July
This is 10 pages long double spaced in word, so yeah...
JULY
I was only twelve years old, and my world seemed to fall apart in no time at all. It has been ten years, but the scars will last a lifetime. Every time I think about it my heart breaks all over again like it happened only yesterday. My father was someone so very close to me. Yet after it was all said and done, I felt like I never even knew him.
I had always been close to my daddy. He was my best friend. He was that dad. You know the one. He was the dad who was in the front row at my first recital. He was the first of all the parents to rush the stage with a dozen of my favorite orange roses. When I had my first period, it was my dad who rushed home from work with pads and a pizza in the passenger seat of the car as he pulled into the driveway. My mom was there, and I was, and still am, very close to her. She had always played a major role in my life. But we never had that closeness that my father and I had shared. We never had that “Mommy-daughter” connection. When my first crush blew up in my face, as they always do, it was my daddy who cancelled his golf game that Friday afternoon to take me to dinner and a movie with my best girlfriends so I would not feel so down about it. We would spend every Sunday together after church, working in the yard, cleaning the garage, and working on the car. It did not matter what we were doing, just that we were in each other’s company. He would help me with homework every night after dinner. He would give me a hug and a kiss on the forehead before I would go to sleep every night, and I would find him in the same place every time. He would be in the den, sitting quite comfortably in his overstuffed armchair, legs propped on the matching ottoman, reading the newest novel in the series he was reading his way through. When I was much smaller, he would pick me up on his knee and give me a big hug. Then he would hold my hand while he walked me to my room and would tuck me into my covers. He would read my a bedtime story, then kiss my forehead, tell me he loved me, turn off the lights, and go back into the den, leaving the door cracked open on his way out. After I got older I would get my hug and kiss from that chair and then tuck myself in, but I always got that hug, kiss and I love you. Even if he were out of town on a trip with the construction company he worked for, he would call me around the time I would be going to bed to tell me.
My daddy was always a good man. He paid his taxes and donated to charity. He volunteered when he could and went to church every Sunday and every holiday. He spent time with his family and was an active part of my life. That is, until he got that new job. He would not tell mom about it. What was even worse is that he never told me anything about this new job. He was my best friend; we had that perfect Father-Daughter connection. Why would he keep something like a new job from me? He told me I was his entire world. And now, he is hiding this information from me. Maybe he was working for government and was therefore super top secret. Maybe it was some sort of classified information that he had to protect with his life and if he released this information, he would be murdered or arrested for national treason. Whatever it was, he started going on out of town business trips more often. And those trips became longer. They used to be three days at the most. Now, anything less than two weeks was a short run. He was still my daddy though. He still called me every night before I would go to sleep. Sometimes he would let me know when he was coming home. Other times, he would just say “I’ll talk to you tomorrow night my love.” He would call every night while he was gone. He would call every time he was gone, without fail. Mom and I thought that Daddy’s new job was a little strange, and we definitely did not like not knowing what was going on. We had never been a family to keep secrets from each other. It was just something we did not do. And now, my dad, the head of our family, was keeping a secret. My dad started this new job in August, just as I entered fifth grade, and by the time Christmas time came around, mom and I barely saw him. He was always out on his business trips. He was gone more than he was home. He started to call me every second day while he was gone. Then the time between calls got longer. Then he would only call once a week. I guess he was really busy. That was not so bad though, because I was starting to get really busy too. I would be in middle school the next year, and I wanted to get a head start in band. So I started taking saxophone lessons three times each week, two hours each day. I was actively involved in church every Sunday. The other three days of the week were devoted to soccer, my newfound love. Since daddy was always away with his trips, I spent my Sunday afternoons alone. Thankfully, I could watch soccer game replays.
In February, daddy moved out of the house. Not like he was being separated from mom, he just moved into the backyard. We had a nice big shed back there, that was fixed up for when either of my older brothers would come home to visit. That way, mom and I could keep the third bedroom as a craft and music practice room, and did not have to clutter it with a bed or a couch or anything. I thought it was really weird how my dad moved into the backyard. I asked him about it on a Sunday he was actually home. He told me that it was because his job gave him strange hours that he would be coming in and out, and he did not want mom and I to be disturbed by doors opening of the dog barking when he came in. I guess that made sense.
