Breaking Bonds
“He knew, Mom. He’s known forever and it is what makes the things he’s done so much worse. He’s been in the room when you’ve removed my top from me and left me in a bra to whip me across the bag at his command.”
Zipporah shot a worried glance at Chester at Zorah’s accusation. “It was for your own good, Zorah.”
“You whipped my child with a flogger, Zipporah. Do you have any idea how much I want to do the same thing to you? Do you know how much I would love to beat you until your skin forms the same scars my daughter has?”
Zorah shot Chester a curious look but turned her attention back to her mother, “did he ever strike any other child of the church?”
“No.”
“Did he ever watch over the beatings parents put on their children?”
“No.”
“Did he ever encourage a mother of any other child to remove her daughter’s shirt so the cotton wouldn’t soak with blood?”
Her mother shook her head, her hair falling around her face while her shoulder shook with her weeping.
“When you went on retreats with the nuns to the convent, did any other parent leave their daughter behind to serve him?”
Her mother’s sobs filled the interior of the car.
“Did any other parent’s daughter cook, clean and serve the priest of our parish and if she made one mistake, did any other daughter of the church lift her dress and remove her undergarments, forced to lay on a pillow on Father Giannone’s lap,” Zorah choked on the memory, “to have her bottom paddled with the same paddle her mother used on her?”
“Zorah!” her mother cried into her palms. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t want to!” Zorah screamed back. “You didn’t want to know because it put you in his path and you were too much of a damn coward to stand up to him. All along he knew I was not his blood relative and instead of highlighting this fact to the nuns and letting them know it was inappropriate for him to have been left alone with me with no supervision, he let it ride. He then put his hands on me. Mom, he drugged me.”
Zipporah looked at her, eyes red and wide in horror. “No. He wouldn’t.”
“But he did.” She held her hand out to Chester, “the photo please.”
“A photo?”
“I don’t remember this being taken. It was provided to me. My family is furious with you for allowing this to happen. Mom, how could you not know your own child was suffering the effects of a hangover from being medicated.” She put the phone in her mother’s hands, watching as the device bounced from the shuddering of the other woman. Good. She deserved to be shaking as hard as she was. “Take a good look Mom. He’s shirtless. I’m in a bra. I would have been a teen there in high school. See my hair, the length of it and remember how I cut it?”
“I didn’t know.”
Zorah ripped the phone from her and passed it back to Chester. “You didn’t know, or you didn’t care? If he was messing around with me, he was leaving you alone, right? It’s why you loved going with the nuns to the retreats even though they all hate you. If he was focused on me, you could do the things you wanted. If he was sitting in the church listening to me sing, you could go about your own business, and he left you. You used me as a distraction. If I made the smallest of mistakes, you would beat me, and he would revel in my tears. He does love when I cry. Remember when my hair was long, and he made me wash his feet with my tears after you beat me so bad I couldn’t sit for weeks? He said it was very Jesus like for me to serve him by washing his feet with my tears and hair. If my memory serves me right, I was in ninth grade then and you stood there and watched while it happened.”
Chester’s curses blazed in Zorah’s ears.
“Why, Zipporah? Why did you give her a life of abuse when you knew my father and I would have given her a life of love? Look at what you’ve done. Look at your daughter and see the pain she is in because of what you’ve done. How is she supposed to trust and love when the people who were supposed to love and protect her most failed her?”
“Because she was the reason I was allowed to stay!” Zipporah admitted with a yell. “If I gave her up, then I lost my right to stay with my family and I’d have to fend for myself. My inheritance is completely tied up in Zorah. I had nowhere to go and no way to make a life for myself.”
“You’re still a selfish bitch. You haven’t changed in all this time,” Chester snarled furiously. “Oh, you should know, my friends know about the married man you’re screwing. His wife is being notified right now.”
“No!”
“Yes,” Chester smirked. “You kept my daughter from me for the sole purpose of keeping your greedy grubby mitts on money meant for you to support her. Instead, you used her as a scapegoat, he used her as a sexual idol, and he also stole all the money the Lucchesi family sent for Zorah’s care.”
“What money?” Zipporah’s eyes narrowed at the comment.
“Dagoberto Lucchesi was providing for me from the time I was betrothed to Icaro.” Zorah said simply. “Father Giannone was put in charge of the money which was coming in once your father passed away. From what I understand, there was millions of dollars over twenty-two years which was deposited to an account for Ippocrate to ensure I was given the life of a pampered princess. I was supposed to go to private school, a good college, have lots of nice clothes and a good life. Instead, he kept all the money and made you and I live like paupers. He really is a horrible person all the way around.”
“Millions?” Zipporah was gasping for breath.
“We’re done, Mom.” Zorah pointed out the car was stopped. “This is where our relationship ends. I will be talking to a lawyer next week to find out how to get my money back from Ippocrate Giannone and Chester is hoping we can do so through suing him and the church for the years of abuse he’s put me through. I’m going to bring him down and I’m going to get my money back.” She stared hard at her mother, “and you won’t be given a single penny of it. Now get out. We’re done. I have my family now and I don’t need you.”
“Zorah!” Zipporah reached for her but found herself dragged backwards from the car and tossed to the ground.
Zorah tried to pretend it didn’t hurt to hear her mother screaming her name as they drove away, but it was too much, and she curled into her father’s arms and wept.
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