Petri dish. I don’t know what that even means. Where’s Maria when I need a biologist?
Wherever she is, I wish she was here right now instead. I can’t help smiling as I remember her hugging me at the bus stop this morning. What an idiot I was; I should have just told her what happened and not shut her out like that. It’s over now, thankfully. She’s back, I’m never going to do it again, and I should stop beating myself up about it. I love her so much.
The professor shuts off the projector and all the students around me start packing their backpacks. Class is over already? Crap, where did the time go? I missed two pages of slides. I’ll have to catch up on them over the weekend.
I follow the crowd out the door and hurry back to my apartment. I need to get home before the police arrive.
––––––––
Maria waits at the top of the long staircase down to our apartments and waves happily to me as I come toward her down the hill. She laces her fingers through mine, smiles brightly and continues down the stairs alongside me.
“You ready for this?” she asks, and I shake my head.
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
I don’t know. It depends on what they’re going to ask me. I’m scared to let her see more of my childhood than she already has. She knows it’s there and she’s seen all the scars, but she doesn’t know how deep it goes. She doesn’t know about the early years and I’m afraid of how I’ll react to their questions.
She makes me feel safer, though. Maybe I should bring her after all. It’s not fair to hide those memories from her. She needs to know the whole truth about me, not just the parts I felt comfortable telling her.
“I don’t know,” I finally answer. “Let me think about it. If I say no, though, please believe me that it’s not because I don’t want you to know.”
“What is it, then?”
“It’s that I’m scared to show you,” I admit.
She stops dead in her tracks and hugs me tightly.
“I love you,” she whispers. “No matter how broken you think you are, no matter what you think about yourself, never forget that I love you, okay?”
I’m speechless and I don’t mean metaphorically, either. There is nothing I can possibly say that even comes close to how important, how special, her words are to me. All I can do is squeeze her hand back and try not to sniffle. I hope she knows what I’m feeling right now. She smiles lovingly at me as we continue down the stairs, and I’m certain that she knows.
We take a right turn at my row of apartments and hurry down to the end. Sheriff Marino is already waiting at my front door. So much for having time to prepare for this.
I try not to pay attention to the sinking feeling in my chest as I walk up to him. He leans uncomfortably against a lamppost, his moustache still thick and bushy and his oversized hat still brown and droopy like I remember it. He shoots me a friendly smile as I approach, or at least I think it was a smile. It’s hard to tell through his moustache.
Someone else is with him, though—a slightly-overweight, shorter man wearing the ill-advised combination of olive suit and yellow shirt. I know next to nothing about fashion and even I know his outfit doesn’t match. Something about him sets me on edge, though, and it’s not the suit. The suit’s just pathetic—this is outright dislike and I’m not sure why.
“Good afternoon, sir,” I greet him respectfully, just like I did seven years ago. I suddenly realize how tightly I’m squeezing Maria’s hand and I loosen my grip.
“Call me Bill, please,” he says. “How’re you doing, kid?”
“I’ve been better,” I answer, trying and failing to crack a smile.
“I understand,” he answers sadly. Does he really? Has he lost both his parents and nearly his girlfriend too in less than a week? I somehow doubt it.
“Owen, this is the county’s district attorney, Andrew O’Donnell. He has some questions to ask you as well. Sorry that I didn’t mention him in our calls, but him coming along was a last-minute decision.”
Something about Bill’s voice sounds tense and uncomfortable as he introduces me to his rotund companion and I get the impression that the DA invited himself along over Bill’s objections.
Andrew shakes my hand with a smile—a smarmy, professionally faked smile—and I instantly hate him. I’m way past unnerving and edgy feelings now; I straight up hate him.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Owen,” he tells me in a slick, greasy voice, and then he turns toward Maria. “And who is your gorgeous companion?”
Maria stares down at her shoes in awkward silence and I instinctively step between her and the DA. ‘Gorgeous’ is a word you don’t use with Maria—not after what she’s been through and certainly not while staring at her like he is. I’ve never seen someone actually leer at a girl before, and I want to knock his teeth out for it. Staying with me for this meeting is going to hurt Maria too much—I’m going to have to talk with them alone.
“A good friend of mine,” I answer for her. “If you don’t mind, I’ll walk her home and be right back?”
“Probably for the best,” answers DA. “We have a lot of... personal... questions for you.”
I take her by the hand again and hurry back toward the staircase.
“Sorry about that,” I whisper to her. “I have no idea who that guy is.”
“It’s alright,” she answers. She looks less nervous now that she’s away from him.
“I’ll let you know how the discussion goes as soon as we’re finished.”
“Are you going to be okay on your own?” she asks worriedly.
“I think so,” I answer, and I hug her and try to assuage her fears as best I can. I’ll find out soon enough.
