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When Poppy realized what she’d revealed with her wild outburst, she gasped.
“Don’t say anything more, Poppy,” her mom warned. “It’s okay. Everything is okay. Go up to your room. Take a few minutes to calm down,” she coaxed, only making things worse.
“Calm down? Are you serious? She thinks she’s so much better than us, but she left us and stabbed her best friend in the back.”
“I didn’t,” Rose swore.
But Poppy didn’t want to hear it. “Oh, but you said you did.”
“What didyoudo, Poppy? What happened with Dad?” Rose’s eyes filled with suspicion.
Maybe it was Poppy’s guilt making her see things that weren’t there. She did that a lot these days because the guilt that she was happy her father was gone was always there, lurking, making her think everyone around her was judging her. She couldn’t escape it, because she couldn’t escape herself.
So she lashed out. “Why do you even care? You left us to fend for ourselves. Mom cowered. She stood back and let it happen like always. You ran. You left me here all alone with him.”
Rose came around the table and approached her slowly. “What happened that night, Poppy? Did he hurt you?”
“Pick a night. Any night. He always hurt me. He liked it. You know. You knew and you left anyway.” The pain and tightness in her chest grew.
“Yes. I left to save myself. It was selfish, but I had to go, Poppy. I wouldn’t have survived another day. You know how that feels. I know you do. So how did you save yourself? What did you do?” The coaxing tone didn’t sound judgmental. More inquisitive. Like a plea for Poppy to finally release what she’d been holding in for so long.
“I did what had to be done.”
“No,” Mom shouted. “That’s not true.”
“What happened?” Rose demanded, coming another step closer.
Poppy backed into the wall, needing the support, because she felt as if she was about to shatter.
She hated feeling the weakness come over her. The same feeling her father evoked when he tore her down. This time, like that last time with him, she came out fighting. “Same thing, different day. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat! Again and again and again! But I had enough. I wasn’t going to take it anymore. And I told him so. I told him I was leaving. And he came after me, racing up the stairs as I headed for my room to pack my shit and go.” She could barely breathe, thinking of that night, feeling the panic of it take hold of her again. “He shoved me from behind, but I didn’t go down. I turned on him.”
“Poppy, that’s enough.” Her mom sat at the table shaking her head, her face drawn tight in denial and the desire to erase it from her mind.
Not going to happen. None of them could forget what her father had done to each of them and to their family.
It made Poppy so angry that her mom didn’t want to face thetruth. Again. “What? You don’t want her to know? You don’t want anyone to know what he did to us. You want to just hide it from the world, so no one will know you stood by while he beat your daughters and treated them like shit. She knows! Everybody knew! No one did anything about it.” She glared at Rose. “Idid something about it. I wasn’t going to let him tell me I was stupid and weak and nothing one more time. I wasn’t going to take one more slap across the face, one more punch in the back, one more kick while I’m down, because no matter how many times I stood back up, he always left me flat inside and out.”
“What happened?” This time Rose’s voice was soft and filled with sadness, because Poppy could just as well have been describing what had happened to Rose.
“I went after him. This timeIpushed back.Itold him exactly what I thought of him. Just like him, I didn’t let up. I went right for him and said all those things no one ever said to him but he loved to say to us. That he was mean and worthless and an ugly drunk who beat on his kids and didn’t deserve anything or anyone to love him. I told him what he already knew, that Mom was afraid of him and didn’t love him, that you left because you hated him and you were never coming back, and that I hated him, too, and I was leaving, and if Mom was smart and wanted to save herself she’d leave, too, and he’d die a miserable bastard all alone.”
Tears blurred her vision and trailed unchecked down her cheeks.
“I told him to go to hell. Stupid drunk as he was, he tried to take a swing at me. I ducked. He stumbled over his own feet,momentum carrying him sideways, and I pushed him back, but he lurched forward again, and then . . .” She saw it all so clearly in her mind. “We were at the top of the stairs, and thenhewasn’t.” He’d reached both hands out to her as he fell, but she hadn’t reached out for him at all.
“He was drunk and fell down the stairs.” Rose looked at her like that’s all that happened.
“Ilethim fall down the stairs.”
“Poppy, no,” her mom pleaded. “That’s not how it happened.”
“You were there, standing in the background like you always did. Witness to his cruelty and Rose’s and my destruction. You saw what happened. You know it’s true. I could have tried to pull him back. I didn’t. I didn’t want to help him. I didn’t care if he fell. I wanted him to die.” It felt so good and so terrible to say those words out loud.
Her mom wiped at her tears.
Rose stood still, tears sliding down her face, but she never looked away.
Poppy turned to her mom. “Tell her what you saw. For once, say it out loud.”