Daddy continued with his job. He continued taking the long business trips. He continued his living in the backyard. That was something that I, my mom and even the neighbors became accustomed to. But then, when daddy would go on his trips, he would not call me before bed anymore. I guess he was just too busy.
In June, just after my twelfth birthday, mom slipped and fell after a nasty storm. She was picking up debris from the yard and slipped on a garden stone. She broke her shoulder. Daddy started to stay home more often since mom could not do a lot of things herself. He still lived in the backyard, but I felt safer with someone other than me around to help mom. He couldn’t help much though. He seemed to always mess things up somehow, no matter what he did. One morning, he was packing my lunch for school and making mom’s breakfast. When I opened my lunch box at noontime, I found a thermos of coffee, two pieces of toast with jelly, two sausage patties, and a Tupperware container of grits with butter and cheese mixed in. I loved grits, so it wasn’t like I went hungry that day. When I got home, I went to my mom’s room to see how she was feeling. She told me that I had to make her breakfast from now on, because this morning dad made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple slices, and a coffee mug of grape Kool-Aid.
He started getting really distant from mom. He was growing really distant from me. He hardly talked to anyone at all anymore. He no longer left for business trips. He was always in that damn shed. On a comfortable night in April, I was woken up around 4 in the morning by noise from the backyard. I sleepily looked out my open bedroom window to see my father nailing and screwing layers of plywood and sheet metal to the outside of that shed. He had bolted bars to the windows and blacked out the glass. This all confused me, but I was so tired I just went back to sleep. Dad continued to transform the shed into some type of impenetrable fortress, using anything he found in the garage or even in the neighbor’s garbage. He worked ceaselessly for about six solid days. Then there was absolute silence for a few days. On the fourth day of this silence, my mother went to check on my dad only to find the door locked from the inside and no sounds from within but my father snoring.
On Father’s Day, as a way of making some final outreach to him, I made my dad a small sign. It was made of wooden blocks and letters that I hand painted and organized to say “#1 Dad” with his name, “Carl” underneath. It was not anything grand, but I put time into it. I put my heart and soul into. I put the care that my father and I once shared into it. I never saw his reaction to it. I placed it on a tree stump in front of the shed on Father’s Day morning, and went back into the house without knocking or letting him know verbally I was there.
July. The month of the year when the thermometer itself tries to sweat out its mercury for a little relief from the temperature. For most kids, it’s the high point of the summer. No school for at least another month. For a twelve year old, it’s a joyous time of year. Well, most twelve year olds. Even though it is a time of transition-from being a kid to being a teenager, from being in elementary school to middle school. I woke up that mid month morning and the house was quiet. I went out on to the front porch. My mom was standing at the edge of the porch, her arm still healing in a sling, facing my father’s truck that was parked in the driveway. I could smell the fresh cut grass from my neighbors yard drying out in the hot summer sun. I could hear Bama, my Australian Shepherd mix whining and scratching at the front door, begging to be let outside with us. I could still taste the morning breath in my mouth, even though I’d had a glass of orange juice before I came outside. I was watching a line of ant parade off the side of the porch away from the carcass of a cricket. That was when a harsh clattering sound brought my attention back to my parents as my father emerged from the backyard. He tossed a box and a couple duffle bags into the truck bed to accompany the things already packed and stuck back there. My parents’ talk had started calm, but was now growing into a fierce discussion.
“Why are you doing this to us?” Mom had repeated many times, and unanswered screamed again louder each time.
“It doesn’t matter, because I’m leaving for good. And that’s all you need to know!” My father finally answered her screams.
“What about your daughter? You’re just going to leave her without a father?”
“She’ll be better off with me out of her life.”
What did he just say? Tears welled up into my eyes as I joined my mother’s side, burying my face into the shoulder of her sundress.
