Dreams of 18(45)

I’m not going to stop until he does what I want him to do.

I’m ready to leave him a voicemail when I hear a click and his voice. “Hello?”

I grip the wheel tightly when I hear him. He sounds hesitant, unsure.

It throws me back in time, reminding me of when he was a kid. He’d come to my room in the middle of the night because he heard a noise or had a nightmare. And he’d tell me with this small, anxious voice, Dad, there’s someone in my closet.

He’d look at me with those big hazel eyes similar to mine and I could see complete trust in them. Trust that now that I’ve told my dad, everything is going to be fine. He’ll take care of everything.

“Dad?” he says again when I remain silent.

I unclench my jaw and make it move. “Brian, hey, kiddo.”

I close my eyes at kiddo.

It’s been ages since I called him that. He hates it so I’d use it to piss him off when he was being a smartass or to embarrass him in front of his friends.

“Hey,” he greets me.

I don’t know what to say after this. I’m completely drawing a blank.

“How are you, Dad?”

Apparently, he’s more articulate than me. Good thing.

I’ve always failed at this emotional crap.

“I…” I clear my throat and loosen my grip on the wheel. “I’m good. Yeah. How are you?”

“I’m fine, too.”

“Do you need anything?” I ask, slipping into the role that I know: of a provider. “Any money or something… something like that?”

“No, Dad. I’m okay. Yeah.”

“Okay. Good.” I swallow. “Good.”

I’m parked on the side of the road, thinking about how we got here. How we got to this fucked up place where we can’t talk to each other.

We’ve always been able to do that before. He’d always tell me everything and I’d listen. Of course, I knew he had his secrets; he’s a teenage boy. He’s going to have secrets from me but I knew what was going on in his life.

It’s always been us against the world.

How did I become my own father? Drunk and absent.

After growing up with him, I never even wanted a relationship, let alone a kid.

But I had one.

And when I held Brian in my arms for the first time, every little bit of softness and vulnerability inside me in the shape of a tiny human being, I made him a promise.

I promised that I’d always be there for him. That even though Cynthia – his mother – had left him, I’d always put him first.

So what happened?

“Where are you right now?” I ask after a few beats.

“Uh, California. We’re gonna stay here for a few weeks and then head back east.”

I nod, staring into the darkening sky. “How…” I scratch my forehead. “How has it been so far?”

“Good, yeah. It’s been a ton of fun.”

“I’m glad.”

“I actually have some photos on Facebook. I wanted to, uh, send them to you but…”

I chuckle, feeling an ache in my chest. “Yeah, I guess I better get on Facebook like the rest of the world, huh.”

This ache is different than the knife.

The knife is vicious, edgy, deadly even.

This is the ache for my child. My son.

He chuckles back; it’s awkward like everything between us now. “Yeah. You’re several decades behind, Dad.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“So what’s up, Dad?” he asks abruptly.

You can’t do this to Brian. I’m not going to watch while you hurt yourself and him more…

Her voice echoes in the dark of the cab and I push the words out, “Listen, Bri, I know we haven’t talked in a while. But I want you to do something for me, all right?”

I can sense him getting serious, paying his entire attention to me. “Okay.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I want you to call her.”

“What?”

“I want you to call her and I want you to talk to her.”

“Are you… Are you talking about… Vi?”

Brian calls her that.

In fact, everyone around her calls her Vi.

But she’s never been Vi to me. To me, she’s always been Violet. The bright color with a dominant wavelength at the end of the spectrum.

The color I never paid attention to until I saw her.

The knife is twisting in my chest again, gaping the wound open. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. You need to call her. I know you haven’t in a while. But I want you to do this for me, okay? Just call her.”

“Why?”

I grit my teeth. “Because it’s the right thing to do. Because… whatever happened shouldn’t come between you two.”

“Oh, you mean the fact that she kissed my dad?”

It hits me right in the gut, his words, and I flinch. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s over. You need to talk to her. You…”

“Me what, Dad?”

I rub my forehead. “You need to stop punishing her, okay? She made a mistake. It was a mistake.”

Those words sound bitter, fucked-up on my tongue and I curse myself in my head for feeling this way.