Nick yelled out the window, "I'm coming!"

"You'd better go," I told him. "You don't want to get in trouble."

We got out of the car and I opened the trunk again. Nick grabbed his bag out of the trunk and started to walk away from me. I slammed the trunk shut. At the sound of the trunk closing, Nick jolted back towards me. Before I could get back inside the car, Nick's arms were already around my neck. He was constricting me again.

"Please be careful!" he cried.

"Nick," I called out to him. "I'll be fine. I am coming to get you and Alison right after my doctor's appointment. Don't worry."

"I'll call Mom if you don't," he threatened as he pulled away.

"That's fair," I said. "I'll see you later."

Nick backed away from me. He walked backwards towards the entrance of the Recreation Center where Alison impatiently waited for him. I got back inside the car. After I closed the door and started up the car, I noticed Nick was still standing by the curb. Alison had left him behind. He looked worried and sad to see me go.

I was happy inside to know that he was free of that painful guilt that Jack had burdened us with. I saw Nick with true bravery written all over his mature and handsome face. Before I drove off, I pulled up beside him and told him that I loved him.

Nick smiled at me lovingly. His large, brown eyes were shining.

He said, "Kristen, you are my hero."

CHAPTER 61.

Dr. Pelchat seemed glad to see me. He greeted me with a jolly smile and a gripping handshake. When I was settled into a chair in his office, he began.

"Happy birthday, Kristen. Do you want some cake? I can have Geoffrey bring you a slice from the cafeteria."

I giggled and said, "No, thanks."

"Okay. How are you doing today?" he kindly asked.

"I'm here," I told him.

He responded, "What does that mean? Is that good or bad?"

"I guess a little bit of both. It's good that I'm here."

"Right, but what's bad about it?"

I pulled out the envelope that held the card from Jack, along with the twenty-dollar bill. Dr. Pelchat stayed quiet and waited for me to explain what it was. I took a deep breath, pulled the card out of the envelope, and reached out to give it to him. He took it out of my hand.

"What is this? A birthday card?"

"It's a birthday card from my ex-step-dad," I said.

"What does it say?"

"It doesn't say anything. It's a birthday card."

Dr. Pelchat studied the card. He smiled at the ill.u.s.trations and laughed a little. He turned the pages of the inserts until he got to the last one. His smile disappeared.

"It does say something. Did you read this?"

"No," I admitted. "I don't want to."

Dr. Pelchat reached out and put the card back in my hand.

"Read it," he said.

"I don't think that I can," I said as I felt the tears trying to form.

"You don't have to," he said. "But I encourage you to."

"Why? What will it accomplish? What's done is done. Right? I can't forgive him. I can't just accept this stupid card like it's going to make up for everything that happened. I can't!"

"Cope," he said.

"What?"

"Cope," he repeated. "What happened can't be changed. But you have to learn to cope. You have to face these things in order to cope. You can't keep doing what your mother has forced you to do all of these years. You can't push it to the back of your mind and hope that it will one day disappear. Pushing it back further until you break will ultimately cause your breakdown and can even cause physical anguish. Let's break you from the pattern you've gotten used to right now! Read it! Face it!"

"You want me to read it now?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed. "There's no better time!"

I opened the card to the last insert. I was taking to heart what Dr. Pelchat had said. I began to read aloud.

"'Dear Kristen, 'I'm sitting here thinking about how much you must have grown. I can't believe that you are already eighteen years old. It seems like time has pa.s.sed by, and now my baby girl is all grown up. Since you are an adult now, I expect you are going to be in college soon. Kristen, I am very sorry for what I did to our family.'"

Chunks of bile started to rise to my chest. It felt like I was going to throw up right there in Dr. Pelchat's office. Tears welled up in my eyes and already began to fall. I hadn't gotten finished reading, and I felt like I was going to lose what little control I had. I kept on reading even though my body felt like it couldn't take any more.

"'Now you are eighteen, and I have missed the most important events of your life. I wish that I could have been there for your all of your birthdays up until today. I wish that I could have been there to help you buy your first car and to teach you how to drive it. I wish I could have been there for your senior prom. And most importantly, I wish I could have been there for your first kiss. I am sorry that I wasn't there for all of those wonderful events that have come and gone.'"

I wanted to throw the card to the floor and stomp on it until it disappeared. But I held on to the card. There were only a few more sentences to go. I knew that Dr. Pelchat could see that I was upset. It was more than obvious, but he was counting on me to finish reading it.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened my eyes, more teardrops fell from my eyelashes. I continued reading through my cloudy vision.

