Delayed by Nathan Kingsly (best manga ereader txt) 📕

After a moment of looking at both of us, Mom looks defeated, and she takes a deep breath. “Your father and I never wanted you to find out.” She looks at both of us in turn.

“Find out what?” Mia is still confused, and her tone reveals her growing irritation. I already have my suspicions, she’s going in this blind, but it’s time for us both to know the truth.

“Your father loved you. You were both his in every way that mattered. I want you to know that before ...”

“What are you saying … dad wasn’t our …?” Mia hesitates, and I don’t blame her. It’s a hard realization.

Mom shakes her head slowly and connects eyes with me before looking over at Mia.

“Then ...” Mia starts.

“Ger,” I interrupt. I look forward, but before I close my eyes, I see the denial in Mia as she shakes her head.

A strangled noise comes from my mom before I hear her start to cry. With eyes closed, my hand searches for hers. When she takes it, it’s shaking. After a minute, her body slows to a hum, then she takes a few deep breaths until she’s able to speak again.

“Ger and I went to school together, and we were …” I squeeze her hand, encouraging her to get it out. “Friends, but he wanted more. One night while I was out at a party, he found me and …”

“He raped her,” I say as I open my eyes a slit and see Mia still shaking her head, her eyes wide, tears filling them.

“Your father was the one to find me. He was so kind.” Mom’s mouth tips into a smile as she wipes away the tears on her cheeks. “He took care of me afterward, even though he wasn’t happy that I refused to go to the hospital or report Ger for what he had done. So, your dad married me after I found out I was pregnant.”

“You trapped him,” Mia spits.

Mom shakes her head, her eyes wounded. “I never asked him, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I worried for a long time I had taken something from him, but he was so happy when he was with the two of you. We found out later when we tried to get pregnant again that he couldn’t have children, and that made him only more grateful that we had you both.”

The chair scraps against the linoleum as Mia jerks out of it. “I … I just can’t.” She swipes her hands in the air, the tears finally coming down, and she swings the door open, scaring the nurse on the other side about to knock. We all watch her as she barely misses the nurse and stalks out of sight.

Looking over at mom, I grip her hand harder as her chin wobbles. “She’ll come back. She always does.” She gives me a nod.

“Is she going to be okay?”

I nod at the nurse’s question. “Yeah, she’s fine.”

“Alright, well, I’m here to unshackle you and give you some pain meds.”

She comes over, and in only a few minutes, I’m free. “Thank you. Can I also get some water?”

“Oh! Of course. I’ll be right back with that.”

“I’m sorry,” my mom whispers when we’re alone again.

“It’s alright, it’s not your fault, but we could have handled the truth sooner.”

“It wasn’t our truth: your father’s and mine. We raised you as if the two of us had made you and your sister. Ger never made a ripple in our marriage to each other either. I grew to love Harold, and he blocked out everything else for me. He helped me heal when I thought there was no coming away from the shame I had felt. He was the best thing to ever happen to me, and in my opinion, for both of you.”

“The man you married was my father, there’s no question about that, not to me, and Mia will come to realize that once she has time to let it soak in.”

“I hope so.”

“She will.”

The doctor was right. The breathing treatment is the most loathsome thing I endured during my stay at the hospital. Most days, I wanted to throw the damn thing across the room, but what I wanted more was to get out of here.

Being cooped up in bed most of the day is not what I'm used to. It takes time to adjust in the first week. I struggle to catch my breath before getting to the bathroom to take a piss. It isn’t until the second week that I take a full breath in and then out without trying to hack up the other half of my lung.

Emma is there every day. After the second week, mom and Mia made up and are there together instead of trading shifts. Mia came to her senses after talking to me on a bad day of breathing therapy.

“You’re being a bitch,” I snap, and I continue before Mia can talk over me. “You know what you’re doing? You’re punishing her after she’s already been punished, not once, but twice by Ger. She decided to make her first trauma a positive thing, and to rub her nose in it, after being violated like that, is a real shit thing to do. And you know what? She doesn’t deserve that.”

“So, I don’t get to feel anything about it?”

“No. No, you don’t. Ger was a shit excuse for a man. We were lucky that dad became what mom needed and raised us like we were his. That took courage, from both of them, to move on. So, no, you don’t get to feel anything but grateful that mom decided to keep us and for dad to have loved us even though we weren’t his blood. Grow the fuck up, Mia.”

She didn’t come to visit me for a few days, but neither did mom. I suspect I caused some heart-to-hearts between them at home, but when they came back their