Leaving at Noon (19 page)

“
Molest me,” Zoey
finished, horrified by the very thought. “It wasn’t
true.”

“
Doesn’t matter. Your
mother made it sound true. True enough that your father was
arrested at work. He was hauled off to jail and stayed there
overnight, before his lawyer could get him out.”

Zoey could do nothing but gape. Bile rose in
her throat, and her stomach heaved. She shook her head in denial.
“Sh-she didn’t. She couldn’t have. No one could be that evil.”

“
She did. And she did it
effectively enough to destroy his reputation. He was asked to leave
his work. She’d have destroyed his future if he hadn’t agreed to
let her have custody.”

“
Tell me,” Zoey demanded.
“Tell me what she did, what she said.”

“
She gave your dad two
choices. Continue with his pursuit of custody, and she’d paint a
tale of abuse elaborate enough that Richard would be put away for
many, many years.”

“
Or?”

“
Forget about custody,
swear not to have anything to do with you, and she’d drop the
charges and tell the police she was wrong.”

Jesus. Zoey knew her mother was heartless.
But this… This defied belief. “You’re fucking with me.”

Theo looked at her with sad eyes. “I wish I
was.”

“
Her charges could never
have stuck.”

“
They could have. She
twisted enough of the truth around to make it seem very
real.”

“
It wasn’t
real!”

“
That was irrelevant to
your mother. Either choice Richard made, she got what she wanted.
Him out of her life permanently, and you all to
herself.”

“
That makes no sense. She
can’t stand me. Why would she want me to herself?”

Theo squeezed his eyes shut before
answering. “I don’t think it was a matter of her wanting you. It
was a matter of not letting your dad have custody—when she knew he
wanted that more than anything.” He sighed. “Your mother had your
dad by the balls. He would have gone to prison. He knew that, and
he hated the idea of you growing up believing he’d abused you.
Hated it more than the thought of not seeing you every day.”

“
So he gave up custody and
moved to Canberra.”

“
Leaving was the hardest
thing he ever did, but he had no choice. He knew your mother would
retract her statement of his innocence if he stayed, and he
couldn’t work in Sydney again. Didn’t matter that the charges were
dismissed, his reputation was already stained.”

Zoey sat back, letting everything Theo told
her take root. The enormity of his story was staggering.

Her father must have gone through hell.

Loathing for her mother built up inside
Zoey. It was so intense, so overwhelming, it seemed to fill every
cell in her body. She couldn’t breathe from it, couldn’t think
clearly. Her muscles turned to jelly and her limbs went limp.

She was going to throw up. Her mother’s
actions didn’t just fill her stomach with acid, they made her
physically ill.

Zoey bolted. She charged to the bathroom on
shaky legs, smacking into a wall more than once. And then she was
on her knees, clutching the toilet bowl, retching into it.

She threw up until her stomach cramped. Her
throat burned and bile coated her teeth in bitterness. Sweat
dampened her forehead and chest.

And there it was again. The pressure on her
back, the firm rubbing up and down, soothing her, massaging her
troubles away. Only these troubles weren’t going away. These
troubles were as deeply rooted as her feelings about her
parents.

Utterly drained, Zoey crumpled onto the
floor. She sat there, motionless, for long, long moments, Theo’s
firm strokes her only comfort as the grim reality of her
circumstances set in.

Her life had been a farce. Her childhood a
charade engineered by the warped mind of a sick woman.

Zoey was no fool. She knew the terrible mark
an accusation of child molestation left on the accused. If the
accused was guilty, well and good. He deserved that mark—and a life
spent in prison. But if he wasn’t—and God knew, her father was not
guilty of molesting her—it left an innocent man’s life in
tatters.

Her mother’s crafty plan hadn’t just left
one life in tatters. It had destroyed two. Hers and her father’s.
Zoey had suffered as much as Richard. She’d lost her daddy. The man
who’d loved her and spoiled her and shown her how a good parent
should behave.