"'I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart. I hope to see you at the parole hearing. I want to see my little girl. I love you. Your dad, Jack.'"

I couldn't resist it any longer. I threw the card to the floor and I kicked it. I buried my face in my hands and cried aloud. Dr. Pelchat let me cry and didn't say a word. He handed me a tissue when I finally raised my head. I blew my nose.

Dr. Pelchat said, "It's okay to cry. I know that this is upsetting. It is okay for you to be upset."

"Is it okay to hate him so much?" I asked.

"He did an awful thing to you and your family. It is natural to feel the way that you do," Dr. Pelchat a.s.sured me.

I felt that ent.i.ty creeping around me once again. It scared me.

"I don't want to see him," I told Dr. Pelchat. "I don't want to see him ever again!"

"Then you don't have to. It would be your choice to not go to that hearing."

"Mom is going, and she's making the twins go. What would it look like if I didn't go with them? Mom would be mad."

"Then let her be mad. I feel bad for your brother and sister because they have to do what she tells them to do, but you don't. You're a grown-up and you can make your own decisions."

"Yes, but what if he gets out? It's one thing for them to go the hearing, but what if he actually gets out of there and she wants to take him back? Can she do that?"

"Truthfully, yes. She can take him back."

"What?" I felt myself almost fall out of my chair from the shock.

"Yes, in truth, she can take her ex-husband back, but he would not be able to live with you. He would have to register as a s.e.x offender, and he wouldn't be able to come within a certain amount of yards from your little brother and sister and other kids. But, your mom could see him on her own time."

"What if she wants to marry him again?"

"I don't think that your mother would do that, Kristen." He seemed to be getting a little annoyed. He may not have been getting annoyed at me, but because of the situation. "You have to think rationally. Do you really think that she would do that to all her children?"

"I don't know," I said. I thought about it, and then answered again. "Probably not, but she's going to his hearing." I had to pause to try to breathe. "I have these dreams sometimes, and they feel too real. They are dreams of Mom and Jack being back together, and everyone is happy except me. I'm the only one who is still angry and hurt from what had happened, and everyone else has forgiven him. So I'm pushed out. Then there's the other dream..."

"What's the other dream?"

"I dream about when I caught Jack raping Nicholas. In that dream, I keep trying to kill Jack, but it ends up being too late. He gets away, or something else scary happens. I fail each time, just like I did before."

"How did you fail before?"

"I failed to save Nick. I failed to save us because I knew and I kept letting it happen. The first time I saw him hurting Nick, I just...I just...I ignored it...and I tried to tell myself that it wasn't really what I had seen, that I was just hallucinating or something. Deep down inside, I knew. How could I let that happen, Dr. Pelchat? How could I just..."

The more that I cried, the more wound up I felt. It didn't make me feel any better to cry. I was worse because I didn't even feel like I was crying for Nick. I was still crying for myself.

"I hate that he has this much control over me."

"Control?"

"Yes," I almost yelled at him. "I hate that all of those things he said in that card are still the things I long for. I hurt for him to be here, even though I know that it's too late. I can never have my Daddy back. You'd think I would have gotten over that by now."

"No one expects you to get over it," Dr. Pelchat said. "You have to cope with it, yes, but you do not have to get over it right now. Don't accept what he has done to you and your family, because it was evil. Never accept evil. What you do need to accept is that Jack does not control you. The only one that controls you is you. However, he can influence you. He can influence the way you think, the things you do, how you act. But don't let Jack have this much influence over you.

"Don't let him do it while he's behind bars, and especially when he is out of prison. You have to find that place within yourself that lets you cope with what has happened. That is the only way you are going to be able to control your emotions and your mind in order for you to feel safe. That's the only way you are going to survive."

"I don't know how," I said.

"You will learn when all of this begins to make sense to you. It takes a day at a time. And if you don't feel that you can take a whole day, then give yourself one minute at a time. Keep moving up to five minutes and then ten, an hour, twelve hours, until you've made it a whole day. Then try again tomorrow."

CHAPTER 62.

I left his office with those final words playing in my mind. It was hard, trying to survive. I still wanted to know what it meant to survive, and to learn what it would feel like to want to survive. After my individual therapy session with Dr. Pelchat that day, what was left inside of me was a dramatic feeling that I could not yet understand. This feeling haunted me as I made my way to the Recreation Center to pick up Nick and Alison.

The clock was keeping the time, but I was not keeping up with the time. It was ten minutes until three o'clock when I ran out of gas. I was turning onto the ramp that would take me to the Recreation Center. Mom had told me to be sure I was there at 3:00pm to pick them up.

