Summer's Indiscretion(Divine Creek Ranch 7)(50)

She pictured him as an adolescent. He must have shown signs of the large man he would be early on.

“It was a good thing, too. He became increasingly explosive and began drinking more and more. I was as tall and as big as most of the men I knew by the time I was in eighth grade.”

“You defended yourself and your mom and sisters as an eighth grader?”

Kemp nodded. “I played sports and had access to the junior high school weight room. I worked out to get strong.”

Summer wanted to cry, thinking of Kemp as an eighth grader. He should’ve been doing those things for fun and to be with his friends. Instead he’d worked out with weights so he could defend his mother and his sisters.

“I had a coach that taught me some self-defense moves. I think he knew what my dad was like because he said he’d known him in school. Anyway, he taught me and some of my friends how to defend ourselves.”

“I’m glad you had someone who could help you.”

With a small nod, Kemp continued. “The next time my dad lost his temper I put a stop to it. He had my sister by the hair and was…” His voice broke, and Summer’s heart lurched at the vulnerable sound. Silently she waited. “Lizzie had always been frail and had fine, thin brown hair. He had her by a handful of it and was shaking her because she’d left the water faucet running in the backyard. It had been running all afternoon and flooded the area around the house which was mostly dirt. He told her he was going to teach her by rubbing her nose in it.”

Summer pressed her lips together to stifle a gasp. Kemp was opening up to her, and she didn’t want to interrupt him.

“I heard what he’d said to her and watched him as he dragged her out the back door. My mom and my other two sisters were terrified of him and started screaming and crying. Something broke loose inside me. I’d been scared of him so long. I’d watched him take his anger out on everybody around him. If work was tough, we suffered. If he lost his job, we suffered. If the house wasn’t perfect, we suffered. If he drank, we definitely suffered. I finally reached the point where I was done suffering and watching my sisters and mom live in fear.

“Lizzie was only nine years old, the youngest. He was very angry, and she’d been sick. I knew whatever he did might put her in the hospital. My mom had said she was really worried that if one of us got put in the hospital that we would be taken away from her. That’s what my father had told her. If we got hurt, she tended us at home because she believed her babies would be taken from her by the state. It wasn’t until later that she found out the state would’ve placed us in a shelter together until she could get help. My father had complete control of her and us. Anyway, I stopped him when he tried to drag her out into the yard. I hit him and he let go of her.”

Summer squeezed his hand and followed Ace down the highway, hearing the pain and loss in Kemp’s voice.

“He was surprised, and that allowed me to land the first blow. As it turned out, it was the only blow.”

“Good.”

“He landed in the mud with a really surprised look on his face. He didn’t come back inside when I took Lizzie back in the house for Mom to tend to. When we looked for him later, he was gone. He came back drunk during the night but slept it off on the couch.”

“Did he hit any of you again?”

“It happened one more time, a few weeks later. He was drunk and taking some small offense out on my mom. He had her backed up against the kitchen counter. He pulled back to hit her and I caught his arm and spun him around so my mom could get away. He tried to hit me.”

“What did you do?”

Kemp looked down, and it took several seconds before he replied, “I hit him until he passed out.”

It made Summer incredibly sad that Kemp had to deal with that horrible situation as such a young age.

“By the time he came to, we were already gone.”

“Where did you go?”

A small smile crossed his full lips, and he replied, “Down the block to Ace’s house. His family took all five of us in. His mom and dad had talked privately with my mom a few months before and I realized later that what they were doing was offering her a place to stay if she ever needed it. My dad would do those things to us and then sober up and promise her that he’d never do it again. She loved him and wanted to believe him so much.”

Summer’s heart sank because it seemed like there was more he hadn’t told her yet. “Did she go back to him?”

Kemp nodded. “Two weeks later. She felt we were a burden to the Websters, even though they assured her several times that she wasn’t. We were all school age, and she’d decided to get a job and go back to school herself. She went to our house one day to pick up some more of our belongings because all we had was what we’d carried when we walked down the street to Ace’s house.”