My Dad Argued the Fake Daughter Innocent, So I Cut Ties

Bonnie Simmons's gambling-addict father beat me until my bladder ruptured, and now I could leak urine at any moment.

My mother said, At least it isn't life-threatening. Rest a while and you'll be fine.

My father handed me a letter of forgiveness. Sign it. Bonnie can't have a biological father with a criminal record.

I refused. I insisted on pressing charges.

The fake heiress cried like her heart was breaking.

My mother counseled her through it. My father helped her gather evidence for the trial.

They were my biological parents, and they never once took my side.

I asked them why.

My mother wiped Bonnie's tears while she answered.

"Bonnie didn't do it on purpose. She had no idea her biological father was a violent maniac!"

My father tried to reason with me, all patience and weight.

"Enough of this, Gertie."

"If you think about it, this whole mess is your own fault!"

"You're the one who provoked his brutality!"

I stood there completely dumbstruck.

I almost wondered if I was hallucinating.

But my father's eyes were mocking, his expression light and untroubled.

That was proof enough that he'd really said it.

"Blaming the victim? Are you even my father?"

"The paternity test back then must've been faked. There's no way I'm your real daughter!"

A thin film of tears blurred my eyes as I stared hard at my father's refined, scholarly face, searching for any crack in it.

He set down the papers in his hand, walked over to me, and said with complete seriousness,

"Gertie, calm down!"

"A paternity test cannot be wrong!"

"Look at you right now. You're like a dog provoked into a frenzy, snapping at anyone within reach."

My mother rose from the sofa too, nodding in agreement.

"We understand how you feel."

"But what good does putting Eugene Whitney away actually do?"

"Will it make you spry and lively like before?"

"You just have to wear a colostomy bag. It's not like you're dying!"

Beside her, the fake heiress, Bonnie, looked at me with reddened eyes, pitiful and fragile.

"Gertie, yes, my biological father did this, but it has nothing to do with me. I'm a victim too. Why do you insist on holding me responsible for what he did?"

"Just because I have a father like that, does that mean I deserve to be bullied?"

The tears fell, clear and glistening, the moment she willed them.

As if she were the one who'd been beaten half to death.

My mother quickly sat back down and pulled her into her arms. "Don't worry. With your father and me here, no one will ever bully you!"

My father gave me a warning look. "If you're going to say Bonnie was in on it with Eugene Whitney, you'd better produce evidence. Otherwise I will defend Bonnie to the very end!"

My heart felt cold, like it had been soaking in ice water.

They knew I had no evidence.

Because before all of this, Bonnie had played the gentle, thoughtful older sister, doting on me at every turn.

She gave me her room. She took me out for good food. When people at school talked behind my back, she was the first to stand up for me.

The unease, the anxiety, the guardedness I'd carried home with me had all slowly settled under her comfort.

Until the day she suddenly called me. On the phone, she screamed in terror,

"Gertie, help me!"

"Dad"

I panicked.

I knew exactly what Eugene Whitney was like when he'd lost money or been drinking.

So I rushed over, calling the police on the way.

By the time they arrived, Bonnie was safe. I wasn't.

I lay collapsed on the floor like a fish gasping in a dried-up pond, half dead.

And Bonnie was huddled in the corner, smiling to herself.

The next day I went to school to ask for leave.

Bryan Stephens caught my arm in the hallway.

"Where have you been these past few days? Why do you look so awful?"

Bryan was my childhood sweetheart, my boyfriend, good-looking, top of the class, gentle with everyone.

He'd transferred to this school just to be with me.

We'd promised each other we'd start a business together after graduation, work hard together, save up, and get married.

I opened my mouth, about to tell him what Eugene had done.

Just then Bonnie stepped in front of me, holding a document envelope.

Her head was bowed, her eyes swollen up like walnuts, obviously from crying hard.

"Gertie, I'm so sorry!"

"But I swear I had nothing to do with you being beaten so badly you might leak urine at any moment!"

It was between classes, and the hallway was full of people.

The words sounded like an apology, but really they turned every eye toward me.

People started glancing my way.

Even Bryan was staring at me in disbelief.

"Gertie, you got beaten up?"

Bonnie asked,

"Gertie, you still haven't told Bryan?"

Then she clapped a hand over her mouth in fake surprise.

"Oh no, this is all my fault. Something like this basically counts as a lifelong disability. Of course you'd want to hide it from Bryan. What do I do, I've gone and let it slip!"

She held out the envelope again.

