Chapter 9
The house sold three months later.
I didn't go back.
Not even to pack up my old things.
I sent a moving company with a list of what I wanted.
My childhood books.
Some photos.
A few pieces of furniture that had been my grandmother's.
That was it.
The rest of it?
I didn't want it.
It was all tainted.
All part of a life I was leaving behind.
The proceeds from the sale came to $420,000.
My half was $210,000.
After paying Jessica her contingency fee and covering my medical expenses, I had about $140,000 left.
Enough for a down payment on a small house of my own.
Enough to start over.
Travis got out of jail after twenty-four days for good behavior.
He didn't contact me.
The restraining order was still in effect.
I heard through the grapevine that he'd moved to another state.
That he was working in construction.
That he was actually going to his anger management classes.
I didn't know if it was true.
I didn't really care.
My parents...
They had to move out of the house they'd lived in for thirty-five years.
They rented a small apartment on the other side of town.
I didn't see them.
Didn't speak to them.
For six months.
Then, one day in January, almost exactly a year after that terrible Thanksgiving, my father called.
I almost didn't answer.
I didn't recognize the number.
But something made me pick up.
"Hello?"
"Claire."
His voice.
Older.
Tired.
"Dad."
A long pause.
Then he said, "I'm sorry."
Two words.
Thirty-two years too late.
But they were there.
"I'm sorry for everything," he said. "For the house. For Thanksgiving. For... for not being there. For not seeing you. Your mother... she's a strong woman. And I let her make all the decisions. I let her push you aside. I let her favor Travis. And I was wrong. So wrong."
I didn't say anything.
I just listened.
"I went to see Travis," he said. "After he got out of jail. We talked. He told me... he told me what really happened that night. That he hit you. That your mother took your phone. That I just sat there. I knew it, Claire. I knew it in my gut. But I didn't want to admit it. Admitting it would mean admitting I'd failed as a father. And I did. I failed you. Terribly."
Tears stung my eyes.
"Why are you telling me this now?" I asked.
"Because I'm dying, Claire."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
"Lung cancer," he said. "Stage four. The doctor says I have maybe six months. I didn't want to go without telling you the truth. Without saying I'm sorry."
I sat down.
My legs felt weak.
"Does Mom know?"
"She knows," he said. "She's... she's having a hard time. She's always been good at pretending everything is fine. But this... this is breaking her. She's sorry too, Claire. She just doesn't know how to say it. She's never been good at that."
I thought about my mother.
The woman who had called me dramatic while I bled on her carpet.
The woman who had lied under oath.
The woman who had spent thirty-two years erasing me.
And I thought about what Aunt Margaret had said.
That my mother was jealous of me.
That she'd always seen me as competition.
That she'd never learned how to love a daughter who was smarter and kinder than she was.
"I don't know what to say," I said.
"You don't have to say anything," my father said. "I just needed you to know. That I'm sorry. That I love you. Even if I never showed it. Even if I never said it. You're my daughter, Claire. And I love you."
He hung up.
I sat there for a long time.
Crying.
Not just for me.
But for him.
For the father he could have been.
For the relationship we could have had.
For all the wasted years.
I told Maya.
She held me while I cried.
"What do you want to do?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I hate him. For what he did. For what he allowed. But he's my dad. And he's dying."
Maya was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, "You don't owe him anything, Claire. Not after everything. But if you want to see him... if you want closure... that's okay too. Whatever you decide, I'm with you."
I thought about it for a week.
Then I called him back.
"I'll come see you," I said.
I went to their apartment the next day.
It was small.
Cluttered.
Nothing like the big house I'd grown up in.
My father opened the door.
He looked terrible.
Thin.
Pale.
A scar on his chest from the biopsy.
But his eyes lit up when he saw me.
"Claire," he said.
"Hi, Dad."
My mother was in the kitchen.
She came out when she heard my voice.
She froze when she saw me.
Her face crumpled.
"Claire," she whispered.
She didn't try to hug me.
She knew better.
She just stood there.
Crying.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so, so sorry. I was wrong. About everything. I don't expect you to forgive me. But I needed you to know. I'm sorry."
We sat in their small living room.
And for the first time in my life, we talked.
Really talked.
My father told me about the cancer.
About how it had made him reevaluate everything.
My mother told me about her own childhood.
How her mother had favored her brother.
How she'd grown up thinking that was normal.
That boys were more important.
That daughters were just... there.
"I saw myself in you," she said, her voice breaking. "And I hated it. I hated that you were so smart. So kind. So much better than I ever was. I took it out on you. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
It didn't excuse what she'd done.
It didn't erase the years of pain.
But it explained it.
And for the first time, I saw my mother not as the villain in my story, but as a broken woman who had never learned how to love properly.
We talked for hours.
About the house.
About Thanksgiving.
About Travis.
About all the wasted years.
My father cried.
My mother cried.
I cried.
And when I left that day, something had shifted.
I didn't forgive them.
Not completely.
Forgiveness would take time.
Maybe years.
Maybe forever.
May you like
But I didn't hate them anymore.
And that was a start.
