Page 93 of Tough Love

“Hi, sweetie.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“We’re talking about Tristan,” Mum fills in. “He’s been paying Amelia’s house a visit, damaging her car and things.”

Dad pushes out a heavy breath. “Should have choked that little bastard to death when I had the chance.”

“Dad!” I cry. I’ve never heard him speak ill of anyone like that, ever.

“He’s a waste of oxygen.”

“I’m not disputing that,” I grumble.

“She wants to know everything that happened after she left,” Mum says. “I thought you might like to join in.”

“Are you sure?” Dad asks. “It’s not easy to talk about.”

“Dad,” I deadpan, “my whole life hasn’t been easy.”

“Well, I suppose there’s that.”

I chuckle as the undeniable sound of Mum giving Dad a belt comes through the line. “Eddie!”

“What? Admit it; our girl’s had the hard road.”

“Anyway…,” Mum pointedly says. “Back on topic.”

“We sort of still were,” I tease.

She sighs. “About Tristan.” The mood immediately sours. “Kath moved in with him the same year you settled into university. We figured it was her way of rebelling since we’d banned him from our house.”

I bet it was. “Did you try and talk her out of it?”

Mum sighs. “We brought it up, yes. But she had problems with her blood pressure during her pregnancy, and so we weren’t as forceful as we perhaps should have been.”

“She was still there when Briar was born,” Dad explains. “That’s when we put our foot down. If she wanted to ruin her life with that leech, then so be it, but we weren’t standing by while a child was in there.”

“Why did she leave?”

“Tristan turned on her, and that was when Kath began to accept what had been right underneath her nose the whole time.”

“That he was never the ‘nice guy’, never the victim.”

“Exactly.”

I shouldn’t feel validated, and yet I do. She got a taste of what I endured for years, by the sounds of it. “Did he hit her?”

Dad groans. “As terrible as it sounds, I wish that was all he did.”

“He got fed up with Briar crying one night. Kath never admitted it, but I’m sure Tristan was on drugs at the time. He picked up Briar’s bassinet with him in it, and dumped it outside before locking the door with Kathinside.”

“What the hell did she do?”

“Fought him,” Dad says. “Kicked the bastard where he deserved it and managed to get outside to Briar.”

“She called us,” Mum says. “Carried that poor child five doors down to borrow their phone. We picked her up and brought them both home.”

“Your sister was covered in bruises, new and old. The things she told us … well,” Dad says on a sigh. “They don’t need repeating. Apparently her hard limit was Briar.”