I Swear I'll Make It Up to You (18 page)

I had no intention of extending an olive branch to my father on this trip, something I think he understood. His girlfriend, Theresa, hadn't gotten the memo. She brought me a glass of lemonade without asking if I wanted one, so I didn't have a chance to decline. I waited patiently while she made herself a couple of sandwiches in the kitchen so I could make my own, but the two sandwiches went onto two plates, not one, and she handed one of those plates to me. It would have been rude not to sit and eat with her.

Didn't this stranger know that I hated her simply because she was inside the same sphere around my father that I had been
excluded from? Was she not picking up on any of the signs I was throwing out that I wanted nothing to do with her? Or was she deliberately fucking with me?

She asked me about New York. She asked me about my music. She asked me about Allison. After a few minutes, I realized I had stopped trying to assess if she was an evil genius or a dolt. We were just talking. It was easy. She said something, then I said something, then she said something. Could I make her laugh?

“Are you Catholic?” she said.

“No, but I am religious. Evangelical Defeatist.”

She laughed.

By the time she excused herself to tidy up in the kitchen, she had confounded every shitty off-the-cuff judgment I had made about her. Theresa was nice. Not in a wishy-washy way, but in a thoughtful, open, engaged way. I hated being wrong, but I felt relief, gratitude even. Dad's girlfriend wasn't just okay, she was good. Worst-case scenario, she might turn out to be great. What was she doing hanging around my dad?

Over the next couple of days, my dad made a few small overtures to me, asking how I'd slept, if I was hungry. I gave back as few syllables as possible, even going so far as to address him by his first name, Murray, instead of calling him Dad. Still, he was trying, in his stilted way.

The last day, I suggested we talk. Not that I wanted to talk, but no way were we going to just slip back into some half peace. Maybe my family was content to let him skate, but not me. I'd learned one thing since I'd backed down from clocking him with a roll of quarters in the Denver airport: fighting sucked; it was scary and it was painful, but pain was temporary. Taking some lumps or even getting your teeth kicked in was far preferable to rotting slowly from the inside out from the knowledge that you were a coward. Fuck it, I would take the old man on.

If we had to yell, we would yell. If we had to scream, we would scream. If it came to blows, well, I hadn't had a drink in six months
and had even made it to the gym a couple of times. Even over the hill, my dad was still a physical specimen. He might win. But if I went down, I would bring him with me. If it went to the ground, I wouldn't just hurt him. I would
damage
him.

I opened the door for my dad, and we walked outside. I could feel a bustle in the air in the house, the sound of my sisters and my mother and Theresa whispering to each other, or maybe just looking at one another. As I closed the door behind me, the tension in the house oddly calmed me. Was this the sensation of completeness a murderer felt the moment before the act?

We pulled up white plastic chairs and sat down opposite one another across the dusty white table. The sun was setting before us, flamboyant sorbet oranges and pinks. It just made the cheap Home Depot deck furniture and the plain concrete patio seem that much cheaper and plainer.

“I'm glad you want to talk,” my dad said. “I think it's good for us to talk.”

He crossed his arms, not really something people do when they want to talk.

“I don't
want
to talk, Dad. It's necessary. I'm not willing to just let things go back to how they were, like everything's hunky-dory, you know?”

“I understand that. Where would you like to start?”

That was a good question.

“Under the terms of the divorce, you were to be financially responsible for us kids, right?”

“Until you were eighteen, yes.”

“And you were supposed to pay for our college, right?”

“Your undergrad, yes. You knew that you were on your own for grad school.”

I could already hear him tightening up.

“That's fine. So . . . you bailed on any and all emotional aspects of being a parent. When you dumped Mom, you tried to bury all of us kids with her. All that was left at that point was the financial
thing. And you couldn't even do that. I worked full-time the summer I was sixteen and started paying all my own expenses the day I left Simon's Rock, a couple of months after I turned seventeen. From seventeen to eighteen, I got—what—five hundred dollars out of you? If that.

“The last time I wrote to you, it was about a $51 chiropractor bill for the thing with my back that happened when I was seventeen. I had already paid for my final semester at school out of my own pocket. You couldn't pay that bill for $51?”

“It . . . At that time . . . Well, I don't really know exactly what was going on at that time. It was so long ago. It just fell through the cracks.”

“I sent it to you four times.”

“Okay. Yes. I should have paid it. Is that what you want to hear?”

“It doesn't matter now. I don't need the money. I needed the money then, but I don't need it now. I guess that's the thing. When I was eighteen and needed help figuring out my taxes and my financial aid for college, you weren't around. When I was seventeen, learning how to drive, and when I needed help buying a car so I wouldn't get ripped off, you weren't around. When I was fifteen, with the shooting . . . Hell, way before that! You were gone for a long time before you finally left. I had to figure it all out on my own. And I did. I don't need you anymore.”

“You seem to have done well for yourself. You certainly look good. All you kids have done well for yourselves.”

“Thanks, I guess. Anything we accomplished, we did it without you.”

“It's a good life skill to learn how to do things on your own.”