“Don’t come looking for me either. If you do, I’ll come back here and fucking kill you, burn this whole place to the ground!” There was a crazed look in my father’s face. It was anger, confusion, sadness, fear, excitement and fatigue all at once that I saw in his eyes. Then he reached into the cab of his truck through its open window, and pulled out a pistol from the front seat. He released the safety, pointed it at mom’s head, and then set the gun on the hood of his truck, returning to the backyard. Terrified, mom and I ran back inside the house, locking the door as it shut. There, in the middle of the living room, we collapsed to the floor, holding each other tight as tears fell in great streams down both our faces. I was so confused. I had never seen my father act like this before in my entire life. Our sobs grew quieter, yet we still sat there, unable to move and unable to completely understand what had just happened. I looked at the family portraits on the living room walls. They were pictures of a family that did not exist anymore, a family that would never exist again. My father’s truck started up outside, backing down the driveway then sped off toward the highway, and out of my life forever.
The next evening, my mother received a collect phone call. The man told her his name was George, and he knew why her husband left and what was going on. He said he knew about the job Carl was working. After the phone call ended, my mom sat me down and told me the truth of what she knew. Not because I would understand necessarily, but so I would at least know that none of it was my fault. She then told me what the man on the phone told her. After my grandfather died, my father had started doing drugs, heavily using one called “Crystal Meth.” He was fired from the construction company after he was administered and failed a random drug test. Then the man’s girlfriend, Doreen, offered him a job. She was the drug dealer my father got stuff from, and she offered him a job delivering drugs for her. She would pay him in cash and drugs. This was why my father was out of town so much, and why he moved into the backyard. He didn’t want us exposed to all of it. My dad had stolen things from this Doreen woman and she had people looking for him, to get her revenge. He hid out in the shed and never left. He ran out of drugs, and he began going through withdrawals, blowing up in total anger over absolutely nothing; showing aggression towards loved ones. It all started to make sense, or at least of what I understood. So my dad left, running away in an attempt to save his life. The man said that if Doreen ever found my father, he would be a dead man. She would make sure of that.
We never heard from this strange man, or my father, ever again. After my mother’s shoulder healed, she went back to work, something she had not done in twelve years now since she was a stay at home mom. Until we got on our feet, we had to apply for federal assistance to survive and keep a roof over our head. My father abandoned us with absolutely nothing. I started junior high in the fall, but it was a hard start for me. When I sat alone at lunch, I came home to an empty house. Mom was at work, and my father would never again be there to tell me it was “OK.” I never told any of my girlfriends what happened. They would never be able to understand. I hardly understood any of it myself. Whenever anyone asked me why my dad was absent from my first band concert and my first soccer game, I told them that he was killed in a freak construction accident on a job out of town, and that was all I was comfortable with talking about. That seemed to work. I even started to believe it myself.
One day after school in that following October, before my mom got home from work, I went out to the shed. I do not know what inside me wanted to go out there, but I did. I opened the unlocked door and peered inside. Everything had been cleared out, only lighters, broken glass tubes, and empty baggies lying around on the floor. In the farthest corner of the shed, darkened by the shadow of our backyard’s huge oak tree, I saw something on a shelf. I walked over to it so I could see what it was. It was the sign I made for my father. Of everything he had, he left that. My fleeting attempt at reconnecting with my father now lay in a dusty corner of a worn shed in the backyard. I felt crushed and angry all at once. When my mother came home from work, she found me in the back yard, sitting on my knees within feet of the shed, staring down at the object.
“I’m so sorry honey.”
I shrugged it off. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He never cared about me, so why let this bother me now?”
“Babe, you know he cared for you--“
“Yeah. He CARED for me. Past tense. I’m just as dead to him now as he is to me.”
I threw away the gift that meant nothing. Mom and I moved six months later to a place that was a little smaller but we were able to afford. And from there, I was able to forget about my father. I suppressed memories of him. He no longer existed to me. I moved on from the bad things that happened and became a stronger person. I went through the rest of middle school and high school without a problem at all. I regained my honor roll grades. I became section leader in band. I ran for homecoming. I didn’t date too much though. I think I still had an unconscious fear that my affections would be left on a dusty shelf. Then during my senior year of high school I started dating Scott. He was afraid of being hurt as well, so we were very careful with each other’s emotions. We fell completely in love. We’re still together to this day, both in our last year of college. When he asked about my father, I told him he was gone, and that I would tell him everything one day. That day came sooner than I expected.