"This is the defense material Dad put together for me. It's enough to prove I had nothing to do with this. So can you please stop taking it out on me?"

Whispers rose up around us.

"God, she got beaten so badly she might leak urine anytime?"

"Probably her own fault, right? Even her own dad won't stand by her!"

"Tsk, tsk, is her boyfriend still going to stick with her?"

"Didn't you hear she wanted to hide it from her boyfriend? Poor guy, he almost got tricked into marrying her!"

""

Every spiteful guess pricked into my ears like needles.

I looked at the smug face in front of me and couldn't help demanding,

"Why do you hate me this much?"

"That day, if you hadn't called me crying for help, I never would have gone to Eugene's rental apartment!"

"You were standing right there watching the whole time, and you did nothing to stop it!"

Bonnie put on an innocent face.

"Eugene's a drunk. He was wasted that day, I I was terrified too!"

"Gertie, I know I wronged you, but that doesn't make me guilty, does it? Fine, I deserve it, I deserve it, hit me then!"

With that she grabbed my hand and pretended to swing it at her own face.

"Smack!"

I put the strength into my wrist.

A crisp slap landed square on her cheek.

She wasn't willing to really do it, so I did.

Her head snapped to the side, and five clear finger marks bloomed across her pale cheek.

Her face went blank. She hadn't expected me to actually hit hard in front of all these people.

But she recovered fast, tears pouring down like they cost nothing, still clutching my hand.

"Yes, that's it, hit me!"

"If hitting me makes you feel better, then go ahead, hit me hard!"

"Enough!"

In the middle of the chaos, Bryan stepped forward.

He pulled Bonnie behind him and cupped my face, aching with concern.

"Gertie, don't worry. Even if your parents won't stand by you, I'm on your side!"

"But don't blame Bonnie either. She's a victim too!"

In that moment, I froze.

The air around me felt thick, like stagnant water, and my breath caught in it.

My face had gone dead white from the lack of oxygen.

Bryan noticed none of it. He kept talking, kept trying to reason with me.

"Eugene does kickboxing. In a situation like that, nobody would dare go up against him head-on. Even if I'd been there, it would've been the same!"

"Bonnie's just a girl. She can't even lift anything. What did you expect her to do for you?"

"The evidence your dad gathered is already enough to prove Bonnie's innocent!"

"If you have to blame something, blame your bad luck!"

"Don't worry. From now on I'll take care of you a thousand times, ten thousand times better!"

As he said it, he moved to pull me into his arms.

But I saw it clearly, the disgust buried deep in his eyes.

Something twisted in my chest, and I stepped back on instinct, out of his reach.

"There's no need."

Then, without another word, I turned and walked away.

I took my leave slip and walked out of the office, but at the turn of the stairwell I heard Bonnie's voice.

"Bryan, you're so good to Gertie. Do you really not care that she'll need treatment for the rest of her life?"

Bryan sounded oddly irritated.

"It'd be a lie to say I don't care. But right now, I don't want to set her off any more, or she'll only cling harder to blaming you!"

"So you're doing this for me?"

Bryan hesitated.

"...Of course not. I just think, if even her own dad can side with you, then you're probably really innocent!"

"I like Gertie. We promised to be together for the rest of our lives. I'm going to earn a lot of money to pay for her treatment!"

I stepped out from around the corner and walked straight up to the two of them.

Bryan panicked instantly.

"Gertie..."

He reached for my arm. I dodged.

"Don't put yourself through all this trouble."

"Let's break up."

The words landed, and I went straight down the stairs and out the school gate.

I didn't go home. I went to the law firm to see my attorney.

He told me, "There's no way Eugene's avoiding prison. But if you want Bonnie held liable too, you'll need to go back over every detail of what happened that day, so I can gather evidence."

So I forced down the fear buried deep inside me and went back over that day again and again, then told him everything.

It was like tearing open a wound that had just scabbed over, again and again, to show someone else.

By evening, I finally walked out of the firm, drained to the point of collapse.

A dog darting out from the roadside was enough to stop my breath cold.

Maybe it was the heat. My stomach began to churn, and a dull ache spread through my belly.

I hunched over a trash can on the curb and threw up hard.

Only when there was nothing left did I go wait for the bus.

"Sweetie, why is your face so white?"

"Oh no, you... you're bleeding!"

The woman waiting at the stop with me suddenly cried out.

But I'd already lost consciousness, my whole body toppling straight backward.

She caught me, and a crowd gathered around us.

The ambulance came fast, and I was rushed to the hospital.

