Hidden(56)

“Amy, I don’t know where to start.” She fidgets with her tissue as she looks around the room, searching for her words. “I’m so sorry,” she says, finally focusing on me as she speaks. “Your mother came to us when she was just thirteen years old. She had drug addicts for parents and ended up living on the streets, doing anything she could to survive. She came to us sick. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia. We took her in, hoping we could give her the help she needed. We wanted to give her a better life. We had her in therapy and taking the proper medications. She was doing better for a while, but then her behavior started to change. We had no idea what our son was capable of back then. We just didn’t know what was happening, Amy.” She looks down into her lap as tears drip off of her cheeks. The look of shame takes over her features. “We found out David had been sexually harassing your mother. Tormenting her. Threatening her. When she was sixteen, he and his high school buddies took it too far, and locked her up in the basement and…..” She breaks down, shaking her head with disgust on her face as she recalls something ugly, but chooses not to say it out loud.

Dillon wraps his arm tighter around me as my shoulders shake and tears flood my eyes.

“All those years, we didn’t know. We thought her behavior was just related to her past. When we found out she was pregnant, we confronted David and his friends and were horrified to hear the details of what they had done. His friends were scared and confessed everything. We knew David was the father. We had a doctor friend of ours examine her. She was broken. Her body had been through hell and her mind couldn’t deal with it. She was so thin, we were surprised to learn that she was already in her third trimester and could feel you moving. She begged us to let her keep you. The doctor agreed to treat her pregnancy and her mental illness for us, so we kept her hidden throughout her pregnancy. When you were born, Alex did the only thing he could. He had to protect his son. You have to understand. He is our son.”

Her voice cracks as she struggles to continue. “We couldn’t let people ask questions and find out David raped a mentally ill child and got her pregnant. He was to take over the firm for Alex. It would have ruined all of us if anyone found out. So to protect David, Alex had to hide you and your mother away. He told her if she ever breathed a word, you would be taken from her. That she would never see you again. I turned my head and let him do it. I numbed myself with painkillers and alcohol and just tried to forget. Alex was a powerful man and I was so scared. It was wrong. I know it was wrong what he did, but he was just trying to protect his son the best way he could. He tried to keep you and your mother safe by hiding you here and providing for you. He made sure your mother had her medications. He made sure you had school books and clothes and that you were taken care of. We never told David where you were. Less than a year after we moved your mother and you out here, David was accused of raping another girl. Alex’s power and money got the case swept under the rug, but David continued to get into trouble. Several years ago, Alex started to get sick. David was helping me take care of Alex, the business and the estate. I think he found all of the paperwork on the land that Alex purchased and that’s how he found you and your mother. I didn’t know he had been going to the house until the police started asking questions. They questioned him about you and your mother. They said you claimed your mother was being abused and threatened by a thin man fitting David’s description and that you and your mother had been hidden on that land. David denied knowing about any of it to the police, but I could tell he was lying, I knew then that he had found you and that he had been going to that house.”

My mother was right. David was her devil and she continued to endure his torture to protect me from him.

“I went to the police with everything. David will be locked up for a long time. He’s sick, Amy. Your mother? She was a young girl that lived through hell and had no one to pull her out. I’m so sorry I turned my head. I should’ve never let them take you and your mother from me, but I was so scared.”

“What do you want from me? I can’t….I can’t just forget I was hidden from the world for eighteen years while my mother went crazy and you did nothing.” I’m no longer crying. I’m so angry. My mother was only sixteen and had already suffered a horrible past, only to be thrust into a future full of torture and torment and the only people that could help her turned their backs.

“I have something for you.” She rifles through her large Coach purse and pulls out some papers and tries to hand them to me.