Borne in Silence

The shocking truth

On Saturday, Dec 8^th, 2018 around 1:00 pm, I was putting together a drawing table with my son and rearranging some furniture in his room. We were just finishing up, when my wife Julie came home and quietly asked me to come downstairs for a moment.

 I could see she was shaken, I knew something had happened, but I could also tell she was trying to contain her emotions, to protect our son.

I knew Julie had just dropped off Chloe, our 16-year-old daughter, at the mall, to hang out with her best friends Jordan and Ellie. So, I knew, that whatever had happened, or whatever she had learned, was on that drive to the mall.

 I told my son, “I have to talk to mommy for a bit”, I handed him a small wrench and a screwdriver and told him to finish putting together the stool, and I would be back.

I followed Julie into our bedroom and she sat down on the bed, then she asked me to sit next to her.

What followed was my brain, ripping through every possible scenario that could equal the combination of heartbreak, of something that had happened, the fear of telling me and the deep disappointment I was reading on her face.

I could feel my heart begin to race and said, “I can’t sit”, and I immediately followed that up with “Chloe’s pregnant!?”. It was both a statement and a question at the same time. It was the only thing I could think of that could equal what I was reading on Julie’s face.

She just shook her head …and said “No”, as tears welled up in her eyes and started streaking down her face. “I just spoke to Jordan’s mom”, she said.

Internally my mind immediately went to “Is this where my wife tells me my daughter is a lesbian?”.

But what followed, was beyond anything I could have conceived.

“Chloe told Jordan that your father has been molesting her.” And my wife’s emotions flooded out as she could no longer hold them back.

Everything got very still, my emotions went flat, as I said nothing and just listened and heard and processed every word my wife said.

My daughter was very close to my parents, both her grandmommy and granddaddy. I spoke to my father, nearly every day, five or six times a week minimum. I am the oldest son, we share the same name. I was employee number “003”, when he started his company in 1984. When I decided to go into art as a profession, he never pressured me to follow in his footsteps. There was no man on this earth I held in higher regard than my father, for my entire 52 years.

This was the most absurd thing I have ever heard, and the absurdity of it meant only one thing to me… it was true without question. My father, the man I loved most in this world, had molested my daughter, my little girl and in the length of a single sentence, every bit of love honor and respect I held for my father, turned on a dime, leaving nothing but rage and anger and hate.

When Julie was done, telling me everything, there was this deep whirring or humming sound coming from all around me.

 I took a very deep breath and I said, “I’m going to kill my father.” There was no emotion, just this slow-burning rage, and a single statement of truth. “I am killing my father”.

It would be several hours before I could speak to my daughter.

I went to the computer and started lining up flights to W________.

I knew I would be getting arrested. My mugshots would be taken, and I would be spending days in jail.

I took a shower, I shaved, I got dressed, then waited for Chloe to get home from the mall.