July. Still the hottest damn month of the whole year. Today is ten years to the day since my father left. Scott and I are home for the summer, and we’re spending this Sunday with my mom. After we ate dinner, the phone rang. Mom was cleaning up the kitchen, so I answered it for her, only to hear a voice I barely recognized anymore.
“Hello?”
“Hey sweetheart! Wow, your voice sounds so grown, but I can still tell it’s you.”
“Who the hell is this?”
“It’s daddy, honey. How are things?”
“I don’t have a daddy anymore. He died a long time ago.”
“I know. Ten years ago today. Look honey, I wanted to call. I wanted to come home. But I didn’t want to put you or your mom in the danger I knew you’d be in if I came back. I’ve cleaned up since then. I’m off the shit and I’m working construction again. I want to be part of your life again…”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I sat next to Scott on the couch. He rubbed my knee to keep me calm. My mom came back into the living room and Scott whispered to her who he thought it was. I nodded to verify his idea. My mom sat down in the chair across from me, worried about how I would take all this. She knew he would call one day. She just hoped I wouldn’t be here.
“Well. It looks like that’s too bad, Carl. You missed out on the most important years of my life. A time when I would have needed you most. You fucked up when the only thing you left behind was that damned present I made you for father’s day. I moved on and forgot about you. I have a life now its perfect. And now you have the nerve to try to come back into my life? No, I don’t think so. You can go to hell.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but you have every right to. I don’t know what I was thinking, calling you now after all these years. Well then, I wish you the best of luck in life. I lov-“
I hung up before he could finish. I wasn’t going to listen to his lies. I started shaking from all the memories flooding back to me. I looked up and Scott and told him, “I’m ready to tell you everything now.”
I don’t know what would have happened if I let my father back into my life. I knew I couldn’t do that though. There were too many unanswered cries, too many tears. Too many things he wasn’t there for, too much to make up for. That is something he is going to have to live with for the rest of his lonely pathetic life.
JULY
I was only twelve years old, and my world seemed to fall apart in no time at all. It has been ten years, but the scars will last a lifetime. Every time I think about it my heart breaks all over again like it happened only yesterday. My father was someone so very close to me. Yet after it was all said and done, I felt like I never even knew him.
I had always been close to my daddy. He was my best friend. He was that dad. You know the one. He was the dad who was in the front row at my first recital. He was the first of all the parents to rush the stage with a dozen of my favorite orange roses. When I had my first period, it was my dad who rushed home from work with pads and a pizza in the passenger seat of the car as he pulled into the driveway. My mom was there, and I was, and still am, very close to her. She had always played a major role in my life. But we never had that closeness that my father and I had shared. We never had that “Mommy-daughter” connection. When my first crush blew up in my face, as they always do, it was my daddy who cancelled his golf game that Friday afternoon to take me to dinner and a movie with my best girlfriends so I would not feel so down about it. We would spend every Sunday together after church, working in the yard, cleaning the garage, and working on the car. It did not matter what we were doing, just that we were in each other’s company. He would help me with homework every night after dinner. He would give me a hug and a kiss on the forehead before I would go to sleep every night, and I would find him in the same place every time. He would be in the den, sitting quite comfortably in his overstuffed armchair, legs propped on the matching ottoman, reading the newest novel in the series he was reading his way through. When I was much smaller, he would pick me up on his knee and give me a big hug. Then he would hold my hand while he walked me to my room and would tuck me into my covers. He would read my a bedtime story, then kiss my forehead, tell me he loved me, turn off the lights, and go back into the den, leaving the door cracked open on his way out. After I got older I would get my hug and kiss from that chair and then tuck myself in, but I always got that hug, kiss and I love you. Even if he were out of town on a trip with the construction company he worked for, he would call me around the time I would be going to bed to tell me.
