My Mom Removed My Bedroom Door So Her New Boyfriend Could “Monitor” Me. She Said I Was Making Up Lies About Him. Then I Found My Father’s Secret Journal Hidden In The Attic.

A New Life

Dad and I went to his favorite restaurant after, the little Mexican place that still had his picture on the wall from when he was a regular. The owner hugged him and said the meal was on the house. We ate in comfortable silence, both exhausted but relieved.

It was over. Really over. Brandon would die in prison and we could start rebuilding.

Mom tried to come to the house the next week. Dad wouldn’t let her in, talked to her through the screen door. She wanted to apologize again, wanted to try family counseling.

Dad said no. That ship had failed. She needed to move on and so did we. She cried and begged but dad stood firm.

I watched from the stairs feeling nothing. She’d made her choice and now she had to live with it. I started seeing a therapist too.

Some lady named Doctor Cheryl who specialized in trauma. She helped me process everything. Taught me it wasn’t my fault that I’d been incredibly brave.

Some days I believed her, some days I didn’t. But slowly the nightmares stopped. I stopped checking locks obsessively, stopped flinching when men walked behind me. Progress came in small steps.

Dad and I developed new routines. Sunday breakfast at the diner. Wednesday movie nights. Helping Uncle Henry with projects on Saturdays. We talked more than we ever had before about everything.

School, friends, the future. He helped me with homework even though math wasn’t his strong suit. He came to every school event cheering too loud at my mediocre clarinet performances.

We were learning how to be a family again, just the two of us. 6 months after the trial Dad met someone. Caroline, the bartender who testified, started coming around.

First just as a friend, then something more. She made dad laugh. Real laughs, not the forced ones he’d been doing. I liked her.

She didn’t try to be my mom, just treated me like a person. She’d bring takeout and we’d watch bad movies making fun of the plot holes. Dad smiled more when she was around.

Mom eventually stopped trying to contact us. I heard from Ashley’s mom that she’d moved to another state, starting fresh where nobody knew her story. Part of me hoped she’d find peace.

Part of me didn’t care. She’d been so easily fooled, so quick to replace dad. Maybe Brandon had seen that weakness in her from the start. Maybe that’s why he’d picked our family to destroy.

A year after everything Dad got a settlement from the state for wrongful imprisonment. Not millions, but enough to pay off the house and put money away for my college. He bought a new truck, took a vacation to the mountains, finally started living again.

He kept working construction though. Said he liked the honesty of it. You either built something right or you didn’t. No room for lies or manipulation.

I turned 15 that spring. Dad threw me a big party, probably overcompensating for the birthdays he’d missed. Uncle Henry’s family came. Caroline was there.

Even some kids from school showed up. We had a bounce house which was ridiculous for teenagers but nobody complained. Dad grilled burgers and told embarrassing stories about when I was little.

For a few hours we felt like a normal family having a normal party. That night after everyone left Dad and I cleaned up the yard in comfortable silence. He thanked me for believing in him, for never giving up.

I told him I always knew he was innocent, that he wasn’t capable of hurting anyone. He hugged me tight and said I’d saved his life. We both cried a little but it was the good kind of tears, the healing kind.