“Trisha,” Eric says, showing a level of calm I don’t feel. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“I hope it’s not a bad time?” Maybe he has someone here, I realize. Glancing around quickly, I look for telltale signs of a woman’s belongings. A purse or lipstick on a glass. The only thing I see is a sofa, a chair, and a desk. Stacks of papers hug the sofa, and his computer bag lies on top of the desk, with his laptop open and booted. “I should have called first.”
“It’s fine,” he says. “I just wasn’t expecting you.” He is clearly uncomfortable, unsure.
Married for so many years, yet we are strangers trying to find our way. Hating the feeling, I surge forward, not stopping to consider my words. “I wanted to give you an answer to your question.”
“Question?”
“Why I didn’t want a child,” I blurt out. I had rehearsed a number of scenarios in my head, different ways I would introduce the topic, the level of detail I would go into. I had every word I would say down, but the only part I couldn’t script was his reaction. No matter how many times I tried, I always came up blank.
“You asked me that a number of times, and I didn’t have an answer for you. Now I do.”
“Trisha,” he says, warily. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”
“I know,” I say, remembering the envelope with divorce papers inside. “But I just learned the answer recently, and I thought you should know.” I lower my voice. “You deserve to know.”
Sighing, he motions me toward the sofa. I sit down, pushing some of his work papers to the side. He takes the chair across from me. I cross one leg over the other and then decide they are better flat on the floor. My palms on the leather couch, I raise my eyes to meet his. Where I once saw unconditional love and acceptance, I now see distrust and suspicion.
“I started having these memories,” I forge ahead. “They didn’t make sense to me. A young girl walking down a hall, screaming silently for help.” I swallow, trying to get the words past my closed throat. “The more we talked about a child, the faster the images came. This girl had been hurt, terribly.”
“You never mentioned anything.”
“I thought it was about someone else. Not me,” I try to explain. “But the girl was walking in my childhood house.”
“Who would it be about?” he demands, exuding impatience.
I take a deep breath, steady myself, and search for courage. I kept so many secrets from this man, from myself, that I don’t know quite how or where to begin. He loved a woman I had created for the world to see, not the one who lay deep within me. He might hate the woman I am, the scars I bear, the wound that was open for so long I became oblivious to it and yet—yet it dictated every day of my life. “Papa wasn’t the man you knew. I was his favorite.” I stand up, start to pace in his small apartment, hoping it will make this easier. “But Sonya, Marin, and Mama weren’t. He beat them, constantly.”
“Trisha,” Eric says, his voice sounding torn. I can’t look at him, not yet. Not when I have barely touched the surface of the truth. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I was ashamed. I changed what happened to fit my version of reality. Convinced myself it wasn’t as bad as it was, maybe. I don’t know,” I say. “But he never hit me.” I want to laugh now at my stupidity. My desperate need to believe anything other than what really happened. “So even as they hated him, even as Sonya ran to escape the memories, I stood by his side, loving him, needing him. Believing in him.”
“He was a good father to you,” Eric says quietly, watching me. “I saw that in all your interactions.”