Brave the Storm and Embrace the Rain

I walked back into the kitchen and ate dinner with the family. Afterwards I listened from my room as Dad and Karli put the twins to bed together. I listened to Karli tell them that she loves them and Dad echo her with more love in his voice than I could ever remember.

I laid on my bed, my arms tucked behind my head. The stars were bright and their light was illuminating my room. My door was almost shut all the way, the door barely touching the wood. I remembered summer nights when I was with my Mom. The way she would pass out on the couch while I was sitting in the hallway with my barbie doll that I used to call Lilly.

"Indy doll!" my mother moaned, her voice hollow as she laid on the couch, her eyes staring at a stain on the ceiling where the upstairs neighbor's bathroom had flooded just a month ago.
"Indiana..." Mom moaned again, her eyes blank as I walked over to her. My six year old self coveting my dolly and holding her close to my chest.

"Mommy?" my small self called out, shyly. I watched as she looked around our living room although I could tell that her eyes were glazed over and she was seeing a place that was other then our actual apartment.

"Indy?!" Mom shouted out as she jumped up from the couch. She ran past me as she screamed my name over and over again. "Indy doll! Where are you, doll? Where'd you go, baby girl? Indy doll!" She became quiet as she turned around again. Her brown eyes stared right at me, right past me.

"Indiana? Where are you, darling?"

I was pulled from my revelations as my bedroom door opened and my father's face came into view.

"Yeah Dad?" I questioned, unsure if he had said anything before that.

Dad smiled at me and met my gaze. Then he spoke, "I just wanted to say goodnight, kid."

I nodded and slid up off of my bed as my Dad reached his arms out for a hug. Dad's arms wrapped around my shoulders tightly and I smiled slightly, a nervous smile, although I wasn't sure what I was nervous of anymore. Maybe that Dad, during this hug, would be able to read my thoughts and my memories. Or maybe I was nervous that he would see my memories and the pain that came along with them and even then he would choose to leave us so that he could achieve everything he has.

As my Dad pulled back I tried to gather up the courage to ask his what I had been thinking about almost constantly when he was around or when I was home.

"Dad..."

He turned back to face me as he went to walk out of my room. "Yeah, kid?" he questioned and then after a moment, walked back over to me as he noticed that I was struggling with something.

"What's wrong, Indiana?" he questioned as he reached out to rest his hand on my shoulder.

I shook my head. "Nothing," I said, "I've just been thinking too much."

"What about?"

I opened my mouth, ready just to say the first words that came out of my mouth. "I was wondering that if you knew how bad my mom was to me when you left if you'd still leave."

I cut my Dad off as he began to speak. "And if you knew what you would get when you do leave... Your dreams. A wife and two sons. I was just wondering if you would chose my childhood happiness over your future happiness."

Dad looked scared, nervous, and unsure of how to answer without telling a lie to himself or I.

"Indiana..." he trailed off.

I shook my head at him and pulled away from his grasp. My anger was back. The anger I once had for my father when he first left me back with my mother.
"Do you know what she put me through?!" I shouted loudly at my father, forgetting about the rest of the world and the other kids in the house. "Dad! Do you know that she used to see another world where I was dead? Did you know that she used to call out for me, asking God why he had to kill me? Why I had to die! I thought she could see the future, Dad! When I was young I spent everyday of my life thinking that I was going to die or never wake up..."

Dad looked like he was going to say something but I wouldn't allow him. I continued, letting my words hit him and hoping that they would sting. "And, Dad, you would still chose to leave me there. Take off and make your own life without me. I know you think that you're trying to make up from all those years that you left me there with my psychotic mother but you aren't. You can't." I wiped the tears from my eyes angrily and spoke one last sentence before reaching for my cell phone and rushing past him out of the house.

"You can never make up for letting your child's her mother try to kill her..."