Forty minutes after Meadow left Forrest and his dogs by the lake, she pulled up to her parent's place in Britta's ancient silver Volkswagon Golf. The woman had lent her the car without question and Meadow wasted no time grabbing the keys and jumping in. She was afraid to confront her father, but she was desperate to get the truth before her courage ran out.

It was just after one in the afternoon. The yard and house were deserted. Her mother was in town visiting a couple girlfriends, which she had a standing date with every Friday at noon for lunch and an afternoon of cards. Given the hour, he father and Eddie had probably just finished up their afternoon meal and had already headed back to the wood lot. No doubt, Taffy was with them.

Meadow let out a huge sigh of relief, turned the car off and pocketed the keys. It was just as well she arrived after the dinner hour because suddenly, here on her father's home turf, she felt like she might need the extra time to figure out how she was going to approach him about Eddie without setting him off.  She definitely needed a strategy.

After slipping out of the car, Meadow got quite the fright when she looked up and saw her father standing in the front door observing her. He held the screen door wide open, but Meadow couldn't make out his expression because he was squinting in the sun. From where she stood, she couldn't decipher whether he was surprised or expecting her. Had Forrest called him and warned him that she was coming? Meadow, felt betrayed all over again.

But that theory flew out the window when he asked, "What are you doing here?" And, before she could reply he came out with, "Your mother is gone for the afternoon."

Meadow nodded and walked up the steps slowly and purposefully buying herself a little time. If he'd known why she was there, he would have confronted her even before she'd gotten half way up the stairs. So, she still had a little time to think - to stall.

"Do you have a few minutes Dad? I've got something important I'd like to talk to you about. It wont take long," she told him as his face went hard and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"You want to talk about quitting your job?" he asked though he already knew the answer. When she didn't respond in any way, he just finished by saying, "Eddie's waiting for me, so make it quick."

Licking her dry lips and swallowing the anxiety lodged in her throat, Meadow followed him back into the house. He walked through to the kitchen and stood by the partially open sliding glass doors with one hand on the door itself, ready to slip out at any moment. She realized he wasn't kidding when he told her to 'make it quick'. He wasn't interested in a heart to heart with her. He just wanted to hear her news and get going - back to the all important secret son, Eddie. 

"Is Eddie up on the wood lot right now?" she asked. The conversation might get really tense if he were just out in the back yard waiting for her dad - their dad, she corrected herself.

"Yes," he replied. "I had to run back down for my hat. Forgot it," he explained to her as he waved the the old ratty, sweat stained ball cap it in the air. "I was just going out the back door when I heard a car pull up the driveway. Knew it wasn't your mother's. So I came to investigate."

Meadow nodded with understanding. He'd only come to the door to see if anyone important had rolled up the driveway. She was relieved that Forrest had not called him and warned him. She still had the element of surprise, which she hoped would work in her favour.

Not wanting to waste any more time she simply said, "I'll get right to the point then Dad. I understand Eddie is your son."

Her father wasn't expecting this news if his face was any indication. His eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. And, he didn't say a single thing. He didn't deny it and he didn't curse or tell her off. He was indeed in a momentary state of shock.

Before he could recover, Meadow asked the tough question, "Why didn't you tell me? You told Mom and the boys, but not me." There was a hint of accusation in her voice, even though she tried to sound neutral. "I sat here in this kitchen and ate with him and you didn't say a thing. Why?" Her voice was shaking, but she kept telling herself to keep her cool or her father would shut her down before she got any answers.

His face turned dark with rage. "Who told you?" he demanded as he stepped closer to her and towered over her.

Meadow shrugged a shoulder and blithely replied, "Does it matter?"

"It's nobody's business, but the family's," he spat at her. "No one should have been blabbing to you or anyone else about it," he said while practically brimming with anger.

Meadow felt like she'd been hit in the stomach with a bowling ball. Wasn't she family? Wasn't she his daughter? His only daughter? All at once she felt nauseous and it was difficult to breath. She sank down into a kitchen chair, a little afraid her legs might begin to shake and show just how much his words had hurt her. Otherwise though, she tried to power through and keep on track.

Pressing on, she boldly pointed out, "Eddie is my half brother. Of course he's my business, just like he is Forrest's and River's. Shouldn't I know about him? And be given the same chance as Forrest and River to meet him?"

Meadow tried to sound logical and reasonable. If she came across as emotional or whiny, he would have a fit. He couldn't abide anyone who cried, unless they were physically injured. And he detested a person who complained about their lot in life. She needed to remain calm no matter how her heart was breaking at his refusal to accept her as family.

Her father scrutinized her for a moment. "You still working with those werewolves?" he asked in a cold and derisive tone that cut Meadow to the core.

She nodded her head in response. 

"As long as you work with them, nothing that goes on here is any of your business. And I'll thank you to keep your mouth shut about Eddie while you are in town and when you get back to the city too," he order in a callous and dismissive timbre.

And that was it. That was the end of the discussion. She could hear it in his voice. He was done talking about it. And he wasn't going to explain a thing to her because it was none of her business. As far as he was concerned, she wasn't family.

