My Family’s Suitcase Was Always Too Small for My Future Chapter 08

My Family’s Suitcase Was Always Too Small for My Future Chapter 08

He didn’t have an answer.

But he tried.

“You could find something close to home. A safer job. We’d be right here. You could see us whenever you

wanted.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Even now, he still didn’t understand.

I almost laughed.

“Come home to what? The dishes that are always mine? The chores that never end? Watching everyone

bend over backward for Tessa and Grant while I stand there?”

He had no argument left.

“Dad…” My voice broke.

“Why didn’t you ever take me? I wanted to go to the Silver Coast too.”

His breath caught. He tried to speak and couldn’t.

He’d always known how Mom treated me. He didn’t just let it happen. He made it worse.

He counted on me staying quiet. On keeping his conscience clean.

He never thought the quiet one, the boring, invisible middle child who never complained, would finally speak.

I had feelings too. I always had.

And now that I’d said it, there was nowhere left for him to hide.

“I’m sorry, Maren.”

He was crying.

I hung up.

Wesley held me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

After that, I blocked all of them.

Tessa sent me a letter. Pages and pages of it.

She said she was sorry. That it hurt her to think about what I’d been through.

She’d watched me work through every break, scrub every dish, swallow every slight. She’d seen how Mom

and Dad chose her over me.

She admitted it was her idea to keep the house a secret from me. She wanted first pick of the bedrooms.

She confessed to a lot. And I believed she meant it.

But what good did it do?

No letter could undo twenty-four years.

All it proved was that I hadn’t imagined it. That I wasn’t crazy, or petty, or ungrateful. That it was real.

When Grant couldn’t reach me anymore, he started creating burner numbers and fake accounts. A message

here and there.

I blocked every one.

His last message was simple.

[I’m not asking you to talk to us. We just want to know you’re okay. Can you at least give us that?]

I didn’t respond.

Six months later, Wesley and I flew back to my home state and got married at the courthouse.

No ceremony. No family.

But I was happy.

When my family found out, they lost it. They called the police. Told them I’d been kidnapped.

The officers called them down to the precinct to close the case. And there I was.

“Maren!”