The Other Side(81)
He pauses, I guess for me to answer, but I don’t. I’m not trying to be an asshole, I’m trying to choose my words wisely and be selective. Because I know they matter.
“I’ve seen some horrific stuff in my life. I did three tours in Vietnam during the war, but nothing compares to seeing you lying on the floor in your room with this bottle in your hand and pills scattered everywhere. I’ve never been so scared in my life, Toby. I thought I lost you.”
The unmistakable pain in his words forces me to say, “I couldn’t go through with it.”
A muffled sob tears through him, reverberating through the door and me. I’ve never heard a grown man cry like this. Well, except for me, I suppose. “Thank God,” he says quietly.
We can come back to this, but I need to talk about something else before I start crying too. “Why didn’t you mail my mom the graduation invitation?”
He sniffs. “Like I said earlier, I was selfish.”
I lower my chin to my chest then gently rock back against the door out of frustration and immediately regret it when the thumping starts up in my temples again. “That tells me nothing, Johnny.”
“She didn’t deserve to be there—”
I cut him off because I’m starting to get pissed all over again, “Not your call to make. I worked my ass off in school to prove a point to Marilyn Page. I wanted her there to see her stupid son graduate with honors.” My blood pressure is rising, so is my volume. “She should’ve been there!”
The chair creaks and a few seconds later it creaks again and I hear him blow his nose. “You’re the reason I quit drinking.” Not what I expected him to say. He continues, like now that he’s started he can’t stop. “You’re the reason I go to my AA meetings every week, even though I’d rather go to Dan’s instead. You’re the reason when I stuck a gun in my mouth six years ago, I didn’t pull the trigger. You’re the reason I try to redeem myself in some small way every day. I usually fail, but I try. You’re the reason I want to get better. To be better.”
I’m shaking my head and I’m crying. I don’t know if it’s because of the things he’s saying or because of the way he’s saying them. He genuinely means it, but it makes no sense.
When he begins to repeat, “I didn’t mail Marilyn the invitation because I was selfish—” I cut him off impatiently.
Inside my head, I’m screaming to get his attention. Apparently, I don’t have the discretion to filter myself and the screaming isn’t confined to my mind. “Tell me what the hell is going on!”
He roars back in anguish, “I wanted to watch my son graduate!”
Silence ripples through the air between us like a shockwave.
That I absorb over and over…and over again. I want to reject the news, but I can’t because deep down I know he’s telling the truth. We’re too much alike for this to be a lie. Same eyes, same shitty demeanor, same inability to show or share feelings, same avoidance issues—we are the same asshole.
It’s been quiet for minutes before Johnny prompts, “Toby, please say something, even if it’s to tell me to go to hell.”
I’m still in shock. “You and Marilyn?” I can’t picture him with my mom. I don’t know how old Johnny is, but he’s nowhere near my mom’s age.
“No,” he whispers regretfully.
The silence ripples again, but this time it only leaves me confused. “What do you mean, no?”
“Marilyn raised you, but she wasn’t your mom.”
I know he finished his thought, but it dangles just out of my reach because I refuse to process it. I’m hugging my knees to my chest so tight it’s painful to breathe. My head starts shaking back and forth and I can’t stop the compulsive denial. The tears have come for me and I close my eyes to blot out the blur. The pain of this new reality.
Johnny’s voice is just on the other side of the door when he speaks again and it’s brokenhearted. “I’m so sorry, Toby.”
The image of her bleeding out is all I can see, my nightmares rushing in relentlessly, and I can’t catch my breath. I croak out her name. “Nina?”
“Nina,” he confirms. It sounds like two decades of regret. “She didn’t want you to know.”
I’m still shaking my head, but it’s not relieving any of the torment, so I ball my fist and punch the wall with everything in me. The pain radiates out from my knuckles and pulsates up my arm when the drywall gives way. “Fuck!” It’s filled with frustration, pain, confusion, grief, regret, guilt, and shame.
“You okay?” The question comes immediately.
Far from it. I know that question wasn’t related to my mental instability but was focused on the destruction he just heard. “No. Neither is your wall.”
“I’m not worried about the wall, Toby. Do you need ice?”
He sounds worried, like he wants to open the door to check on me, so I shake my hand out and grit my teeth through the pain. “No,” and then I ask bewilderedly, “How?”
He knows we’re back to Nina. For the first time I hear the click of his Zippo light a cigarette, he usually doesn’t go this long without one. “Do you want one?”
Before I answer, a cigarette and the lighter slide under the door. The floor is filthy, but I pick the cigarette up and place it between my lips without hesitation and light up. Closing my eyes, I breathe in the calm and blow it out several times before the tears subside. Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I slide the lighter back out to signal my shit is in check for the moment and we can proceed.