Not only had she lost him, she’d lost her
memories of him. She’d blocked out the good and turned him into
something bad. Because a man who made no attempt to see his
daughter and left her in the care of a cold, disinterested and mean
mother, had to be bad. Right?

Wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Everything Zoey had grown up believing had
been wrong.

And just how did an adult woman ever come to
terms with that?

“
How did you
know?”

The question cut into Theo’s musing. Fully
clothed, he lay beside Zoey on the single bed in Fiona’s spare
room.

After Zoey had been sick, he’d helped her
clean her teeth and wash her face before carrying her to the bed.
She’d been quiet for a long time before falling into a restless
sleep.

Fiona had come home and returned to the bar,
and the sun had long since set. Zoey had slept through it all.

She now stared blankly at the ceiling. Her
gaze was so unfocused, Theo doubted she saw very much.

“
About the abuse
charges?”

She nodded.

“
Your dad told
me.”

“
When?”

“
Two years ago. We met for
lunch. You’d refused to join us.”

“
And you never thought to
mention this before?” The question was laced with
sarcasm.

“
Richard made me swear not
to. He never wanted you to know.”

“
And of course your
responsibility was to him, not me.”

Theo didn’t argue. Zoey had every right to
be pissed off.

She sighed loudly. “Why didn’t he want me to
know?”

Theo sat up, turning to face her. “Because
he failed you. He fell short at the one role he should have
excelled at. Being your father was the most important thing he’d
ever done. It was the most meaningful relationship of his life, yet
he abandoned the child he loved.”

Zoey blinked but said nothing.

“
His choices crushed him.
Your mother broke him. He never wanted you to know that side of
him. Never wanted you to realize how badly he’d failed
you.”

“
He had no choice.” Her
voice was a throaty rasp.

“
Which is why he left. But
he wasn’t proud of his decision.”

“
He never tried to get in
touch with me after that. Not until I was eighteen.”

She was wrong on that count. “He wrote every
week for a year. Sent you letter after letter.”

“
Bull.”

He nodded sadly. “Your mother kept them all.
A year after she filed for divorce, Richard received a box in the
post. In it were all his letters. None of them had been opened. She
included the gifts he’d sent too—and there were a lot of them.”

Her jaw dropped. “She said he didn’t care
enough to contact me.”

“
She lied.”

Zoey glared at him. “How do you know
he’s
not the one lying? Making the whole thing up?”

Theo feathered his fingers through her hair,
tucking a few stray strands behind her ear. “I saw the letters. And
the note your mother sent, telling your dad not to bother sending
any more. She wouldn’t give them to you.”

Zoey flicked her head, shaking off his hand.
He let it drop to his side.

Theo had been willing to tolerate her
mother’s presence in their life for Zoey’s sake. If there’d been
any chance of salvaging their relationship, Theo would have
wholeheartedly supported them—until that lunch with Richard, when
he’d learned the truth. From that moment on, Theo had zero
tolerance for Margaret Whatever-her-last-name-was-now. When the
bitch had come to their house and proceeded to tear Zoey apart
about every little thing, Theo had lost it. He’d thrown her
out.

Zoey wasn’t quite ready to let go of her
anger. “He never visited.”

“
That was a condition your
mother enforced. She would have contacted the police if he tried.
He had no choice but to wait until you were eighteen.”

She scowled. “Legally an adult.”

“
And legally capable of
making your own decisions—including whether or not to see your dad.
He phoned on your eighteenth birthday.”

Zoey was pale. With every truth Theo
exposed, her cheeks became whiter. “I hung up on him.”

He nodded.

“
I never tried to speak to
him. My letters to him were short. Emotionless. A cold thank-you
for paying for my education.”

Her gaze dropped. She stared at the doona
and breathed slowly. Too slowly. Theo feared she wasn’t drawing
adequate oxygen.

