Her jaw clenched as her chin came up. “Do you know why?” She flicked a glance at me, flinching as if only now remembering I was here.
Her voice wavered a little, but she repeated her question to her mother. “Do you know why I stayed silent? Why I refused to give him my voice? Why I locked that part of myself away and preferred to die than speak to that fucking bastard?” She snarled the last words with more vehemence than I thought capable.
All this time, Pim came across as stoic, making me believe that with him being dead she’d found a degree of closure.
Yet with those two words, I knew how wrong I’d been. How much she still had to work through. How the stages of grief were tracking through her without my input. Anger was this stage. Despair, disbelief, denial.
What would be next, and how could I help her through it without her being in this much agony?
Her mother shook her head, her own tears spilling faster as her teeth lodged deep in her bottom lip. She barely managed to say, “Oh, Minnie Mouse...” She clutched Pim’s fingers, dragging her closer to kiss her knuckles, begging for forgiveness. “No wonder you hate me.”
I didn’t understand.
What did her mother understand that I didn’t?
What family connection just flew over my head?
She wasn’t just referring to Pim’s accusation of her upbringing. It was something worse than that.
Pim sighed heavily, squeezing her mother’s hands, relieved that she understood even if I didn’t. “I remained your daughter even though I cursed you. I chose death over speech because, thanks to you, I knew what he ultimately wanted from me.”
Sonja wailed. “I know. I know. I’m so, so sorry, Min. Please...I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t my body, my pain, my pleas he wanted...was it, Mum?” Pim choked, her own sadness switching to sobs.
The fact she’d flipped from mother to mum released the last of the barriers, and her mother collapsed over Pim’s hands, falling to the floor on her knees. Her chair toppled backward as Pim remained sitting like a queen with a tormented smile on her face.
She didn’t wait for her mother to answer her, delivering her question as vicious as a blade, stabbing me right through the heart. “It was my mind. He wanted my mind. He wanted to know how it felt to be raped by him. He wanted me to tell him how his fists bruised, how his chains bit, how every little thing he did changed me from my past to his future. He wanted to take my thoughts and hoard them, chipping them away, slowly stomping them to dust. He wanted to take my memories and taint them with his possession, so I had nothing left. He wanted every single scrap that made me mine and ruin me until I became nothing but his.
“And thanks to you, Mum, I understood that even when I didn’t. I stayed silent to spite him. I remained mute to protect the pieces of me I thought were long-lost dead and gone. But now I understand I was doing it for another reason. A reason that perhaps trumped all of that.” Her voice strangled, hanging itself from her lips. “I was still obeying you...even then.”
Her mother cried harder.
Another wracking sob clawed through Pim’s throat. “Are you proud of me? Did I do the right thing? If I was on your couch right now, would you wrinkle your nose like you did at the weaker or would you stare with pride at the stronger? Am I strong in your eyes? Did I do well? What, Mother? Tell me so I know if I’ve finally earned your admiration.”
My heart motherfucking broke.
That was what Pim carried?
That was what chewed her inside?
The need for her mother’s approval? A mother who had twisted her up long before she’d ever been stolen?
The fact she’d survived more abuse than anyone and instead of needing to be hospitalized for a broken mind sat there demanding parental admiration undid me.
Who the fuck cared if her mother approved?
I’d never been so goddamn proud. So humbled. So traumatized by another’s cravings.
Fuck me.
I couldn’t...I can’t...
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
My mind exploded with noise and shame and humiliation and utter self-disgust.
Her mother dropped her head in her hands and cried deep, ugly tears that dripped onto the floor.
My own eyes pricked to think how similar I must’ve seemed to Pim. How my commandments to know her mind must’ve petrified her. How my demands she speak and give me everything must’ve overridden so many terrible memories of Alrik demanding the same fucking thing.
I’d done exactly what that rapist had done.
I’d saved her and delivered her to yet another battle of wills.
I might not have physically hurt her, but I was just as bad.
Just as cruel.
Just as fucking evil.
Christ!
I wanted to punch something.
I wanted to throw my chair across the room and tear myself apart.
I wanted to get on my knees and put a gun to my head for ever thinking I had a right to Pim’s innermost thoughts.
Who the fuck was I to demand her secrets for safe passage on my yacht?
Who the fuck was I to expect her innermost thoughts in return for taking her from that disgusting white torture chamber?
I was nothing.
I was no one.
I’d already earned everything she’d kept from others by reading her letters like the thief I was.
Once a thief, always a thief.
And Pim had stolen my humanity.
I struggled to breathe, spiralling in on myself, drowning in regret as Pim’s mother said through her sobs, “I couldn’t be more proud of you, Tasmin. Never. Not a day went by that I didn’t beg for your forgiveness for how I treated you. Not an hour ticked past when I wished I could rewind and hug you instead of berate you. Kiss you instead of scold you. And show you just how much I cared.”
She scrambled on her knees to her daughter’s side, clutching Pim’s hands. “I loved you so much it scared me. Me—the woman who spent her entire career manipulating humans as if they were bugs under a microscope—was petrified of you. I thought love was weak. I believed if I let myself show how much you meant to me, I would be just like the people who came to me broken and begging for answers.” She shook her head, tangled hair flying. “I was wrong. And I found that out far too late.”
Her face turned black with memories. “I need you to know I hunted the same people I tried to help. I tortured people to find you, Minnie Mouse. I wanted so much to kill Kewet the moment I found him, but I held back just in case he knew more than what he said. I ransacked his apartment. I found the Disney watch Daddy gave you. I still have it—wishing I could give it back to you—even knowing how many times I badgered you to stop wearing such a juvenile thing. So many things I did, but when that killer tried to run, and I visualized you dead or worse, I snapped.”