Chapter 5 - "She Used to Do This to Me"|
The six words hung in the dead air inside my car, turning the atmosphere freezing cold.
“What do you mean, used to?” I asked, my fingers digging into the leather of the steering wheel. “Natalie, what are you talking about?”
I heard her chair slide violently against her office floor as she stood up. The sound of her heavy, uneven footsteps echoed over the phone as she walked into a private stairwell.
“When Dad traveled for business when we were kids,” Natalie whispered, her voice trembling with a terrifying blend of rage and sorrow. “Whenever he left for those two-week trips to Chicago or Atlanta... she would transform.”
My mind raced backward, trying to pull up memories from twenty years ago, but everything from my childhood felt like a hazy, sunlit blur.
“She’d punish me in ways nobody could see,” Natalie continued, tears choking her words. “If I made a mistake, or if I didn't smile enough when her friends came over, she’d hide my food. She’d lock me out on the back porch in the middle of winter for hours. She’d take my favorite clothes and cut them up with sewing scissors, then tell Dad I had thrown a violent tantrum and destroyed my own things.”
“Why didn't you tell someone?!” I yelled, the guilt crushing down on my chest like a lead weight. “Why didn't you tell Dad? Why didn't you tell me?!”
“I DID!” Natalie sobbed out loud, her voice cracking against the concrete walls of her stairwell. “I tried to tell Dad when I was twelve years old! I stood in the kitchen and screamed at him to listen to me!”
She paused, taking a ragged breath.
“And do you know what Mom did, Daniel? She sat on the couch with you in her lap, crying softly, telling Dad that I was mentally disturbed. She convinced him that I was violently jealous of you. She told him I was hearing voices and making up lies to tear our family apart.”
The realization hit me like a physical blow to the stomach.
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“Dad believed her...” I whispered.
“He believed every single word,” Natalie said bitterly. “After that, she sent me to a child psychologist she handpicked. She put me on mood stabilizers I didn't need. She made sure our entire extended family believed I had severe behavioral problems. Whenever I cried or got upset, everyone just looked at me with pity and whispered, 'Poor Vivian, dealing with such a broken daughter.'”
