My dad always read the same book to my son, Max.
Every Tuesday morning, like clockwork, ever since the diagnosis.

He called it “the Tuesday story.”
Said it calmed Max down. Said it helped “exercise his mind.”

But I never actually looked at the book. Not once.

Until today.

I walked in mid-sentence, catching the last words of a rhyme I knew all too well.

A rhyme from a restricted binder we found in my uncle’s basement—pages from group therapy sessions held in 1986 at Ridgeview Psychiatric. The year my dad disappeared for six months without explanation.

I froze.

The book in his hands didn’t have a title on the cover. Just thick cardboard pages and stickers covering something beneath.

Max giggled. He always giggles when he hears it.

But I wasn’t hearing a children’s story anymore.

I was hearing a confession.

I stepped closer.

The next few words felt like they pierced through the air. My stomach churned. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was unmistakable. The rhyme had come from a therapy group, words that my dad had spoken years ago, recorded for the others. The same words he’d used when he described his time in the hospital—words that had haunted our family for years.

“Uncle Frank,” my son giggled. “The one who makes funny faces.”

I blinked, my mind struggling to comprehend what was happening. Uncle Frank? But Uncle Frank had died when I was just a teenager.

Dad, with a slow turn of his head, saw me standing there, eyes wide. His voice wavered slightly, as if caught off guard by my presence. “I didn’t want you to know,” he muttered under his breath, quickly flipping the book shut and hiding it beneath his arm.

Max, oblivious to the sudden shift in the room, tilted his head. “Why are you looking so weird, Mommy?”

I didn’t answer him right away. My hands were shaking. What had I just heard?

“Mom?” Max asked again, his little voice pulling me back from the abyss.

I tried to focus. “I… I just need a moment, sweetie.”

I needed more than a moment. I needed to understand. I needed answers, and for once, I needed to confront my dad.

“What was that?” I managed, trying to sound calm. My voice didn’t betray me, but my heart was racing.

Dad cleared his throat, suddenly looking smaller than I’d ever seen him. “It’s nothing, really. Just a story I’ve read for years. You don’t need to worry about it.”

I stepped forward, my hands gripping the back of the chair he sat in. “No, Dad. It’s not nothing. That rhyme, I’ve heard it before. In the basement, in that binder.”

He looked away. I could see the muscles in his jaw tighten. He didn’t want to talk about it, I could tell.

But I needed to hear it, to understand it. “Dad, why are you reading that to Max? What’s going on?”

He let out a long sigh, his shoulders slumping. “It’s… complicated.”

“Complicated?” I repeated, my voice rising. “Dad, you disappeared for six months. No explanation. Then you came back, and you were different. What aren’t you telling me?”

His eyes flickered toward Max, who was now playing with his toy cars on the floor, completely unaware of the storm brewing between us.

“I never meant for you to find out like this,” he said, his voice rough. “I wasn’t supposed to go back to Ridgeview. But I did. They… they wanted me to face my past.”

I froze again. Ridgeview? I thought I had heard the last of that place.

“You never told me you went back there,” I said, voice barely above a whisper.

“I thought it was over,” he muttered, his hands trembling as he placed the book down on the table. “I thought if I left it behind, it would stay buried. But it never does. It never stays buried, Rachel.”

I was struggling to keep up. “Dad, please. Tell me what happened.”

He glanced at Max again. “Not now. Later. It’s… it’s too much to explain.”

“No,” I said firmly, the frustration growing within me. “Not later. Right now. I’m not going anywhere until you explain what this is all about.”

He sighed, rubbing his temples. After a long pause, he spoke, his voice trembling as he said words I never expected to hear.

“It wasn’t just therapy. It was… a deal. With your uncle Frank, and others. We all had to sign it, to promise that we’d never speak of what happened in that place.”

I felt my breath catch. “A deal? What deal?”

He closed his eyes for a long moment before speaking again. “It’s a long story. I’m not proud of it. It was a different time, and Ridgeview… it wasn’t what people thought it was. It wasn’t a place for healing. It was… it was a place where people got lost, Rachel. People like your uncle.”

My uncle? The same one who had died years ago? I didn’t understand.

“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling my throat tighten.

He hesitated, then looked me in the eye. “They didn’t just help people with mental illness. They experimented. They used therapy techniques that weren’t approved, not in the way they were supposed to be used. Frank—he wasn’t the only one.”

I took a step back, overwhelmed. “What are you saying?”

Dad’s voice lowered to a near whisper. “They used us. All of us. They used our pasts, our pain. And we signed papers, agreeing to never speak about it, because they didn’t want anyone to know. And then, when it was over, they erased our memories. But not all of them, Rachel. Not all of them.”

My mind spun. Memories of my childhood flashed through my head, all the years I’d spent trying to understand what happened to my dad, why he changed so suddenly.

“That’s why I disappeared for six months,” Dad continued. “That’s why I was different when I came back. I’d started to remember things, things that I wasn’t supposed to remember. And I couldn’t deal with it.”

I shook my head. “But why, Dad? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep all this from me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to hate me. I didn’t want you to think I was the same as them,” he said, tears beginning to form in his eyes. “I thought if I just buried it deep enough, if I kept you and Max away from it, everything would be fine.”

I stared at him, my heart aching for the man who had always been my rock. But I felt betrayed too, angry that he’d kept this from me.

“Is that why you’ve been reading this to Max?” I asked, voice trembling.

He nodded, shame washing over him. “I thought maybe if I passed on the story, it would help him. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It’s been a way to cope, Rachel. But I know now it wasn’t the right way.”

I felt a lump in my throat. How could he do this? How could he hide such a part of himself, of our family, from me?

“But now you know,” he said softly, “and I can’t change what’s happened. All I can do is ask for your forgiveness.”

The words hung in the air. I wanted to scream, to shout, to make him understand how much he had hurt me. But I didn’t. Instead, I just sat down beside him, my voice quiet.

“You don’t have to ask for forgiveness. You’ve been trying to protect us, even if it wasn’t in the right way. But we need to talk about this. We need to face it, together. For Max, for us.”

Dad nodded slowly, a tear rolling down his cheek. “I know. And I’m sorry, Rachel. I’m so sorry.”

And for the first time in years, I didn’t feel like the ground was slipping from beneath me. Maybe, just maybe, we could rebuild what had been broken.

The road ahead wasn’t going to be easy. But at least now we had a chance to walk it together.

Sometimes, it takes a painful truth to bring people closer.