"Trauma-induced corpus luteum rupture, abnormal uterine bleeding. Young lady, have you been attacked recently? Did someone deliberately strike your abdomen?"

The doctor asked once the exam was done.

I said nothing, my face white.

Yes. That day, Eugene had kicked me in the stomach, over and over.

The doctor wrote up my admission form. "Call a family member to come stay with you. You have to be admitted for treatment, otherwise if it leaves lasting damage, it could affect your fertility!"

So it turned out that after a violent beating, beyond the visible injuries, there was this kind of serious hidden harm to the body too.

Too bad no one had ever told me.

Even my mother, an OB-GYN herself, hadn't said a single word about it in front of me.

After I was brought in, they hadn't even given me a single gynecological exam!

I picked up my phone and scrolled through the whole contact list, and still didn't know who I could call.

"Doctor, I don't have any family."

"What about your parents?"

"They don't want me anymore."

The doctor paused. "Then let me arrange a caregiver for you."

Eight o'clock at night. I wasn't home. My phone didn't ring.

At ten, my mother sent me a text.

"Where are you? Out this late? Aren't you afraid you'll run into the same kind of danger as last time?"

I texted back.

"I'm at the hospital."

Half an hour later she asked,

"Are you back yet?"

I fell asleep.

No more messages.

No call, either.

By the time I made it home, three days had passed.

Bonnie had her period. She was curled up on the couch looking wan and drained, and my mother was in the kitchen making her warm honey water.

My father was in the study, burning the midnight oil to gather more evidence for her, ready for the trial three days out.

"You can't let yourself get cold during your period. Drink plenty of honey water, eat nourishing food. That way your womb won't run cold, and later when you're married, it'll be easier to get pregnant."

My mother carried the honey water over and put it in Bonnie's hands, then tucked a hot water bottle against her lower belly, fussing over her the whole time.

I stood in the doorway, watching.

Thinking about my own first period, when someone had once looked after me with that same care.

She was my adoptive mother.

She'd taken more than half of Eugene Whitney's beatings for me.

Then she ran.

She didn't take me with her.

I don't blame her.

She said she'd come back for me once she could.

But it had been six years, and she'd never come back once.

The trial came, and my body still hadn't healed.

I insisted on being there anyway.

The hearing ran four hours, and I sat bolt upright the whole time.

I wanted to use the weapon of the law to put every guilty person behind bars.

So I worked with my lawyer and laid out all the evidence.

But from the defense table, my father, sharp-tongued and unhurried, struck every piece of it down.

The man who should have held an umbrella over me kept stabbing at me with the weapon he knew best.

"In summary, my client did have a duty to render aid to the plaintiff, but no crime was committed, and he should not be sentenced."

At the defense table, Bonnie curled her lips at me and flashed a victorious smile.

The judge told me to give my closing statement.

I stood up and spoke slowly.

"It was the defense's party who called me and sent me to Eugene Whitney's rented apartment."

My father explained, "My client was only calling out for help when she was in danger."

I said again, "But when I got there, she was standing there perfectly fine, talking with Eugene Whitney."

My father sighed. "By then the danger had already passed."

I felt myself sinking. "When Eugene Whitney was beating me, she had every chance to get out and call for help."

My father looked into my eyes, his expression full of pity.

"She didn't dare move. If she'd moved, Eugene Whitney would have dropped you at once and gone after her. Then she'd have been the victim."

Wonderful.

Not a single gap in his rebuttal.

The judge's gavel came down. Eugene Whitney got ten years. Bonnie walked free.

I sank back down onto the plaintiff's seat.

I walked out through the courthouse doors.

Passing by me, Bonnie said in a low voice,

"Gertie, now you finally believe I'm innocent, don't you?"

"Mom says you didn't lose your little life!"

"Dad says you stirred up the animal in Eugene Whitney!"

"Bryan says you just have bad luck!"

"I think they're all right. What do you think?"

A taunt.

A bare, naked taunt.

My mother said, "All right, it's all in the past. From now on you two should get along like sisters again."

My father said, "Gertie, the court would never hand down a wrong verdict. It was you who didn't know what was good for you."

And right then.

Eighteen Rolls-Royces pulled up in a single line outside the courthouse.

Bodyguards in matching uniforms stepped out all at once.

One of them opened the door of the lead car and held an umbrella over a wealthy woman dressed head to toe in designer labels.

She stepped out and took off her sunglasses, revealing the face of my adoptive mother, gone for six years.