Fortunately, there was a gas station only a few yards away from where the car gave out on me. I turned the engine off and waited a few seconds. I tried to start the car back up, but it wouldn't give in. Mom kept a canister in the trunk in case of an emergency. I would just have to walk to the gas station and leave the car on the side of the road between the ramp and the bridge to the highway that would bring me to Nick and Alison.

I remembered that Mom always kept spare change for gas in her glove compartment, so I reached over and opened it. As soon as it popped open, I reached in and scrambled around for change. The glove compartment was nearly empty except for a box of tissues, a few dimes and nickels, and a large white envelope that had been opened. I did not see any dollar bills, and the dimes and nickels only came up to fifty-five cents. Then I remembered the twenty dollars that Jack had given me. I figured I'd have to use that. I reached into my bag and pulled out the envelope that Jack had sent my birthday card and money in. When I looked at the envelope, I realized that it looked similar to the one that was in the glove compartment.

When I put them side by side, I noticed that the handwriting and return address were the same. The envelope from the glove compartment was addressed to Mom, and there was a letter inside of it. There was a familiar, whispering voice telling me to open it. I listened to him.

The envelope had already been opened and read by Mom. That much I could tell, but I couldn't really bring myself not to snoop so easily. I ignored the sounds of traffic, the pa.s.sing cars, the thunder, and the rain that began to fall. Fear crept up inside of me as I stared and hesitated. The feeling inside scared me. Everything that Dr. Pelchat had said to me sent mixed emotions through me. If I read it, then I could know for sure what really could happen. I could know what Mom's intentions were for going to the hearing and what Jack's intentions were for wanting her to come.

As I opened the envelope, a large tractor-trailer pa.s.sed by me to get onto the bridge to the highway. I felt the car shake, but I ignored it while I unfolded the paper.

I began to read: Dear Love, I know that I made many mistakes. One mistake was letting my family go. I've hurt all of you in the worst possible way. When I was a child, I would always say that I would never hurt my family the way that my father hurt us, and it turned out that I did exactly what he did to me and Jonathan. What I did was wrong and I admit it. There's nothing I can do to take it back even though I wish I had a time machine to go back and make it right. I can't. But I can make it up to you and eventually make it up to the children.

If you would please come to my parole hearing and bring Nicholas, Alison, and Kristen, then you will see. I won't be able to get close to Nick and Alison yet, but I do want them to see me. I've changed. G.o.d had showed me that this is my second chance. This is my chance to make it up to Him and my family. Finding G.o.d has really opened my eyes to see the wrong I've done and what I must do to make it right.

If you would give me that chance to make it right then I will. When I get out on parole I would like to see you. But before then I will need you and the kids there at the courthouse supporting me. And when I get out I promise I will support you. It will take a while for me to be able to be around our children again, but G.o.d will work all of that out. Please be there. I need all of you. I love you and miss you.

Jack There was nothing I could do to stop the metal ball from turning in my chest. The ball tore through my lungs and made it hard to breathe again. Tears were falling from my eyes. How dare he? How could he think that he had the right? The audacity! Mom was going to go to his parole hearing, but was she going to be there for him to give him hope? I did not know. What I did know was that I was scared, and I didn't know what I could do to make it not happen. I balled up the letter and threw it to the floor angrily.

The scariest part that remained in my mind was how he really thought that G.o.d had given him a second chance. Was G.o.d really going to let the Devil back into Heaven so easily? Is that how it worked? You take a life and ruin others, and then say a prayer and you're forgiven? Would Jack be so easily accepted?

If Mom was going to him, then it must have been so...

Coldness seeped inside the cracks of the windows. Rain began to splat heavily on the car. I heard the drops beating down on the rooftop. The air became so frigid that little chill b.u.mps began to form above my elbows. I rubbed my arms to warm them from the cold air on my skin. I rubbed as if I could just wipe it all away. It was no use, because my hands were cold, too. I stuck them in my pockets. When I reached in deep with my right hand, I felt a sharp p.r.i.c.k on my finger. I shoved my hand in deeper, and the pain pierced me.

I opened my eyes wider as I let it poke into my finger deeper. I twisted my finger on the sharp, painful object and looked over to the pa.s.senger side. That's when I saw him. He was drenched from the rain and shivering uncontrollably. His hair covered his face so that I couldn't see his eyes.

From under his strands of hair, I could see his lips shivering and his teeth chattering. He hugged himself tightly and bunched his knees to his chest.

"I didn't hear you come in," I told Mr. Sharp.

He wouldn't look up at me.

"Are you afraid?" I asked him.

He didn't answer.