––––––––
“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” says the DA as I show him into my apartment. “I used to serve in the armed forces before changing careers, and he was a friend of mine back then. He was a good man.”
If my father’s his example of a good man, I wonder what it’d take to make his bad list.
“When was the last time you talked to your father?” he asks, putting his briefcase down on the table and pulling out a voice recorder.
“A few weeks ago before spring break,” I answer. “He wanted me to come home and I refused, and then we had a fight. After that, Mom texted me and told me not to come home at all.”
“Did your mother say anything else?”
“Nope. Just to not come home.”
“Do you think she might have been trying to keep you away from the house?” he asks. “Did she ever confide in you about anything or ever express anger at Todd?”
“Excuse me?” I ask, surprised by his question.
“Did she ever threaten your father
or tell you anything in confidence about him?”
He has to be joking. I can’t even imagine my mother threatening Dad. Where is he going with this?
“No, no she didn’t,” I answer with finality.
“Do you think it’s possible that she could have told you not to go home so that she could...”
“Daniel, I was on the phone with Todd when it happened,” interrupts Bill, turning to him with a frown. “He shot himself.”
“You don’t know that,” cautions the DA.
“He was dead in the upstairs bedroom and Sharon was unconscious in the laundry room,” fires back Bill. “She was lying on the floor next to the dryer, which conveniently had a dent in it the size of her head. What do you think happened?”
A lump forms in my throat as they bicker with each other, casually discussing my dying mother as if I’m not even here. Dad slammed her head into the dryer? God, what happened?
“Bill, you are disclosing evidence to a potential witness while it’s still confidential,” snaps the DA.
“Potential witness?” shouts Bill. “He’s her son, damn it! He has a right to know what happened to his...”
“No, he doesn’t have the right to know anything at all,” Andrew cuts him off. “He’s an informational interviewee and nothing more. He’s not listed as a medical contact and he’s not in their will, so he has no right to anything.”
“Wait... what?”
He said something about this in his first phone call, but I still don’t understand. Why wouldn’t I be in the will? I’m the only family they have left. It’s not like they have brothers or sisters to put in my place.
“They didn’t tell you they were doing it, did they?” asks Bill. I shake my head.
“There was a revision to your family’s will shortly after you...”
“Sheriff Marino, stop divulging...”
“Oh go fuck yourself, Andy,” Bill tells him. “Owen, after your fight with your father, your family’s will was changed. You were written out of it and they removed you from every document I’ve been able to get my hands on. He blocked you from hospital visitation, removed you from next-of-kin medical decision roles, everything. The whole nine yards. As far as your family’s documents are concerned, you don’t exist.”
“So they basically disowned me?” I ask, my voice suddenly weak and shaky. Why would Mom agree to this?
“Because he broke her,” I think. “He forced her to do it.”
“More than disowned, really,” answers Bill, holding up a hand to the DA and silencing him again. “Disowning someone doesn’t really mean anything unless you actually go through with it and do the paperwork, and your family went and made it official. Your mother had to sign it too.”
My brain spins. I just don’t understand. I knew my father hated me, but my mother too? It can’t be real.
“That’s quite enough, Bill,” interjects the district attorney again. “I have more questions and very little time.”
“Go ahead,” I answer quietly.
“What was your relationship with your father like before the fight?”
Bill shoots upright in his chair and spins toward the DA.
“Andy, we agreed that we weren’t going to ask those sorts of questions yet!”
“We also weren’t going to give out confidential evidence to potential witnesses,” he snarls back at Bill. “Sit down and shut up or I’ll have your badge, sheriff.”
“I’m an elected official, you ignorant little...”
“I have my ways,” he hisses back at the sheriff before returning his attention to me. “Now as I was saying... what was your relationship like with your father prior to this fight?”
“Not good,” I answer. It’s the understatement of the year, but I have no words for how bad my relationship with him really was.
“Has he ever hit you?”
Dad grabs me by the neck and slams me into the chalkboard in the basement...
“Yes,” I answer, shaking away the flashback.
“Where?”
“Like, what part of me?” I ask. Where didn’t he hurt me?
“Location, for now. New York? Alabama? I understand that you moved a lot because of his military duty.”
“Everywhere,” I answer quietly. “Every place we ever lived.”
The district attorney purses his lips together as he writes down some notes.
“What’s your earliest memory of your father hurting you?”
“I was seven and I got dirty while playing in the back yard,” I answer him. “I’d... I’d really rather not talk about that.”
“You don’t have a choice in that,” says Andrew, his tone sending a chill through me. “You can talk about it now or I can file a subpoena and make you testify when the case is heard.”
“What case?” I ask confusedly.
