What did he mean he did not want to hurt me? He was guilty, I remember everything!
“I remember the night your mother was killed like it was yesterday. I loved her so damn much, she was my everything. I have hated myself all of these years for not being able to see how broken she had become. I kept telling myself she was handling everything so well, she went with me to my appointments, she worked, and she took care of you and our home. She seemed fine; I was not expecting to come home after survivors group to find her with a gun.”
I gasped and my father took a second to compose himself.
“We had that parents support group every Friday, do you remember? You would go spend the night at Brea’s and we would go to group. Only that night your mother said Brea wasn’t feeling well. I offered to stay home with her but she would not have it. She wanted me to go and I thought nothing of it since it was just like her to consider my needs before her own. When I got home, I knew something was wrong. The entire house was dark but your bedroom. I heard your music playing and saw your shadow dancing along the wall. When I walked in I found your mother. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs, just standing there with a gun in her hands. I was thrown; nothing about what I was witnessing made any sense to me.”
I opened my mouth to speak but Dr. Scott pleaded with me to let him finish. Julian grabbed my hand and pulled it into his lap squeezing lightly to remind me that he was there.
“I confronted her; she jumped and started to cry. One second tears were falling and the next she was screaming at the top of her lungs.
“I can’t do this anymore! I need to be with my son! He needs me, Nicolai needs me!” She yelled.
I finally got her to calm down long enough to get the gun out of her hands. I walked her into the living room and sat the gun on one of the end tables next to the couch. When I urged her to sit down she began to yell again, this time when I tried to calm her down she started hitting me over and over.
I guess your mother had been in denial putting all of her focus into my illness and everything else, once she broke she became angry and irrational. Then you walked in...”
He bit back a sob and Dr. Scott handed him a bottle of water which he took a long drink of.
“You walked in and grabbed the gun off of the table. You looked so scared. So broken, I think it was the first time either of us had actually noticed that you were hurting as well. And for that I am so sorry princess...so so sorry!”
I watched as my father broke down into tears. Julian and I both sat frozen at my fathers reaction to something that could not be helped and to the story unfolding in front of us. And then like someone playing a movie at high speed everything began pouring back into my head. The yelling I heard from my room, my mother smashing her fists into my daddy’s head and the gun...the gun.
“Oh my God...” I blurted. “Oh my God.” I buried my face into my hands and tried to control my breathing but there was no way that I could. I was panicking and my thoughts were out of control. I jumped from the table, ran over to the garbage can at the end of the desk and heaved mercilessly into the can. Julian was behind me in seconds pulling my hair out of my face; my father tailed behind him body guard in tow.
“Just breathe sweetheart, breathe for me Jemma.” Julian begged.
A few moments later, after I emptied the last remnants of my stomach, which were few and far between I stood up meeting the concerned stare of my father and I began to cry.
“Daddy! I’m so sorry.” I choked. I lightly pushed Julian off of me and walked into my father’s arms.
“It’s OK princess, it’s OK.”
For the first time since I was eight years old my father comforted me. He held me in his arms, smoothed my hair and told me everything was going to be alright.
Eventually the silence in the room weighed down on Julian.
“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” He asked, clearly as concerned as he was confused.
“I feel it best if we all sit and allow John to continue.” replied Dr. Scott
My dad walked me over to my seat but I wasn’t ready to let him go. He grabbed my hand and squatted down next to me. “It’s OK princess, I’m not going anywhere. Julian is with you. Julian?”
My dad looked over to the boy who he had once thought of as his own and placed my hand in his.
“Take care of my daughter?”
“With everything I have, Sir.”
My dad walked back to his seat and began to tell the story that my brain had tried so hard to forget. Not the story that had burned itself into my head as a young girl but the story as it was. Only now he was telling the story to Julian because he knew that I remembered everything a fact that did not make hearing it any easier.