Confessions of a Curious Bookseller(88)
And the last thing I want is Florence’s little boys to grow up and come across my old building and say, “That Aunt Fawn, she had a nice idea, but can you believe she ended up going mad over it?” No, I don’t want to become Miss Havisham—clinging to the hope of a doomed dream.
And in the same way I have clung to this idea, I have also carried with me the heaviest burden of all: the inability to let the past stay in the past. If I’d had a car, I would have driven to Florence’s and then to my mother’s and asked if we could all start over again. Here I am, clinging to a bad childhood, letting it sully everything new. Right now, with all my bitterness, I am no better than Jane’s awful daughter.
When I returned, Jack had managed to break his mother’s Shop-Vac. Surely I’ll be paying for that. He thinks it’s simply clogged, but the burning smell gives me the impression that he has ruined the motor. I asked him if he was aware that he should be using a filter, and he just gave me that blank look again like he had forgotten something very important.
From: Florence Eakins
Sent: Sat, Jul 27, 2019 at 11:26 PM
To: Fawn Birchill
Subject: Will reading
Fawn,
It has taken me since the will reading to find the words to tell you that I think your behavior was awful. That pastor and his church have been a beacon of light and happiness for our dad for many years, and if he wanted to give him his money then let him.
I don’t understand why you never liked Dad. He was a good dad to us. I loved working back there, balancing the books, doing my homework (which I was allowed to do), talking with friends on the phone, and just being a kid. I’m sorry you found the work to be so awful, but you always took things too seriously. Maybe if you had relaxed a little more, you would have seen that he was only showing us important life skills? I know it was probably harder being in the front and dealing with all those customers. I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t have it easier, and I know he could be tough on you at times, but he meant well, Fawn.
He did the best he could. I’m sorry that was never good enough for you.
Flo
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Sun, Jul 28, 2019 at 10:30 AM
To: Florence Eakins
Re: Will reading
Dear Florence,
I’m sorry I didn’t accept the invite to go to lunch with you, Mother, and the pastor, but I just couldn’t be around that man for another minute. Mostly my anger was and is directed toward him and not you and Mother, innocent pawns in the game of exuberant and unnecessary monetary gift giving.
I’m a little surprised Father let you talk on the phone with friends and goof around, but I suppose I should have known better. He was always infinitely harder on me for some reason. And yes, I’m sure his intentions were noble—and maybe you were mostly spared the brunt of this—but overall he was about as warm to me as a block of ice. Hardly the definition of a good dad.
Fawn
July 28, 2019
I just ended a phone call with my mother that concluded, oddly, with her apologizing to me. It’s a new feeling, being apologized to. It’s not something that normally happens for me.
Florence and I both struggled in school due to our respective lack of sleep, but she always struggled more than I did. It was known in our immediate family that I was smarter and worked harder, but I never thought Father paid much attention to this fact. To him, I believed his daughters were faceless, soulless workhorses put on the planet to better him. Little did I know. Florence remained in the back goofing off because Father knew that she’d actually study if put in a boring office with books all around her. And to an extent, it seemed to help. She was rewarded with comic books, candy, and games, while there were no rewards for me. According to Mother, Father believed that I was the one who would make something of myself, and so I was the one who learned how to count inventory, run the cash register, handle the orders, and work with people both face-to-face and over the phone. According to my mother, I was his favorite. I was his pride.
And it hurt him immensely that I never visited as an adult—that I saw those years in that store as pure torture and not a necessary foundation to building work ethic and business acumen. Mother told me not to blame myself because it was his fault he never told me “how special you are” and “how much he loved both of you girls.” Though he might have loved me, it would have taken nothing for him to tell me this. I wonder how different things would be now if he had only said the words. If he had embraced me and said he was proud.
I sit here too emotionally drained to bring a glass of wine to my lips. And so instead I’m lying in bed, angry with my father but sad for him too—sad for the man that, because he couldn’t open up a smidge, lost his eldest daughter and caused her to lose a father before he was even gone from this world.
From: Fawn Birchill
Sent: Mon, Jul 29, 2019 at 9:29 PM
To: Mark Nilsen
Subject: Idea
Dear Mark,
I’ll begin by admitting that I have probably started this email about ten different ways before resorting to this confession, because I truly have no idea how to put any of this into words. And here I am, usually well armed with an arsenal of adjectives and hyperbole! What I can say is that my decision yesterday has made me a bit speechless. Yes, speechless over my own decisions. I find it comforting that even at fiftysomething, I can still surprise myself.