“Well, there’s no case yet, really.”
“Then why...”
“Whether or not a trial is needed depends on what evidence we can gather,” answers the DA, waving a hand nonchalantly.
Bill glares at the DA, practically seething with anger. His face is deep red and he looks as if he might burst a vein.
“Andrew,” he hisses, “I don’t think this is fair to talk about with him right...”
“Seven,” I quickly interrupt. I’m sick of listening to them bicker.
“Pardon?” asks the DA.
“I was seven. He tried to drown me.”
The attorney raises an eyebrow and the red flush quickly fades from Bill’s face, replaced instead by a look of abject horror.
“Seems unlikely that a seven-year-old could fight off Todd,” says the DA glibly. “If he tried to drown you, how did you get away from him?”
“My mother stopped him.”
“Hmm... do you think she might have harbored a grudge against him for trying to drown you?”
I’ve had enough. I’m not going to sit here and listen to this asshole try to malign my mother and make her into the villain when my father was the problem.
“I’m done here,” I say. “I’d like you both to leave. Thanks for coming up, Bill. Is there a time when we can talk later?”
“Bill is available at your convenience,” answers the DA sharply as he stands up, “but this case is in my hands, not his. If you wish to speak to him, I will be present at all times.”
“Furthermore,” he says, cutting me off just as I open my mouth for a sarcastic reply, “You and I need to continue this discussion next week.”
“Are you going to keep trying to blame my mother for my father being a violent asshole?” I ask bitterly. “If so, then I’m not talking to you.”
“I can always just require you to tell the courtroom instead,” he replies in a smooth, carefree voice that makes me want to strangle him. He doesn’t care that my mother is dying or that my father tried to kill me. He just wants to make a case out of my family’s misery. His old buddy’s dead, and now he wants to get revenge by calling my mother a murderer.
“Friday next week,” I tell him. “Five o’clock.”
“See you Friday,” he says as he heads for the door. “Thank you for your time.
Bill turns to follow him but then shakes his head and instead spins around and hugs me tightly.
“I’m so sorry, Owen,” he apologizes. “He wasn’t supposed to be involved in this, but I can’t make him stop. He’s the one with the power here, not me. He and Todd were buddies way back, and he’s turned the case into his own personal vendetta.”
“I understand,” I answer, feeling awkward from his hug. Just because Bill’s not a total jerk like the DA doesn’t mean I want him hugging me. It just figures that the one person who needs to understand what my father was like sincerely thought he was a good person.
Bill checks over his shoulder, and as Dan heads outside, he leans in close and whispers in my ear.
“Check your mail early next week. You’ve got a package coming to help sort all this out. Might cost me my badge, but it�
��s worth it.”
With that, he releases me and heads for the door. He turns back at the threshold, tips his hat to me, and then closes the door behind him. I told Maria I’d call her when we were done, but after that interview, I need a beer first.
Tuesday, April 2 – 8:15 AM
Maria
“Are you excited to finally be getting that thing off?” I ask, glancing quickly over at Owen as I back Tina’s car out of the parking spot.
“Oh, you have no idea,” he answers. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to grade homework with this thing?”
I don’t, but I can guess. Owen’s getting his cast removed today and his appointment is at nine o’clock. I expected him to suffer a setback after the fight with his father, but according to the doctors, he’s ready to have it removed. He has a long bout of physical therapy ahead of him, but it’s still a step forward.
“Are you still covering Liz’s course for her today?” I ask. She covered his office hours on Friday so that he could meet with the police.
“I changed it to Thursday just in case something goes wrong with my hand,” he answers. “Hey, wait... can we stop for just a second?”
Owen points to the mailboxes at the corner, and I nod and pull over to the curb.
He leaps out of the car, rifles through his mailbox, and then returns with a thick manila envelope under his arm.
“Thanks,” he says. “Forgot to check the mail yesterday.”
“What’s that?” I ask, eyeing the enormous package.
“I’m not sure. Sheriff Marino told me to keep an eye out for a package this week. He said it’ll help me deal with my family but he didn’t tell me how.”
I nod back to him but say nothing else. There’s nothing else for me to say, really; Owen called me last night before bed and told me all about the interview. I’m almost glad that the district attorney came across as a terrible human being to Owen as well—it means that what I felt was real and not just paranoia. The way he looked at me really bothered me. He oozed sleaziness from every pore in his body and I felt like he’d slapped me across the face when he called me gorgeous. The look on his face and the way he said it screamed insincerity. He wasn’t complimenting my appearance, but rather proclaiming that he wouldn’t mind screwing me—the whole ‘gorgeous’ thing just meant he liked the idea of it.
Found (Lost and Found #2, New Adult Romance) (Lost & Found) Page 10
