Hanita watched as the look on her father's face changed and her brows furrowed. "You know him?" she asked as she stepped in closer to Deveron, looking deeply into his eyes. Hanita could feel anger and impatience stirring up from deep within her and she didn't know what to do with all the emotions that she was feeling at that moment.
"Father? Why are you silent? Answer me, please!"
"I knew him…" Deveron said at last. He turned around and walked away from his daughter's drilling gaze and moved towards the kitchen area.
Hanita followed closely. She was not about to let this go. She was not done with the conversation and Deveron was not going to escape answering the questions that she had. Not this time.
"Knew?!" she called. "I don't- make it make sense to be, Dad…"
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to explain to me how you knew the person that brutally beat on mother…I saw the scars on her back! I saw them! Did you? Have you?!" Hanita asked as she raked her fingers through her hair, at the same time knowing how stupid the question she'd just asked sounded. Deveron was her husband and of course, he'd seen the marks on Daliana's body. But how was it that he was so calm about it? That was what confused Hanita to her core.
"Did you have him arrested back then? What did you do to him, Dad?" Hanita said as she followed every move to escape that Deveron made, blocking him in his path.
"You have to answer me. Father… there is no way that I'm letting you off this hook."
"He left!" Deveron yelled, throwing his hands in the air. Rarely did he raise his voice at his children but this subject was touchy and delicate, even for him.
"Left?"
"Yes…He left after the main assault."
"Main?" Hanita asked with a scoff as she turned around, pivoting on her heel. "Main as in… there were other assaults?"
"The police was never called…" Deveron said sounding as if he'd been defeated.
"What?! Why?"
"I don't know… It's a really long and complicated story, Hanita…" Deveron stated. "We can't do this now."
"Then when are we gonna do it? Huh? When?" Hanita asked exasperatedly. "When she is in the operating room? When something bad happens to her? This man needs to pay for what he's done."
"Hanita…"
"What, Dad?!" she asked as her voice broke and cracked. Tears gathered in her eyes.
"I share your pain too…"
"Do you?"
"Don't, Hanita…" Deveron pleaded. He understood the pain that she was feeling. He'd felt it for years and carried it with him for longer.
"All those years ago-"
Hanita looked at her father. But the anger that was within her could not allow her to see the pain that he was in too. All she could feel was disappointment toward him as she felt that he didn't do enough to bring justice to her mother. Now, they were all going to suffer the consequences of that monster's action – all by themselves.
"Sh-She was in love with him, Hanita…" Deveron said as he walked out of the kitchen area and back to the sitting room.
His steps were slow and forced and it seemed to Hanita, for the first time ever, how old her father was getting. It had shown clearly when he moved as if he was carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders and around his ankles. He looked like he was in pain and that made Hanita blink several times. Yet, she shook her head, frowned, and followed him to the living room. She stood with her hands on her waist, in front of the chair that Deveron had sat on.
There was no way that Hanita could let the matter go. Growing up, she hated and detested anyone that picked on others – she hated and fought bullies in her high school and campaigned against any form of violence in her college. Only for her to learn that her mother had been a victim of such. Hanita could not wrap her head around the fact that her father seemed to have done nothing and the perpetrator was out there living his life and probably beating on another victim as they spoke.
"It wasn't her fault in any way…" Deveron continued. "But I'd told her… the times that we were opportune to be alone… just a few times, while she was still in that relationship… I'd told her to report to the authorities, but she had blatantly refused." Deveron set his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward and intertwined in fingers as his mind went back in time.
"She was pregnant for him already by the time the abuse started."
"Pregnant?!" Hanita yelled. She couldn't believe her ears.
"Yes…" Deveron replied. His fingers wrapped tightly around themselves, so much so that his knuckles began to turn white.
"Did she lose the baby?" Hanita asked.
With that, Deveron kept quiet. His hands went to his face in a praying position and rested in front of his mouth and nose.
Hanita was still clueless as to what was going on and why her father was silent. She was focused on what she was hearing and what Deveron was about to say. But he wasn't forthcoming. It was as if he'd shut down and could not proceed from where he's stopped in the conversation. That was when her brain started to do its work and her mind went into overdrive. She slowed down, dropped her hands, and took a few steps backward.
"Father?"
Deveron didn't respond to her. At this time, his eyes were closed and he was drawing in deep and long breaths.
"The child…" Hanita began as she cleared her throat to ease the tightening that was occurring there before she continued. "The child that mum was pregnant with… Therman's child…Is that child um…" she trailed off. "Is that child Carnise?"
Hanita's head went to the door as she heard it close with a slam.
"Who's Therman?" Carnise asked, standing in front of the door with a bag in her hand.