Page 58

~ brIDGET ~

I stood next to Sam in the small waiting space outside the prison visiting rooms, trembling.

Gerald spoke with the woman behind the grate to make sure everything was in order.

We’d talked through this moment a dozen times. All three of us—me, Sam, and Gerald. Because I was still seeing Gerald. And sometimes, so was Sam.

At first Sam had come with me to some sessions because I wanted Gerald to see that he wasn’t a bad guy. But then…

Once Gerald believed that Sam was good for me, then he felt bad. And he wanted to help us.

They’d met together alone once. I still didn’t know everything that had passed between them that day. But Sam said he was humbled by how open and transparent Gerald had been with him. That they’d talked for hours. And that he believed Gerald cared about me—and was genuine in his remorse for how he’d treated Sam.

I wasn’t sure whether to trust it at first, but once I saw them together again…

Well, sometimes it seemed like Gerald liked Sam better than me.

Then, I got so high on my own delight and stupidity, I decided I could be brave and speak to my father .

That was an easy thing to say when I was in Gerald’s office, with him sitting in front of me and Sam next to me on the couch, holding my hand.

It was a lot harder now that I was standing here in the prison.

I watched Gerald checking papers with the woman behind the grate and my heartrate spiked. He’d had specific ideas about how this should go to keep me at my calmest, and he’d offered to come with us on his own time. It had all sounded good and healthy and doable. Until now.

Now I stared at a line of rooms behind plexiglass windows, each one with a door on our side, a metal picnic table in the middle, and another door in a blank walk on the other side. The side where the prisoners came from.

There was a red line straight down the middle of the floor and signs everywhere saying DO NOT CROSS THE LINE.

Sam’s hand tightened on my shoulder and his warmth pressed against my back as he leaned in.

“Breathe, babe.”

I let go of the breath I’d been holding then made myself inhale.

Gerald nodded and thanked the woman, then walked back to where we stood, his face grim.

“He’s going to be here soon,” he said, watching me carefully.

Which he needed to do. Knowing that my father was somewhere on the other side of that blank, cement block wall made my head scream.

Sam’s hand on my shoulder was grounding.

If Gerald had touched me, I think I might have torn his face off with my nails.

“Breathe, Bridget,” Gerald said quietly.

“Already taken care of,” I muttered, but leaned a little further back into Sam.

Gerald’s eyes were pinched with tension. He looked at Sam behind me. “Are you okay? If you get shaky, we can tag-team if she wants to stay in there.”

“I am not staying in there without Sam,” I muttered.

Sam squeezed my shoulder gently again. “I’ll be fine.” I loved the feeling of his deep voice vibrating in his chest against my back .

Gerald nodded. “You’re a good man, Sam,” he said quietly. “I know I’ve said it before, but I’ve seen a lot of men in this kind of place. And they’re either impatient, or defensive. For you to be here for her—especially here— that’s… that’s impressive.”

“I told you, I want to help.”

“I know. But a lot of people say that, only a few really do it.”

“You do it too,” Sam rumbled. “You’ve helped both of us.”

Gerald gave a self-deprecating smile. “The last few months have been humbling for me. I’m grateful you’ve given me the chance to try and make up for my… errors.”

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe you two should get a room? This bromance makes my skin crawl.”

Gerald frowned, but I felt Sam chuckle quietly. “So spicy when you’re nervous.”

“I’m not spicy, I’m freaking out.”

“You’re doing great, Bridget,” Gerald said calmly. “If you’re ready to go inside, I’ll head out to the parking lot. I’ll wait out there. If you need me, you call me. If you don’t, you just leave and go home. I’ll do whatever helps, okay?”

I nodded. That was the plan—Gerald was here to handle the details to get us inside and make sure all the right circumstances were in place. Sam was here to be my bodyguard and emotional support beast while I faced down my monster. Then Gerald would be available to assess me if me or Sam thought I needed it after.