My daddy was always a good man. He paid his taxes and donated to charity. He volunteered when he could and went to church every Sunday and every holiday. He spent time with his family and was an active part of my life. That is, until he got that new job. He would not tell mom about it. What was even worse is that he never told me anything about this new job. He was my best friend; we had that perfect Father-Daughter connection. Why would he keep something like a new job from me? He told me I was his entire world. And now, he is hiding this information from me. Maybe he was working for government and was therefore super top secret. Maybe it was some sort of classified information that he had to protect with his life and if he released this information, he would be murdered or arrested for national treason. Whatever it was, he started going on out of town business trips more often. And those trips became longer. They used to be three days at the most. Now, anything less than two weeks was a short run. He was still my daddy though. He still called me every night before I would go to sleep. Sometimes he would let me know when he was coming home. Other times, he would just say “I’ll talk to you tomorrow night my love.” He would call every night while he was gone. He would call every time he was gone, without fail. Mom and I thought that Daddy’s new job was a little strange, and we definitely did not like not knowing what was going on. We had never been a family to keep secrets from each other. It was just something we did not do. And now, my dad, the head of our family, was keeping a secret. My dad started this new job in August, just as I entered fifth grade, and by the time Christmas time came around, mom and I barely saw him. He was always out on his business trips. He was gone more than he was home. He started to call me every second day while he was gone. Then the time between calls got longer. Then he would only call once a week. I guess he was really busy. That was not so bad though, because I was starting to get really busy too. I would be in middle school the next year, and I wanted to get a head start in band. So I started taking saxophone lessons three times each week, two hours each day. I was actively involved in church every Sunday. The other three days of the week were devoted to soccer, my newfound love. Since daddy was always away with his trips, I spent my Sunday afternoons alone. Thankfully, I could watch soccer game replays.
In February, daddy moved out of the house. Not like he was being separated from mom, he just moved into the backyard. We had a nice big shed back there, that was fixed up for when either of my older brothers would come home to visit. That way, mom and I could keep the third bedroom as a craft and music practice room, and did not have to clutter it with a bed or a couch or anything. I thought it was really weird how my dad moved into the backyard. I asked him about it on a Sunday he was actually home. He told me that it was because his job gave him strange hours that he would be coming in and out, and he did not want mom and I to be disturbed by doors opening of the dog barking when he came in. I guess that made sense.
Daddy continued with his job. He continued taking the long business trips. He continued his living in the backyard. That was something that I, my mom and even the neighbors became accustomed to. But then, when daddy would go on his trips, he would not call me before bed anymore. I guess he was just too busy.
In June, just after my twelfth birthday, mom slipped and fell after a nasty storm. She was picking up debris from the yard and slipped on a garden stone. She broke her shoulder. Daddy started to stay home more often since mom could not do a lot of things herself. He still lived in the backyard, but I felt safer with someone other than me around to help mom. He couldn’t help much though. He seemed to always mess things up somehow, no matter what he did. One morning, he was packing my lunch for school and making mom’s breakfast. When I opened my lunch box at noontime, I found a thermos of coffee, two pieces of toast with jelly, two sausage patties, and a Tupperware container of grits with butter and cheese mixed in. I loved grits, so it wasn’t like I went hungry that day. When I got home, I went to my mom’s room to see how she was feeling. She told me that I had to make her breakfast from now on, because this morning dad made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple slices, and a coffee mug of grape Kool-Aid.
He started getting really distant from mom. He was growing really distant from me. He hardly talked to anyone at all anymore. He no longer left for business trips. He was always in that damn shed. On a comfortable night in April, I was woken up around 4 in the morning by noise from the backyard. I sleepily looked out my open bedroom window to see my father nailing and screwing layers of plywood and sheet metal to the outside of that shed. He had bolted bars to the windows and blacked out the glass. This all confused me, but I was so tired I just went back to sleep. Dad continued to transform the shed into some type of impenetrable fortress, using anything he found in the garage or even in the neighbor’s garbage. He worked ceaselessly for about six solid days. Then there was absolute silence for a few days. On the fourth day of this silence, my mother went to check on my dad only to find the door locked from the inside and no sounds from within but my father snoring.
