The Words We Leave Unspoken(55)
“I’m sorry Charlotte,” my mother says quietly. My heart is in my throat, choking me. I feel shocked that she has uttered the words after all these years but I feel angry at the same time. I’m angry that she has not said them sooner, I’m angry that she feels this way now, that it took a family tragedy for her to admit she was wrong.
“It’s a little late, don’t you think,” I mumble, pulling my hand out of her grasp. She looks up at me; tears are flowing steadily down her face now.
“I guess I deserve that,” she says, reaching into her purse and retrieving a tissue that she uses to wipe under her eyes and nose. A few uncomfortable moments pass as my mother sniffles beside me and I pick at my cuticles, trying to rein in my anger. Part of me wants to leave her sitting here to wallow in her self-pity, escape this emotional confrontation while I still can. But instead, I stay rooted in my chair wanting desperately to know what else she has to say, starving for some sort of emotional connection that I didn’t realize I even wanted or needed from her. From the corner of my eye, I see her pull her slouched shoulders back and straighten her spine, sitting up tall in her chair as she gains her composure.
“Let’s take a drive. There’s something I want to show you,” she says, as she pulls my car keys out of her purse and stands.
“Where are we going?” I ask, suddenly very curious as to what she feels I need to see right this very minute.
“You’ll see,” is all she says as she makes her way toward the elevator, leaving me no other choice but to follow her.
A few minutes later, she is driving my car out of the hospital parking garage, heading deeper into the city. My nerves are frayed as my mind flashes through all of the possibilities and, with each turn she takes, I wonder where on earth she could possibly be taking me. We are driving into the bowels of the city, a darker part of Seattle where I would never willingly go. She finally pulls over and parks the car on the side of a deserted street. We’re underneath the freeway and the noise from the passing cars overhead fills the quiet space around us. I look at my mother, waiting for her to tell me what the hell we’re doing here.
She turns to me and says, “Do you see over there?” as she points across the street. My gaze follows her finger to where a group of homeless men are huddled around a small, make-shift fire trying to keep warm in the chilly winter day, the freeway overpass protecting them from the elements. There are a few battered tents set up nearby as well as the cliché cardboard shelters. The men are dirty and dressed in layer upon layer of ripped and faded clothing. Knit stocking hats, fingerless gloves, and worn shoes. So my mother wants me to appreciate my life more? Brought me here to show me how blessed I am in comparison? Because it’s working. I am just about to ask her this question aloud when one of the men turns and looks in our direction. One minute he looks like every other hopeless man on the street, dirty and broken and the next minute I recognize the knit hat he’s wearing. It’s so thin and faded that I have to look extra hard to be sure that my eyes are not deceiving me, but I recognize the thick blue stripe framed by thin bands of white and green. A Seahawks stocking hat that my mother made during her knitting phase, a hat my father wore religiously in the cold mornings on the boat. I remember it vividly, and once my eyes confirm that it is, in fact, the same hat, I now see the hazel eyes directed my way and recognize my father’s face. Through the overgrown gray beard and ragged skin, the tired eyes and yellowed teeth, through the overall haggard appearance, I can see my father. I gasp and feel my mother’s hand on my shoulder, grounding me. Why did she bring me here? Why would she want me to see what has become of my dad? How could she know that he’s here, living this way and not do something, anything? How can she live with herself, knowing that she did this to him? Every part of me is frozen except for my mind, which is firing questions so rapidly it’s like an AK-47 is discharging in my head.
I try to recall the image of him that I keep on file in my mind, what he looked like the last time I saw him. Side by side, it seems inconceivable that this is the same man, but there is no mistaking the eyes. As if all at once my body thaws, tears make their way down my cheeks as I reach up and spread my hand out against the cold passenger side window and whisper, “Daddy.” He’s been so close all this time. I always pictured him living far away in some exotic place, living far too good a life to come back to ours. Fishing on a big boat in the middle of paradise, anything, but not this. I hear my mother’s voice and like hearing fingernails on a chalkboard, I cringe.
“I thought that it was time you knew the truth.”
Without taking my eyes from the man who looks like nothing but a stranger yet somehow the same man that I have loved and yearned for all this time, I ask, “What truth?”
“Why he left?”
I wait, knowing that she will blame him, make herself a victim, that is just her way.
“Charlotte, you were too young to remember and I was always grateful for that. I let you blame me, hate me even, because I thought that it would help you cope. And there were times I hated myself, so it seemed rightfully deserved.” She stops and blows her nose and I stay fixated on the man across the street who is now looking through a deserted trash bag. I swallow a mix of shame and longing, pity and resentment, swallow it down until I feel like I might be sick. My heart is beating so hard I fear that it will march right out of my chest and then keep going like the Energizer bunny banging on its drum.