I wouldn’t need it after. I wasn’t even sure I could do this. But before I could say that, Sam said, “Don’t get stuck in your head. Come on.”

He stepped past me, taking my hand and tugging me to that doorway. He paused with his hand on the handle and looked back at me.

“You ready?”

I shook my head. He squeezed my hand. “We’ll give it a try. You say the word. And if he’s a bastard, we go. This is your call, Bridget. I mean that.”

I nodded and Sam squeezed my hand tighter as he opened the door, then led me through, letting it swing closed and latch behind us, then drawing me over to that table.

I grew tenser and more lightheaded with every step.

Twenty-minutes later, Sam sat on the bench on this side of that weird, metal table and I was on my feet behind him.

I couldn’t sit down. I had to move. That red line on the floor screamed at my peripheral vision, but what good did a painted line do to stop a pit bull? And why the fuck we were still waiting?

“This is a bad idea, we should go,” I muttered, chewing my thumbnail as I paced back and forth, eyeing the door that would get us out of here.

Sam sat sideways on the bench, one elbow on the table, watching me. He looked relaxed. How the fuck did he look relaxed?

“So, is that a real thing, or are you just venting? Because if it’s real, we’ll walk out. They’ll open that door the second we knock,” he said quietly. He caught my hand as I passed and pulled me up to stand between his knees, stroking my hair back off my face. “Say the word, Bridget. We’ll go.”

“Fucker,” I muttered.

He grinned and huffed. “A fucker who’s ready to walk you out of here the second you say so.”

“But then I have to do it again another time,” I said. And even though we weren’t talking about it, I hadn’t missed the way Sam flinched when they clanged those doors behind us.

He didn’t like being here at all. But he came. For me. And he was smiling through it.

Shit.

Sometimes I felt like a child next to him.

“Babe, look at me.”

I was gnawing at the nail on my thumb and had to drop my eyes to look at him again. He gently pulled my hand out of my mouth, then held it in his.

“You’re in complete control here. Not him. You don’t have to answer questions if you don’t want to. You get to ask as many as you want. Or not even speak. The second you want to go, you turn around and walk to that door,” he tipped his head to indicate the door with the glass window in it, “and they’ll let you out. You don’t have to say goodbye. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. Okay?”

I nodded and swallowed, but I was shaking.

These were the rules of engagement, as Gerald had called them. Me and Sam had met with him together every week for the past month since I got cocky and decided that, yeah, I could see my dad. If it would free up some stiff, frozen little part of me, why not?

Why not? What the fuck had I been thinking?

This was why not—this was a fucking prison that they kept him locked in even though he was dying because he was a fucking murderer.

“I need to go,” I whispered. And because my husband was the best person in the world, he didn’t ask again. He stood up, put his arm around me and kissed my hair, walking me backwards towards the door in the circle of his arms.

“We’ll try again when you’re read—”

The door behind him clanked and I froze on the spot. Sam looked back over his shoulder and his chest expanded.

“He’s here,” he said, then looked down at me.

I looked up at Sam and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fucking move.

“Bridget? Do you want to go?”

There were noises behind him. People moving. Something squeaking. Key rings or chains clinking.

Maybe fangs gnashing?

“Bree?” The voice was thin and husky and much higher than I remembered.

Time slowed down when I moved. It seemed to take forever to lean past Sam, my body moving like I was stuck in cement, and everyone staring at me. But it also happened in a blink.

My heartbeat thrummed in my bones, making my skin hum.

I recognized the old guy I’d seen in the picture with Sam, but he’d lost more weight since then.

He was in a wheelchair. His eyes were watery and kind of cloudy, his cheeks, jaw, and half his neck covered in coarse salt-and-pepper stubble. His scrubs looked like they were two sizes too big. And his shoulders were narrow and hunched towards his ears.

They rolled him up to the other side of the table, then the guard leaned down to lock the wheels while me and my father stared at each other.

