Page 107 of Poetry of Flowers

“I’m so sorry I never came to visit,” he said against the back of my head.

He must have known?

I didn’t understand.

“You know about me?” I pulled back. I didn’t want to feel comfortable in his touch, in the hug. Comfort always came with consequences; I had learned that the hard way.

Clark rubbed his hand over his gray beard and nodded hesitantly.

“I saw a picture of you in the news when you were seven, and you looked so much like Hope, even the birthmark under your eye. That’s when I knew.” Clark sat down on his chair and buried his face in his hands, a sob escaped him.

So, he knew all those years, but left me to this monster?

I didn’t know how to feel right now, there was this pain in my chest that felt like someone was ripping my heart out.

“You never made the effort to meet me and find out if I was truly your son?” My throat hurt when I spoke, and the words felt like razor blades as they left my mouth.

Clark looked up at me and shook his head. “No, don’t think that, Kayden. Please don’t think that. I came for you, I called Olivia on my way into Grand Lee, and she told me it was true and that she had known it for years.”

“Yes, she knew it the day I was born, but never even told me. She didn’t even tell you; what mother would do that?”

“You don’t understand this, Kayden, she had no choice. There was a reason why she had run away that night and why she had come to me knowing I was safe for her.” He explained, but this didn’t make sense, in that letter she wrote they had a fight and that she had met up with an old friend from high school.

“Patrick has been verbally abusing her ever since they met, don’t tell me you have never seen a hint of his narcissism-.”

“I have seen and felt his abuse for the past eleven years of my life, but my mother looked away every time. She didn’t care about what he did to me, and the worst thing was, she let me believe I was his child. Each day, I felt more and more scared that someday I would become like him!” I yelled at him because he had no right to tell me not to be angry at my mother.

“I had to find it out myself, if she had told me, it might not have hurt that much because I know, I would have felt sympathy for her. I had to find it out through some letters she wrote herself.”

It hurt to discuss my mom that way because I understood why she couldn’t take us and run away, I understood why she didn’t say anything. All my life I have been so understanding, but this- I just couldn’t be like that anymore. She knew how much he had hurt me, and she could have told me the reason why I was the family’s punching bag, the black sheep. But no, she had kept it a secret and let a little boy lay awake each night wondering what he had done wrong today and why his Daddy hated him so much.

For once in my life, I actually hated my mother for her actions.

Clark stood up again, but I lifted my hand, so he knew not to come too close once more.

I couldn’t do this right now.

“I don’t know what you have had to go through, Kayden. I wish I could change the way you have grown up.” He held his hand over his heart like he truly meant what he was saying.

“Why didn’t you? Did my mother tell you to go back home, and you decided that I was not relevant enough and so you drove back to give your daughter the perfect life every child should have?” It wasn’t Hope’s fault her father was the asshole I had expected him to be, but the tired child inside me needed to say this out loud, no matter how disgusting it sounded.

“Don’t pull my daughter into this; what happened is not her fault.” I had made him angry with what I said, but for the first time in my life I wasn’t scared because I knew my emotions were valid.

“Then where were you?!” I needed to catch my breath, or I was going to have an asthma attack or something.

“There was an accident the day I came to see you.” Clark swallowed and shook his head, His expression looked pained. “It was my fault, and I wish every day I could change what happened.” Tears streamed down his face as he walked back and forth in his office.

Seven years old.

Accident

Grand Lee.

“What was the date when you came to see me?” My heart was hammering so hard, I was scared it might jump out of my chest.

“March seventeenth.” The room started spinning.

“You killed my best friend’s mother.” The words are a whisper, but hurt more than anything I could have ever expected from today. This had to be a nightmare, a bad dream.

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