Sins of Sevin(61)
The closer I got to our house, the more it felt like my insides were rotting. Rehashing this day to Dean was the last thing I felt like doing tonight. I just wanted to go straight to bed.
Dean was sitting on the couch watching television. “Evie, it took you long enough to come home. I’m starving.”
“Why didn’t you make yourself something?”
“You know I can’t cook for shit.”
“I just came back from my sister’s goddamn funeral. You think I want to spend the rest of tonight cooking a meal for you?”
“You hadn’t seen your sister in five years. If she hadn’t died, you wouldn’t have even gone back.”
“That means I’m not supposed to be devastated?”
All this time, Dean thought I was estranged from my family by choice. He didn’t really know the whole truth about the pain of my past and my reasons for leaving Dodge City. He couldn’t imagine how much I truly loved Elle. He definitely couldn’t imagine how much I loved Sevin.
Sevin.
God, even the thought of his name caused shooting pains to run through me. It was as if I could feel all of the hatred and anger he felt toward me within my chest. That, coupled with my own self-loathing, was now too much to carry within me.
Dean must have noticed that something was seriously off with me, because he softened, which was rare. “Sorry, babe. I didn’t mean to upset you. Go make us some dinner, huh?”
It was easier to just give in to him than start an argument. I never won those with Dean. He would just make the rest of my night miserable until he forced me to screw him, calling it makeup sex.
Retreating to the kitchen, I cracked some eggs into a bowl and whisked them around. I’d make cheese omelets and frozen waffles. Breakfast for dinner. Done.
“What’s taking so long?” Dean yelled from the living room.
“Just putting some finishing touches on it!” I doused the eggs with extra pepper, twisting the peppermill in an exaggerated way.
Dean watched the television from the kitchen table while we ate. There was never any dinner conversation with Dean. After our meal, I was washing dishes when my cell phone rang.
It was Mama.
“It’s my mother. I need to take it,” I said, taking the phone to the bedroom and closing the door.
“Mama?”
“Evangeline, you need to come back.”
“Why?”
“Daddy is really angry at me. He wanted to know how you found out about Elle. I told him I only recently discovered your whereabouts. He’s irate with me for keeping it from him. It’s too much stress on him right now, but he wants to talk to you. Emily needs you, too.”
“I can’t go back, Mama.”
“You told Emily you were living in Wichita. You’re her only sister left. It’s time. It’s time to face everything. You can’t keep pretending that we don’t exist, not now that everyone knows where you are.”
“Dean is not going to give me the car to go back right now.”
“We’ll come get you. Besides, what kind of a man would keep his wife from her family at a time like this?”
The possessive crazy kind that I married, who does nothing but smoke weed all day and has no regard for anyone but himself.
“I’ll tell him that I’m going next week. If he won’t give me the car, then you might have to come get me.”
“Okay. I’m going to hold you to that.”
“Mama?”
“Yes.”
“Is Sevin okay?”
There was a long pause. “He’s in a very bad way.”
One week later, the meeting with Daddy went smoother than I thought. I’d half expected him to take me over his knee with a belt. Instead, he just took me in his arms and cried. I guess losing a child makes you much more forgiving towards the children you have left.
After he eventually got his anger out, he made me tell him where I’d been all this time. So, I gave him a story that was half-full of lies, telling him that Dean was the reason I ran away. The true parts were that I’d worked as a waitress and that Dean and I got married.
“Evangeline, if this were a few years back, I might not have let you back in this house. You’re a grown woman now, responsible for your own decisions. I don’t agree with your running away or the non-Christian life you’re living. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re my daughter. I will always love you.”
His forgiveness meant everything to me. Emily and Mama were in tears, both also surprised at Daddy’s reaction to my return.
We agreed that I would come back to visit again soon. He wanted to meet Dean. I would deal with that when the time came. There was no way I was going to bring my husband back here. My father would probably send the authorities to come collect him.