Every instinct screamed. Every muscle went granite hard.

My lungs didn’t want to expand, but I made them.

The thudding in my head was my thundering pulse, not blows. I reminded myself of that.

Sam’s hand rested on my back, his fingers splayed and stroking in tiny moves like he didn’t want other people to see, but he wanted me to remember he was there.

“Thank you for coming, Bridget,” my father said hoarsely as the guard finished locking his wheelchair. “I mean it. It’s really good to see you.”

Air huffed out of my nose. I folded my arms as I stepped past Sam. “I didn’t want to,” I said, then gritted my teeth because I sounded like I was ten years old and pouting.

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Dad croaked.

There was a long, awkward silence then. I wanted to turn around and walk out. I wanted to swear at him. I wanted to punch him, and throw him out of that chair, grab the few strands of hair he still had left and use them for grip to smack his head on the cement floor until he died.

But I couldn’t move.

“Gordon, this has been a lot for Bridget,” Sam said in a low voice. “I’m not going to talk after this—I’m here for her. But I think if you’ve got anything important to say, you should say it right away. I told Bridget we’d leave as soon as she wanted to. No hesitations.”

My father looked at Sam and I saw his expression flash, a tiny shadow of anger when Sam said we’d leave. My stomach clenched with nerves.

But then he nodded once and looked back at me. “I told you in the letter,” he said gruffly. “And I meant it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you got hurt. What happened between me and your mom wasn’t good.”

I waited for more.

And waited .

When he looked at Sam, then me again, a weird noise came out of my throat.

“That’s it?”

His throat bobbed. “I mean, the whole thing was bad,” he said, shifting his weight in his seat. “I wish I left you out of it.”

Sam moved imperceptibly, leaning his side into my back. Just being there, and I almost laughed.

“I wish you left me out of it, too,” I said bitterly. The tears came because it was maybe the truest thing I’d ever said. Except I love you, to Sam.

I cried sometimes saying that too.

I cried a lot more now than I used to. And at random times. Sometimes when I was happy. Gerald said it was because I was finally processing emotions I’d been holding onto since I was a child.

I didn’t know if it was that, or because when Sam held me it felt like I could be crazy and bad would happen. But I did know I was sick of crying, and I was willing to try anything to get past this whole fucked up situation.

Dad’s chin dropped and his brows pinched over his nose.

“I swear to God,” I hissed. “If you tell me not to cry—”

It had been his refrain for those weeks when we were “on a road trip.” If he’d said that, or anything like it, Sam would have to hold me back from tearing his head off his neck.

Red, painted lines won’t hold me back either, you bastard.

But Dad stared at me and cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah. I can understand that,” he said finally.

It was so little. So very little.

So much nothing.

He was so little.

I blinked because I wanted to argue with that thought. My mind conjured images of my father—big, burly, angry, loud. And definitely all bite.

For a second, I saw him as he had been—face twisted and tucking a gun into the back of his pants, hissing at me that we were leaving. But I shoved that memory away because I knew the next one—

“Do you want to talk? Or leave? Whatever helps you, babe,” Sam murmured .

“Do you even remember that whole time? That Christmas, after Mom?” I asked my father, and I wasn’t sure why those words came up, but they were there so I said them.

“Yeah. I remember,” he said, his lips twisting.

“Why did you threaten to kill me? I was a kid. I wasn’t doing anything.”

He frowned. “I didn’t—”

“Yes. Yes, you did!” I snarled, taking a step closer to the table. “You told me every time I cried, or went to the bathroom, or anything. You told me if I didn’t stay quiet and do as you said, you’d kill me. After I watched you kill mom and those other guys. Why, though? You didn’t need to do that to keep me from giving you up. You were my father.”

Dad licked his lips and his eyes clouded. “I don’t remember.”

“Such bullsh—”

“No, I mean it. I don’t remember saying that to you. I thought…” he trailed off.

“What?” I said through my teeth. “What did you think?”