Even though she knew this was the direction things had been heading between them for a long time, part of her always hoped he'd mellow out and come around. But clearly, she'd just been deluding herself. He was determined to force her to choose him over her a career with lycanthropes. If she chose him, he'd let her in on all the family secrets and introduce her to Eddie properly. But, if she remained stubborn and stayed with the Bureau, he was content to sever ties with her.

Meadow hated ultimatums. Especially, murky, undefined ones that were not spelled out but only implied. It triggered all her pent up anger, resentment, and indignation. She hadn't done anything in her life to deserve to be treated this way by her father, to be cast off, to be excluded from the family. She was the victim here, and not the cause of all his troubles. He had no right to talk down to her like this and treat her so abominably.

That same anger also gave her clarity. This man had cut her out of his life a long time ago, and he'd been persistently pushing her out of the family since she'd become a legal adult. He didn't want her in his life. He was never going to share Eddie with her. And he was going to push and push and push until her mother and brothers were forced to exclude her from every aspect of their lives just to keep the peace at home - to keep Niko Rask happy.

That last revelation freed her. The tightness in her chest dissolved and a weight on her shoulders was lifted. She could breath again and she could stand, albeit on wobbly legs, and face her father without bursting into tears. It wasn't peace of mind that steeled over her. It was a cold kind of quiet assurance that she was done fighting for him, for a relationship with him, for a place in his heart, and a place in this family.

Meadow looked up into his self-righteous face and simply said with great calm, "Understood."

She could see in his brown eyes that he was not satisfied with her response at all. Perhaps, he'd be happier if she broke down in tears and ran out of the house crying inconsolably. It was hard to tell. But Meadow was done crying over him.

"You'd better get going Dad. Eddie's going to wonder what happened to you," she suggested as she gave him an empty half smile.

Then, without another word, she turned on her heel, as if they'd just had the most ordinary conversation, and walked calmly out of the room. She left her father to watch her disappear up the stairs. He could storm after her if he wanted to get in the last word, but she knew he wouldn't. He'd more likely stomp his way out of the kitchen and slam the sliding glass door closed. Showing her that he was still angry with her and whomever had told her about Eddie.  

Meadow didn't wait to hear him bang the door shut. Instead, she drifted up the stairs and slipped down the hallway to her parent's bedroom, which had a view of the backyard and the horse barn. She pulled the sheer curtains back and watched her father tear across the yard, jump on his four-wheeler and peal off up the dirt trail to the wood lot. He was mad alright. She smiled to herself, mildly amused to have gotten under his skin this time.

Meadow stayed there, at her parent's window, looking out over the yard for several more minutes. She was expecting the tears to come the moment her father disappeared out of sight. She anticipated crumbling to the floor in a heap of heartbroken sobs. And she foresaw herself embarking on a complete break-down at any moment. But nothing happened.

She didn't feel a thing - no anger, no resentment, no bitterness, no heartache, no grief, no despair. Where had all her feelings, good and bad, gone? Closing her eyes, trying to take inventory, she felt almost detached from her current circumstances, like this drama was unfolding beside her and around her but not to her.

The closest thing she could relate it to was a dream state where a person is both the subject of the dream and the observer. And when bad things happen in the dream, the person is suddenly snatched from a first-person perspective and finds themselves on the periphery watching everything unfold.  She definitely felt like she was on the perimeter of her feelings. They were there, but she just wasn't close enough to access them.

However, one crazy thought kept rolling around in her head as she surveyed the back yard and spotted her father's burn barrel, which was situated at the far edge of the lawn. She was going to give the family, her Dad in particular, just what they wanted. She was going to walk away from every last one of them and she was not going to look back. But, she was going to do it on her terms.

Staying was not an option. Even if she learned to forgive them somewhere down the line, nothing was going to change. Her father refused to accept her as long as she worked with lycanthropes, and the rest of the family would continue to cater to him in every way regardless of how their actions impacted Meadow. And, she was never going to be able to trust them again - not her own mother or her brothers - because she knew, first hand, that they would lie through their teeth to keep Niko Rask happy.

But, here was  the really crazy thought, what if she purged her very existence from the family? What if she erased every last trace of her from the family home, where she and the boys had grown up? What if she burned every gift she'd ever given, every trinket she left behind since she moved away from home, every picture of her lying around the house, and any other kind of sign that she was once a part of this family? What if she set all their memories of Meadow Rask a flame in her father's burn barrel?

Meadow chuckled to herself. Maybe she was having a break with reality and she didn't recognize it because she wasn't a hysterical mess.

At any rate, wasn't burning sh*t part of a bad break-up. Didn't the person who got dumped burn everything that reminded them of the one who'd left them? Instead of leaving the task of burning everything to her mother and the boys, Meadow would be gracious and do it for them. She would burn every last sign she'd ever been one of them. It would be her parting gift to the Rask family - to Eddie, who had already taken her place in the family psyche.

Meadow pulled out her phone from her back pocket. It was only half past one. That gave her three and a half hours to remove and burn every trace of her from the family home before her mother got back at five o'clock. If she worked quickly and methodically, going from room to room, starting with her parent's bedroom, she'd definitely be able to do it.

With that settled in her mind she turned away from the window smiling.