On Father’s Day, as a way of making some final outreach to him, I made my dad a small sign. It was made of wooden blocks and letters that I hand painted and organized to say “#1 Dad” with his name, “Carl” underneath. It was not anything grand, but I put time into it. I put my heart and soul into. I put the care that my father and I once shared into it. I never saw his reaction to it. I placed it on a tree stump in front of the shed on Father’s Day morning, and went back into the house without knocking or letting him know verbally I was there.
July. The month of the year when the thermometer itself tries to sweat out its mercury for a little relief from the temperature. For most kids, it’s the high point of the summer. No school for at least another month. For a twelve year old, it’s a joyous time of year. Well, most twelve year olds. Even though it is a time of transition-from being a kid to being a teenager, from being in elementary school to middle school. I woke up that mid month morning and the house was quiet. I went out on to the front porch. My mom was standing at the edge of the porch, her arm still healing in a sling, facing my father’s truck that was parked in the driveway. I could smell the fresh cut grass from my neighbors yard drying out in the hot summer sun. I could hear Bama, my Australian Shepherd mix whining and scratching at the front door, begging to be let outside with us. I could still taste the morning breath in my mouth, even though I’d had a glass of orange juice before I came outside. I was watching a line of ant parade off the side of the porch away from the carcass of a cricket. That was when a harsh clattering sound brought my attention back to my parents as my father emerged from the backyard. He tossed a box and a couple duffle bags into the truck bed to accompany the things already packed and stuck back there. My parents’ talk had started calm, but was now growing into a fierce discussion.
“Why are you doing this to us?” Mom had repeated many times, and unanswered screamed again louder each time.
“It doesn’t matter, because I’m leaving for good. And that’s all you need to know!” My father finally answered her screams.
“What about your daughter? You’re just going to leave her without a father?”
“She’ll be better off with me out of her life.”
What did he just say? Tears welled up into my eyes as I joined my mother’s side, burying my face into the shoulder of her sundress.
“Don’t come looking for me either. If you do, I’ll come back here and fucking kill you, burn this whole place to the ground!” There was a crazed look in my father’s face. It was anger, confusion, sadness, fear, excitement and fatigue all at once that I saw in his eyes. Then he reached into the cab of his truck through its open window, and pulled out a pistol from the front seat. He released the safety, pointed it at mom’s head, and then set the gun on the hood of his truck, returning to the backyard. Terrified, mom and I ran back inside the house, locking the door as it shut. There, in the middle of the living room, we collapsed to the floor, holding each other tight as tears fell in great streams down both our faces. I was so confused. I had never seen my father act like this before in my entire life. Our sobs grew quieter, yet we still sat there, unable to move and unable to completely understand what had just happened. I looked at the family portraits on the living room walls. They were pictures of a family that did not exist anymore, a family that would never exist again. My father’s truck started up outside, backing down the driveway then sped off toward the highway, and out of my life forever.
The next evening, my mother received a collect phone call. The man told her his name was George, and he knew why her husband left and what was going on. He said he knew about the job Carl was working. After the phone call ended, my mom sat me down and told me the truth of what she knew. Not because I would understand necessarily, but so I would at least know that none of it was my fault. She then told me what the man on the phone told her. After my grandfather died, my father had started doing drugs, heavily using one called “Crystal Meth.” He was fired from the construction company after he was administered and failed a random drug test. Then the man’s girlfriend, Doreen, offered him a job. She was the drug dealer my father got stuff from, and she offered him a job delivering drugs for her. She would pay him in cash and drugs. This was why my father was out of town so much, and why he moved into the backyard. He didn’t want us exposed to all of it. My dad had stolen things from this Doreen woman and she had people looking for him, to get her revenge. He hid out in the shed and never left. He ran out of drugs, and he began going through withdrawals, blowing up in total anger over absolutely nothing; showing aggression towards loved ones. It all started to make sense, or at least of what I understood. So my dad left, running away in an attempt to save his life. The man said that if Doreen ever found my father, he would be a dead man. She would make sure of that.
