The You I've Never Known(89)

“I don’t want to talk about Dad.” Not yet. Maybe never.

Fine. This is on your terms.

So, tell me about school. Love it? Hate it? Future plans?

“Future? I have to concentrate on the present. My only plan right now is to graduate high school, apparently a year late.”

What do you mean?

“I mean, until last week, I believed I was seventeen.

I had my birthday wrong, too.”

Oh, right. Monica told me.

I’m so sorry you were fed a steady diet of deceit.

We let that sit. “Have you talked to Monica a lot?”

Not a lot. But enough to know she’s worried about you. Everyone is.

Everyone except

my goddamn father,

who apparently

couldn’t care less.

But I hold that inside.

I need to keep my parents separated, at least in my mind, for a little longer.





Luckily


The food arrives.

Syrah shoots me an are you okay?

look as she delivers big platters

of comfort food.

Here we go, ladies.

Can I get you anything else right now?

In answer

to both the voiced and unvoiced

questions,

I shrug.

Smile.

Ask for ketchup.

Mustard.

Pickles.

Added comfort.

Allowing

the dialogue

to move away

from Dad.

For a little while.





Over Cheeseburgers and Fries


(Fries!) We talk

about (in no certain order, and sometimes we return to various subject matter): school (finals) basketball (winning and losing) horses

Hillary

Gabe

Syrah

Monica

Monica

Monica

Maya suspects— probably because of how many times I turn the conversation back to Monica— the depth of our friendship.

But I don’t confess it.

Will I ever?





That Circles Us Around


To talking about Maya.

We start with easy stuff, some of which I’m aware

of. Most, I’m clueless about.

She’s originally from Texas.

(Yippee! I own a megadose of Lone Star genes

because, as it turns out, Dad isn’t from Oklahoma.) Both her parents are dead.

(Awesome. More family

lost to me forever.)

She lives near San Francisco.

(Right on the beach, which, by the way, is cool and gray more often than not.)

She enjoys her newsroom job.

(But prefers sports announcing.

My mom—did I just think that?— is a world-class jock, or jock lover, or something like that.) She prefers alternative music.

(When she was young she listened to country, but now she can’t stand it. It reminds her of Texas, where she hopes never to return.)





We Avoid


Talking about Dad for the longest time.

The subject hovers, just out of reach, because neither of us wants to touch it.

Eventually, of course, we must, and there’s no way around discussing that fateful day fifteen Decembers ago.

I was three.

Not two.

And my mother

was just twenty.

At my age, she already had a baby.

She had one-year-old me.

I’m not sure exactly what Jason told you about me, but I can say that on some level it was probably accurate.

He’s an expert at taking basic truths and twisting them into distortions that suit his purposes.





So Far, So True


But I’m not quite ready

to agree with her philosophy, no matter how accurate

it might be. “What he’s told me about you, over and over, is that you left your family— that would be him and me—

for your girlfriend. I assume he was referring to the person I saw you with at the game?”

Tati—Tatiana—is my wife.

We’ve been together as partners since after your father took off with you, but we were friends for years before that. However, I did not leave you for her.

She was there to support me when he stole you, and make no mistake about it, that’s exactly what he did. This was never about me. It was always about him needing to manipulate everyone to suit his purposes.

I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that included you. He’s an evil man.





Evil?


Don’t think so. Self-centered,

certainly. Narcissistic, probably.

But spawn of Satan? Nah.

“He took good care of me.”

Define “good.”

“Okay, he took decent care

of me. Most of the time.

Sometimes. Whatever.

But ‘evil’ is a strong word.”

Casey, do you know where the names Ariel and Mark Pearson came from?

“Yeah. Dad told me he took

them from a woman we lived

with. They belonged to her dead

husband and daughter.”

Right. Leona Pearson. I did a little research last week.

Turns out Leona died under suspicious circumstances.

Ostensibly, she overdosed.