Page 66 of Poetry of Flowers

He went up to my room with a pair of scissors, in horror, I ran after him, but it was too late. He had already started cutting the letters into pieces. The letters Tillie had started writing to me in kindergarten when we used the wrong letters and spelling. All the letters had her little doodles that she draws till this day next to her poems.

He cut them all to shreds, even when I started crying and screaming. Even when I slapped my hand against his back because he knew how much those papers meant to me, he never stopped till the last one was destroyed.

When my eyes were burning from the tears and my cheeks red from screaming at him, he looked me dead in the eye as he crouched down to my height, straightening my suit jacket I didn’t want to wear. “You destroyed something I liked; I destroyed something that meant even more to you. From now on, that’s how things will work here, Kayden.”

From this moment on, I stopped hoping.

Hope that my father still loved me, even though he was a scary man.

I sat there for hours at the ripe old age of ten, grieving the memories he took from me because I was a child. If he had cut my guitar strings, I could have bought new ones, but he had to destroy something made with love, something that money could not buy.

Patrick Kidd was a cruel man, and nothing or no one could ever change his mind. I learned it that day when he hurt me in a way I will never forget.

“I have one question.” I said, knowing that arguing with that man wouldn’t do me any good.

He sighed on the other end of the phone, “Cut it short, I have a meeting to attend in fifteen minutes.”

“How does it feel to punish an innocent child for his mother’s mistake?”

Say it hurt you.

Tell me you are sorry.

Tell me you never wanted to go this far and all you did was a mistake.

But he wouldn’t say it. The little boy inside me just still fought for the love of a person called father. But I wasn’t a fool. I knew I would never feel that love.

“Satisfying.”

My chest tightened, and I felt unwanted tears welling up in my eyes. I might have accepted that I would never feel the love other children felt from their fathers, but hearing that he enjoyed my tears and pain still hurt.

It hurt because I couldn’t understand it.

“It was satisfying to watch your mother see what she did to you. I loved you once, Kayden, you were my pride and joy. Nash was undriven in many ways, but you could have been my successor. Then I had to find out-”

He stopped talking, his voice didn’t break, so I continued, “that I’m not your son.”

“Yes. Your mother whored herself to a man she knew I hated. That knowledge changed me, you know? All I could see in you was him.”

As if it was my fault.

“There was nothing about you that I could love anymore. All I could see inside you was your mother’s betrayal.”

There was nothing about you that I could love.

Those nine words hurt more than any beatings he had ever given, any punishments I ever received.

If not, even my father could love me, how could someone ever fall in love with me?

They say sons always came after their fathers.

When there was a possibility that someday I could become like the person who raised me towards my wife or children, I’d rather be alone forever.

“Why didn’t you just leave?” My voice sounded pained, and there was no way I could hide that right now.

“The press would have figured out that my wife cheated on me and the boy I so proudly presented to the world as my son was a poor bastard. The scandal would have killed everything I have worked for. And Faith was only a baby.”

Of course, he was selfish like usual.

---