We never heard from this strange man, or my father, ever again. After my mother’s shoulder healed, she went back to work, something she had not done in twelve years now since she was a stay at home mom. Until we got on our feet, we had to apply for federal assistance to survive and keep a roof over our head. My father abandoned us with absolutely nothing. I started junior high in the fall, but it was a hard start for me. When I sat alone at lunch, I came home to an empty house. Mom was at work, and my father would never again be there to tell me it was “OK.” I never told any of my girlfriends what happened. They would never be able to understand. I hardly understood any of it myself. Whenever anyone asked me why my dad was absent from my first band concert and my first soccer game, I told them that he was killed in a freak construction accident on a job out of town, and that was all I was comfortable with talking about. That seemed to work. I even started to believe it myself.
One day after school in that following October, before my mom got home from work, I went out to the shed. I do not know what inside me wanted to go out there, but I did. I opened the unlocked door and peered inside. Everything had been cleared out, only lighters, broken glass tubes, and empty baggies lying around on the floor. In the farthest corner of the shed, darkened by the shadow of our backyard’s huge oak tree, I saw something on a shelf. I walked over to it so I could see what it was. It was the sign I made for my father. Of everything he had, he left that. My fleeting attempt at reconnecting with my father now lay in a dusty corner of a worn shed in the backyard. I felt crushed and angry all at once. When my mother came home from work, she found me in the back yard, sitting on my knees within feet of the shed, staring down at the object.
“I’m so sorry honey.”
I shrugged it off. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He never cared about me, so why let this bother me now?”
“Babe, you know he cared for you--“
“Yeah. He CARED for me. Past tense. I’m just as dead to him now as he is to me.”
I threw away the gift that meant nothing. Mom and I moved six months later to a place that was a little smaller but we were able to afford. And from there, I was able to forget about my father. I suppressed memories of him. He no longer existed to me. I moved on from the bad things that happened and became a stronger person. I went through the rest of middle school and high school without a problem at all. I regained my honor roll grades. I became section leader in band. I ran for homecoming. I didn’t date too much though. I think I still had an unconscious fear that my affections would be left on a dusty shelf. Then during my senior year of high school I started dating Scott. He was afraid of being hurt as well, so we were very careful with each other’s emotions. We fell completely in love. We’re still together to this day, both in our last year of college. When he asked about my father, I told him he was gone, and that I would tell him everything one day. That day came sooner than I expected.
July. Still the hottest damn month of the whole year. Today is ten years to the day since my father left. Scott and I are home for the summer, and we’re spending this Sunday with my mom. After we ate dinner, the phone rang. Mom was cleaning up the kitchen, so I answered it for her, only to hear a voice I barely recognized anymore.
“Hello?”
“Hey sweetheart! Wow, your voice sounds so grown, but I can still tell it’s you.”
“Who the hell is this?”
“It’s daddy, honey. How are things?”
“I don’t have a daddy anymore. He died a long time ago.”
“I know. Ten years ago today. Look honey, I wanted to call. I wanted to come home. But I didn’t want to put you or your mom in the danger I knew you’d be in if I came back. I’ve cleaned up since then. I’m off the shit and I’m working construction again. I want to be part of your life again…”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I sat next to Scott on the couch. He rubbed my knee to keep me calm. My mom came back into the living room and Scott whispered to her who he thought it was. I nodded to verify his idea. My mom sat down in the chair across from me, worried about how I would take all this. She knew he would call one day. She just hoped I wouldn’t be here.
“Well. It looks like that’s too bad, Carl. You missed out on the most important years of my life. A time when I would have needed you most. You fucked up when the only thing you left behind was that damned present I made you for father’s day. I moved on and forgot about you. I have a life now its perfect. And now you have the nerve to try to come back into my life? No, I don’t think so. You can go to hell.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but you have every right to. I don’t know what I was thinking, calling you now after all these years. Well then, I wish you the best of luck in life. I lov-“
I hung up before he could finish. I wasn’t going to listen to his lies. I started shaking from all the memories flooding back to me. I looked up and Scott and told him, “I’m ready to tell you everything now.”
I don’t know what would have happened if I let my father back into my life. I knew I couldn’t do that though. There were too many unanswered cries, too many tears. Too many things he wasn’t there for, too much to make up for. That is something he is going to have to live with for the rest of his lonely pathetic life.