Be a Doll(106)

“What are you talking about? I came here because your mother is worried and with good reason. I’m not here to fight with you.’’

“No?’’ I put my forehead against the glass and sighed when the cold seeped through my skin, clearing some of the fog in my head. “Because you know about my feelings for Lila, let us go further with the truth.’’ I cleared my throat and pushed my voice through the growing tightness in my throat. “I should be the one who died that day. I know the wrong son died.’’

“What?’’

The surprise in his voice almost made me turn around, but I wouldn’t. I kept my eyes on the green patch outside in the middle of skyscrapers. A touch of color in the middle of gray and black.

“You heard me. Shit, it’s been obvious for years that your favorite son died that day and that I’m the fucking disappointment for being the one left behind. I also know you blame me for Max’s death because I was the one pushing him to go surfing that morning.’’

I heard him get to his feet and walk toward me, his shoes making a distinctive sound I could always recognize even in a room full of people. He always favored his left leg since he broke his leg when I was a toddler. He stopped next to me, feeling smaller than he really was as I glanced out of the corner of my eyes to find his shoulders in the same slouch as mine was. He was looking at Central Park too.

“Max always said he wanted to live somewhere with a view over Central Park,’’ he quietly said.

“I know.’’

“He always used to say that he wanted to work in business like me and work for our family company, that we would expand it and be unavoidable.’’

“I know,’’ I whispered, eyes fixed on Central Park when I felt my father’s eyes weighing on me.

“You never wanted any of those things.’’

“I didn’t.’’

My heart hammered for the first time in two decades, my father truly saw me. I wanted to hide and build up my usual fa?ade, but that was from years spent shaping myself to be a man I would have never become if Max were still alive. Lila broke through me and awakened the man I could have been if only things had turned out differently.

“It’s for him, isn’t it?’’ A quick nod was all I could do. My voice was lost. His pained gasp made me turn toward him. “Why didn’t I see that? Why… why…’’ he stuttered, and brought a trembling hand to his forehead before he put both hands on my shoulders, keeping me in front of him where I couldn’t escape the raw pain in his eyes and the sincerity I hadn’t seen in years from him. That man right here was the man I remembered from before. “You need to listen to me, Mathis. I never blamed you for Max. Never.’’

“Don’t—‘’

“Listen,’’ he ordered me, shaking me slightly, but with the alcohol through my veins it efficiently made me shut up. “I was the one who told you that you could go that morning and that I would join later. I’ve always blamed myself. Not you.’’ His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat then. “My son died without me there because I woke up later than usual and I wanted to finish my damn breakfast. It wasn’t your fault and I never thought it was.’’ He patted my beard-covered cheek roughly, his eyes fixed on my face taking me in slowly as if rediscovering me for the first time in years. “Looking at you is hard. You and Max looked exactly the same. It’s so difficult to see you and know what Max would have looked like and I know how hard it’s been on you losing your twin.’’

I closed my eyes then. I needed to cut myself off the intense pain at hearing exactly what I had always needed to hear from my father. It broke down and destroyed the few walls still up around me, the same walls that kept me prisoner, but also had protected me all this time. Lila had started on it, my father was finishing the job.

“I can’t look at myself in a mirror without seeing him. Every-fucking-day,’’ I said through gritted teeth, my eyes tightly closed even when a tear escaped me to get lost in my thick beard.

“You look like him, but you two have always been so different,’’ my father said, his hands tightening on my shoulders in what felt like comfort, a comfort that stifled me. I pulled away, opening my eyes to the world around me, a world so damn bleak I didn’t perceive any color anymore. Not since I made Lila leave.

I blinked several times, pushing away the tears I hated and put my hands against the window again, flat on the glass. “Max was the good one.’’

“Max was the studious twin, serious and so driven it often worried your mother and me.’’ He sighed then and resumed his place next to me, his shoulder against mine. “You were the happy kid, the jokester and so full of life you never failed to bring a smile to everybody’s face. You were also Megan’s favorite because you never said no when she asked you to play with her.’’

“I was stupid and reckless.’’

“You were a smart kid with a strong aura, Mathis. You’ve never been stupid nor reckless,’’ he countered with a stronger voice, a bit more forceful, but nothing close to the kind of tone he’s been using when talking to me. Gone was the distant and cold father, the one who would always criticize me and never look me in the face. Right now, I had a broken man next to me, a man who was still shouldering the deepest kind of grief someone went through. “Do you remember the first week after the accident?’’ He didn’t wait for me to answer, but it was no use. We all knew in the family that I didn’t remember it. “You were gone, Mathis. You went through shock and didn’t eat or drink unless your mother or a doctor made you. You wouldn’t talk. You were gone with Max and when you came back to us, you weren’t the same anymore. All this time I had thought that it was the accident that changed you and that your light got snatched. I thought that your sudden interest in schoolwork was because it helped you focus on something other than our loss, and then later on with work I thought it was your way of butting heads with me because I didn’t protect you and your brother. I also thought that it was my fault for pushing you away, just like I’ve been pushing everybody away.’’