“How many times has he hit you?”
“He doesn’t—not—He—”
“Oh, Abby. Why does he want you to call him...that word? Was it your idea?”
“No.” I say it quickly, defensively, and it feels like a betrayal. I’m the one that put him in my phone as Daddy. I agreed to call him that. I like to call him that.
“I thought so. Why, then?”
I can’t think beyond the questions she’s asking me. I have a vague sense that I shouldn’t be just standing here answering them, that I should take control of the conversation and tell her something reassuring—the truth, but something to make her see what Rufus and I mean to each other, and that it’s something beautiful, not depraved. It’s what Rufus would do if he were here. But he’s not here, and my mother is looking at me with an expression I’ve never seen on her face before. Something between horror and disgust and anger and sadness, and I’m too paralyzed to do anything else but answer.
“He...likes it,” I fumble. I like it, too. SAY it. But I can’t because she looks like she’s about to be sick. My blood is thick with shame.
She drops her eyes. “For a moment when I saw that message...” she begins, and then she swallows.
“What?”
“I thought it was from—”
With mounting horror I realize what she can’t say. I remember that her eyes flicked over my shoulder when she read it. To the back garden. Where my father was. “Oh, mama, no.” She thought we’d been... I start to cry, and so does she, but they’re not tears we can share. We’re standing alone with them.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She just shakes her head, and I run to my bedroom and slam the door. I’m heaving sobs into my duvet when my phone buzzes.
Abby?
I pick it up and type quickly. She saw my phone. She saw the message and what I call you.
My phone rings and I answer it. He must hear me crying because he says, “Abby. Calm down, babygirl. Breathe.” His voice is steady but it’s not calming me like it usually does.
“She saw the m-message and she thought it was from my father. She thought we—”
He cuts across me and his voice is tight and urgent. “She knows it was from me though, doesn’t she? You did tell her that?”
“Yes, but she can’t look at me, Rufus. She called you a pervert and asked if you ever hit me. I—I couldn’t say anything.”
“Okay. It will be all right, babygirl. Stay where you are, I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” He hangs up.
A few minutes later I can’t bear to be in the house so I go downstairs and start pacing up and down on the sidewalk. Rufus’s car finally turns into the street. When he pulls up he opens the back door, helps me into the back seat and gets in after me. He holds me while I cry, and I can’t seem to stop. I’m so ashamed. He doesn’t try to stop me crying but he does talk to me, telling me that everything’s going to be all right, that he loves me, that my parents love me, and we are going to get through this together. Eventually I do stop crying but it’s because I am exhausted, not because I feel any better.
“She thinks you’re a monster,” I say, my voice thick.
He kisses my sweaty forehead. “It doesn’t matter what she thinks about me right now. I’m worried about you. I’m so sorry. I knew how much you were afraid of this happening and I didn’t consider how we could prevent it.”
“I’m the one who put you in my phone as Daddy,” I point out.
“Yes, but there’s a setting on your phone that stops text messages showing on your home screen when your phone is locked. I should have told you about it. I didn’t think.”
“Oh.”
We’re silent for several minutes.
“Abby, how would you feel about explaining to your parents about our relationship?”
I stare at him in horror. “No!”
“Your mother thinks I abuse you physically and emotionally. They are not going to be okay with us, ever, unless you explain.”