That someone intended to hurt me.
One night, Dad woke and found her standing beside my bed with a packed suitcase.
She planned to take me and disappear.
Not because she hated Dad.
Because she truly believed she was saving me.
Two days later, she voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital.
The story everyone was told—that she had died in a sudden accident—had been created after doctors warned Dad that she might never safely return home.
I looked up.
“He told a nine-year-old his mother was dead instead of telling him she was sick?”
Frank’s eyes shone.
“He thought certainty would hurt less than waiting.”
“He was wrong.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
My voice cracked.
“You don’t know what it was like believing she was gone. You don’t know how many nights I begged a dead woman to come back.”
Frank swallowed.
Then he said something that made my anger freeze.