He looked at Sam like he was angry at him for being there, but then his eyes came back to mine. “I thought you were upset about your mom.”

My jaw dropped. “I mean, of course.”

“So, I’m sorry you saw it.”

I frowned. “You’re sorry I saw it?”

“Yeah, that’s all this trauma stuff, right? I get it. My dad was shitty too. So, yeah. I was wrong. The doctors say it’s good for you if I say that out loud. I don’t know if it helps. But my bastard father sure as hell never did and I think I could’ve used it.”

I stared at him, utterly unsure how to respond to that.

And that was when I blinked and woke up. “Dad, why did you want to see me?”

“Because I’m dying and everyone said I should give you a chance to say whatever, or ask me questions. So you could let it all go when I die.”

I didn’t know how to feel.

Was he just trying to make himself a good guy? Or did he want me to heal ?

I looked up at Sam and shrugged. “I don’t know what to do with this,” I said honestly.

Sam took a deep breath. “Is there anything you want to say to him before you go?”

I looked down. My whole life I’d fantasized about this moment—my father caged, unable to hurt me, forced to answer my questions. When I was a kid I’d imagined torturing him until he was weeping and begging for my forgiveness. How I’d lord it over him and tell him all the ways he haunted me so he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

But now…?

Did he even want me to forgive him? He wasn’t asking for it.

Then Sam’s words popped into my head.

Forgiving him isn’t for him. He doesn’t even have to know. It’s for you. To be free.

I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t know if I could ever feel free of this man. But then I looked at him again and questioned that, too.

Not because I liked him. I hated him. But looking at this weird, abrasive old man… I didn’t even know him. I didn’t know anything about him except that he’d killed my mother, terrorized me as a child and…

And he saved Sam.

It was what I’d been thinking about the day I got brave . My dad saved Sam. It was the only thing in my entire life that I could think of that he did, that I felt grateful for.

But then it hit me… what were the chances that I would have met Sam at all if my dad hadn’t done what he did?

Sam had talked about it before, that God knew all the paths we took through life led us to the next. So, we couldn’t have the good in his life without having gone through the bad.

I knew what he meant, but I’d never felt it.

Now I stood there, looking at my frail, weird, powerless father and I felt it.

If he hadn’t been my father, he wouldn’t have taken me on his road trip.

If he hadn’t taken me on that road trip, I probably would have grown up into some weird, quirky, vanilla nerd.

I would never have gone looking for Cain .

And I wouldn’t have found Sam.

I couldn’t even imagine not having Sam. I didn’t think I could survive this life without him.

I had always thought my father stole my life from me. But somehow, he’d also been the one to give it back. If I never found Sam without him, Sam never would have stayed free if it weren’t for him.

Everything twisted up in my mind and I didn’t have the energy to unravel it. But I knew one thing: No matter what it had taken to get here… I didn’t regret it. And I didn’t want to go back.

I looked up at Sam again to find him staring down at me, concern wrinkling his brow and a question in his eyes.

“I’m ready to go,” I said.

And bless him, my husband immediately took my hand and turned towards the door, but I held back for a second and turned to my dad.

“Thank you,” I said, though the words grated on my teeth. “Thank you for leaving that note for Sam. Thank you for saving him.”

Dad blinked. “I did it for you.”

I inhaled sharply. “And that’s why I’m thanking you. I’m going to try and forgive you, Dad. I don’t know if I can do it. But I’m going to try.”

His eyes reddened. My throat pinched. I shook my head. “I honestly can’t tell you that I forgive you now. I hate you. But I am going to try, and I can thank you honestly. Because if Sam wasn’t here, I don’t know where I’d be.”

Dad swallowed, then looked at Sam and nodded once. “I guess I say thanks, too, then.”

Sam looked uncomfortable, but nodded back, then turned to me. “You ready?”

“Yes,” I said. Then I turned my back on my father and walked out. And I never went back.