The You I've Never Known(87)
I understand the tenuousness of your situation. Advice is cheap, but for what it’s worth, I don’t recommend hasty decisions.
You’ve lost the majority of your life to subterfuge, but there are a lot more years ahead of you.
Make the wrong choice now, there might be no turning back around. I speak from experience.
You’ve got all the time in the world.
Consider carefully. Regret is an illness.
I Drive Home Slowly
Thinking
about forgiveness.
Is there strength in it?
Idiocy?
Defeatism,
perhaps?
Where would I even start?
Who would I even start with?
Why would I even want to?
Next, the concept of regret.
This one
I’ve had no time for.
This one
I’ve had no need for.
This one
I’d rather not make room for.
The Driveway Is Empty
No sign of Dad’s car,
which offers both relief and a sinking feeling.
For once the front door
isn’t locked, and on the far side of the threshold,
all the suitcases are gone and the house is winter-cold, no shoes lined up beneath the thermostat. I wander room to room, absorbing
what’s left of Dad’s presence— the scent of his deodorant over the sweat, oil, and booze BO it never could quite conceal.
And more than a trace
of tobacco. It permeates every room in the house.
There are even butts,
stomped on the floor. Why not?
It’s not his home anymore.
He Didn’t Leave
A good-bye note except for seven words, scrawled on the wall by the door in black Sharpie: FUCK YOU
YOU MADE ME
DO THIS
Fuck who, Dad?
Fuck me?
Fuck Maya?
Fuck the whole goddamn world?
And what did I, or any of us, make you do?
Make you leave?
Make you kidnap me?
Make you decide to try and kill me?
Oh, how I wish I knew if that’s what you had in mind.
I Still Can’t Quite
Bring myself to believe it.
Not enough evidence.
Not enough witnesses.
Way too much shared past.
Well, at least he eliminated my need to decide whether or not to move on. I crank up the heat. Why not? Who’s going to tell me I can’t?
That’s the little kid left in me. The emerging adult does ask who’s going to pay the bill. Since it’s in Mark Pearson’s name, it won’t be me. And it won’t be Dad, either.
Should I feel guilty? All I feel at the moment is warm. I go into the kitchen, see what’s left to eat in the cupboards and fridge. Not a whole lot, but then there rarely was.
The alcohol, I notice, is all gone, which is probably good.
If I’m going to do this on my own, I’m damn sure doing it right.
That means getting up for school tomorrow morning and practicing basketball tomorrow night.
Suddenly I’m starving. I fix a couple frozen burritos
out of the half dozen Dad left behind. Wonder if Hillary’s invitation to move in includes food. They probably wouldn’t let me starve. I’ll figure something out, because that’s what people do.
I wolf down the mediocre
Mexican food, wishing it was Monica’s mom’s tamales.
Then I shower off the horse smell eclipsing my own nervous stink, slip into some hammies, call Monica to tell her I love her. Her echoed te amo settles gently against my pillow.
Good thing I’m exhausted.
I tumble toward slumber, hoping my dreams aren’t nightmares.
One Week
Until winter break, I plow through schoolwork, finals, basketball practice, and two games—Monday away, which we blow, and one at home on Friday, in which we blow the other team away.
Monday night I sucked.
Friday night, I kill it.
I’ve managed to regain
confidence and footing, mostly because of my friends, who’ve rallied around me, offering support, ideas, food, and a whole lot of love.
I haven’t heard a word
from my absentee father.
The next two weeks will offer me lots of time to ride and earn some extra cash. Plus, Peg’s vowed to start my dressage training. It’ll be good to have something new
to keep my brain occupied.
I can’t not think about Dad.
I can’t not worry about Dad.
Not One Word
Not even a call checking up on me.
He doesn’t care at all, does he?
And I’m worried about him?
So why tonight after the game do I abandon my teammates and very best friend, leave them to celebrate without me?
Why do I return to the house I, for the first time in my life, thought of as home, thinking maybe he’ll be here, knowing
he won’t. Why
do I sit here alone and cry for my dad?
The dad who left me reeling
six days ago, barely enough time
for my bruises to fade green.
The dad who never allowed me a real family, with a mom who I now suspect might’ve loved me all along.