“
She convinced me he was
untrustworthy. Unreliable. Told me he’d shirked his responsibility.
She said he was a perfect example of why some men should never be
allowed to have children.”

He reached for her. “Babe—”

She sprang off the bed. “Don’t
babe
me. Not now.” The color returned to her cheeks too quickly. She
went from pale to scarlet in a heartbeat. “That bitch lied.” She
stabbed a finger in the air, as though pointing to the bitch in
question. “For years. She looked me in the eye and lied.” An angry
bark of laughter erupted from her. “And isn’t that just the irony
of it all? She never looked me in the eye otherwise, never afforded
me the respect. But when she mouthed off about him… Oh man, her
gaze didn’t falter.”

She shook her head and snarled in disgust.
“You know what the saddest thing is?” Now she stabbed her finger in
her chest. “I believed every word.”

“
You were a child. Of
course you believed your mother.”

“
That’s right. I’m
twenty-nine now, and she hasn’t changed her story. Not once in all
these years.” Her face became redder. “You know what that means,
right?”

Theo didn’t attempt to respond. Zoey was
already heaving in a breath to answer herself.

“
It means my whole
childhood is based on a lie. Hell, my whole adult life too.
Everything about me is based on a lie.” Her voice rose. “
I’m
a lie. There’s nothing real about me. Every thought, every belief,
every value I have is bullshit, because it’s grounded in untruths.
As is my entire personality.” Her eyes narrowed as she glared at
him. “You and I are a lie. You married a woman who’s not
real.”

Uh-oh. Zoey was going off on a tangent,
jumping to illogical conclusions and taking her anger and confusion
out on herself.

“
You’re real, babe. Every
part of you. You grew into the amazing woman you are
despite
the lies your mother fed to you.”

“
No,
babe
.” Her
voice was bitter. “I grew into the woman I am
because
of her
lies. I grew into a twisted, hateful bitch—just like her. All this
time, I blamed accidentally seeing my father for my rotten
behavior, but really, it had nothing to do with him. It was all me.
I grew up to be exactly what my mother raised me to be.
Her!”

She didn’t seriously believe that, did
she?

She jammed her hands on her hips. “I’m the
bitch from hell, doing everything I can to ostracize the man I
married. I’m the cause of every problem in our relationship.” Zoey
shook her head fiercely. “Nope, not the cause. I’m the
problem
. Oh, and it gets better.”

Jesus, where was this distorted perception
of her life taking her?

“
Guess what’ll happen if
you and I ever have kids?”

Theo shook his head, refusing to guess.

“
Come on, Theo. You know
the answer. Hell, you postulated the theory. It’s all about learned
patterns of behavior. Remember? You explained it so well this
morning. I learned from the best. Mummy dearest couldn’t have
taught me better.” She smiled sweetly, the action as hollow as his
stomach. “If we have children, I’ll be forced to rip them away from
you. And then, when you’re utterly devastated and at your lowest,
I’ll weave glorious tales of incest and abuse and make sure you
never get to see them again. Any of them. Well, not until they’re
at least eighteen.”

As if she’d ever be capable of such malice.
“Don’t mistake yourself for your mother. You may have learned
things from her, but you’re not her. You realized years ago she’s
intrinsically fucked-up, and you distanced yourself.”

“
Maybe so, but everything
I learned, I learned from her.”

“
But this is a case of the
student outperforming her teacher. You learned enough to know how
to build a family instead of tear one apart. You know how she
behaves, and you know better than to behave the same way. You’re
not her. You’ll never be her. You have a basic sense of right and
wrong that’s guided you your entire life. You have an incredible
set of values and principles, and you would never do what she did.”
Zoey was incapable of inflicting that much pain on another person.
Especially her own child.

“
You think you know me so
well?”

Theo nodded.

“
You’re wrong. How can you
know me, when I have no idea who I am? I’m a façade of a person,
shaped by my mother’s two hands.”