Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 91212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
The question sends me back to my childhood, and those memories make me smile.
"My mom helped me make paper banners for my dad's first run for office. They were awful. She saved them, though. I found them tucked away in her closet after she passed."
"Tell me the stuff you don't want anyone to know," he urges. "Don't just lay the happy at my feet."
I open my mouth to argue, hearing William in my head telling me to protect the family at all costs.
"I was twenty-five when Mom died. It was painful. The most devastating blow I had ever felt, and it took me a very long time to understand that although it was hard for me, Sadie was eleven and Chris was only seven. I can't imagine what they felt. Sadie didn't have a mom during one of the most integral parts of her life, and I think that's why she started acting out. I moved back home when my mom was sick, and never left. I knew Dad needed help with Sadie. He was a good dad, but he didn't have a clue about all the girl stuff. Mom was always the one around for that." I look down at my hands as I recall what life was like all those years ago. "She was wild, already causing problems at school. I didn't know there was trouble until I came home. It's like the diagnosis just flipped a switch in her. She caused my parents a lot of grief before we lost Mom, and it only escalated after that. She was sneaking out of the house at thirteen."
"Wow," he says, but I don't notice judgment in his tone.
"We did our best. First, it was therapy. When I found marijuana in her bedroom at fourteen, we had her admitted to a very discreet drug treatment facility. At fifteen, she was already experimenting with cocaine. Then she was sent to a second drug treatment. At seventeen, the sex tape made the news, and she claimed she was high and they took advantage. That was her third stint in rehab, but before she could get out, Dad died of a heart attack, and she left treatment. She came back home every once in a while, but she never really moved back in. Dad cut her off completely after the tape. He wanted her to press charges, to save the family name, but she knew she couldn't because it was all lies. I imagine there was further proof of her willing involvement that she knew about that we weren't privileged to."
"Shit," he mutters. "That's tough."
"The last seven years have been awful. She's a different woman each time I see her. It's like watching someone rot away right before your eyes."
"Drugs have a way of latching on to someone even when they don't want it," he says, his voice a little distant as if he has his own form of regret because of them.
"I feel responsible," I say, shaking my head. "If I hadn't made her leave that day, she'd still be around. I didn't know how much I missed her visits, even with how much her begging and stealing ripped me to pieces."
"Did you have her abducted?"
I glare at him, but he holds his hand up as if telling me to calm down.
"If you weren't involved in her disappearance, then it's not your fault. Some people can't handle loss at any age. I don't know any more than what you've told me but it seems like Sadie has been on a self-destructive path for a very long time. I don't know that there was anything you could've done to have a different outcome."
"She's hurt somewhere," I say with complete confidence. "And I'm afraid that I saw my sister alive for the last time when I made her leave her family home empty-handed."
He doesn't urge me to have hope, to keep the good thoughts in my head until it's time to replace them with hard truths, and for some reason, it makes me respect him just a little bit more.
"I always wondered if someone hurt her when she was younger and she was acting out because of it," I confess.
"Did anyone ask her about it?"
I shake my head. "I don't think so. I had a conversation with Dad about it once, but he urged against it. Sadie had a history of lying even when the truth was as clear as day. He was worried if we mentioned it, she'd come up with a story and blame an innocent person just so she could watch the fallout."
"You think she's capable of something like that."
I pull in a deep breath because it's so hard to admit such horrible things about someone I love. "I do. I had to stop trusting anything she said years ago."
"Has she ever said anything negative about William?"