His 47 Seconds Of Silence Cost Him Everything Chapter 26
“I remember,” he said softly. “If Mara doesn’t want to answer something, I can’t make her.”
He glanced up at me once, then quickly lowered his eyes again.
“Do you hate me?”
I didn’t answer right away.
“I hate what happened.”
His eyes instantly turned red.
“That day, Mom said if I hid well enough, you would prove that you loved me. Grandma said if you saw the life jacket, you’d run even faster than Dad.”
His voice dropped lower and lower.
“After you fell, I heard you calling for Dad. But they were all hugging me. I thought you were just upset again.”
I tightened my hands into fists under the table.
“What happened after that?”
“Later, I saw the video on Dad’s computer.”
At last, he started to cry.
“There was blood on the ground.”
The therapist slid a box of tissues toward him.
“Mom said it was because you slipped. She also said you didn’t want me anymore because I’m not your real kid.”
“Jude, look at me.”
He raised his tear-streaked face.
“I didn’t leave because you weren’t my child.”
“Then why didn’t you come back?”
Linda and Evan had used that same question, again and again, to keep me bound to them.