Like he had disappeared for our benefit, so we would grow up right. And not because he was a pussy. What was he thinking, sitting there with his arms crossed? I had known this man longer than I'd known any other man in my life, was supposed to have a deeper connection with him than any other man in the world. I had
no fucking idea what was going on in his head. He was probably just thinking what a hassle this was. Anxious for it to be over. Just like me.

“Here's the thing, Dad. If I had a friend who treated me the way you have, well, I would no longer have that friend. Hell, if I had a friend who treated his kids the way you've treated us, I would tell him he was a piece of shit, and
then
I would no longer have that friend.”

He didn't say a word, just cinched up tighter and stared at me.

“But I've gotten a lot of second chances. And I'm grateful for that. If you're going to be more responsive, then we can try again.”

“It doesn't make me happy, not seeing you or hearing from you for years at a time.”

That was the closest I would get to him telling me he had missed me. Hearing those three words—I miss you—would have been better. But that was one lesson he'd taught me: Life is not about getting what you want. It's about living with what you get.

“Okay, Mishka. If you're willing to try again, I'm willing to try again.”

“Great. Then you've gotta stop bullshitting us.”

He sputtered a little, then drew himself up.

“And how have I bullshitted you?”

You really have no idea how easy I'm going on you, do you, Dad? You have bullshitted me in many ways, great and small; you have bullshitted me in every way. Our entire relationship, from the day I was born, was a lie. When you built me that little wooden box for the set of toy tools you'd bought for me, that was a lie. When you taught me how to tie a hook on my fishing line so it couldn't be pulled loose, that was a lie. Every single thing you ever did to make me feel like I could count on you was a lie.

But those years and years of lies, a lifetime of lies, they were such a towering, inseparable clot that they threatened to overwhelm us both. Just cop to one lie, Dad. Give up one lie, and we can move forward.

I presented him with one lie I knew he would never cop to.

I'd never forgotten the unsigned letter, in his handwriting, that Mom had found in the back of one of his books while dividing up their stuff before the divorce. Though not addressed, it was clearly written to another woman before he and Mom had separated. Over the years, that letter had grown huge in my mind. It was not a letter but The Letter: concrete proof that Dad had betrayed us. After she had let me read The Letter, Mom had sworn me to secrecy. I wouldn't violate that pact. Not exactly.

Dad was incapable of admitting he was wrong. He would swear he had never cheated on Mom, I would stand up and walk away, and we would be done with this. It would be a relief to go back to not talking. And this chat would keep Tatyana and Mom off my back because I had tried; they had seen me walk out here to try.

“Dad . . . you said you never cheated on Mom. Again and again, you come back to that, that your marriage was over before you started fooling around with your secretary or receptionist or whatever the hell she was. I know you did. I'm not going to tell you how I know. But I know.”

He took a quick breath, then puffed it out through his mustache. He looked away. He looked back at me.

“This conversation is between you and me.”

Only once, when I was maybe eleven years old, had my father brought me in on a secret. After a big fight with my mom, he had taken me for a drive and sworn me to silence in our Ford Aerostar minivan. Then he told me, “Mishka, sometimes the worst thing you can do is win an argument with a woman.” His intensity that night had chilled me. I had never forgotten it, would never forget it. He had not just never loved Mom; he had hated her.

“Fine. I won't say a word to anyone about this.”

This was a strange turn. What was he going to say? I had prepared for cruelty, violence even. But I wasn't prepared for this, for information, for secret knowledge.

“Okay. This is the truth, so help me God. Lis and I had . . . become friendly before I was able to have the conversation with your mother—”

“Conversation? Dad, you just
informed
her that you were filing for divorce!”

She had cried so hard over the next ten days that she lost ten pounds. I told her she should market the Surprise Divorce Diet Plan—lose ten pounds in ten days! All it'll cost you is three easy payments of $19.95, your marriage of nineteen years, your house, and your happiness.

“Are you going to let me finish? Okay. My therapist told me that my marriage to your mother was over. I fought her on it. I almost walked out, quit therapy then and there. But once I realized she was right, I knew I couldn't go back. Once I'd seen it, I couldn't unsee it. As soon as I could, I booked a trip back to New Hampshire to tell your mother. I had dinner with Lis several times. She stayed over once before you kids were told. I regretted it then. And I regret it now.”

He let out a deep breath.

“You had better not tell her that. Your mom
or
your sisters. I am trusting you here.”

He was. It wasn't the gutting confession I had hoped for, but it was something.

“I won't tell anybody.”

We sat there in silence for a moment. The sun was nearly gone. It had roiled through its beautiful end while we hadn't been paying attention.

“What else?” he said, frowning like he had just been told he needed a root canal and was bracing for more bad news.

“I mean . . . there's more. There's a lot more. I didn't prepare a list. Honestly, I didn't think we'd get past that first one.”

“That's good. I mean . . . that's good?”

He looked at me.

“It's a start.”

I stood up. He stood up. We shook hands. Then we went inside.

What the fuck happens now?

My father asked Theresa to marry him, and she said yes. I wanted to be a prick about it, but Theresa was too kind. Besides, we were trying to play nice now. Before they could marry in a Catholic church, Dad had to have his marriage to my mom annulled.

It wasn't bad enough that he had divorced my mom and tried to divorce us kids. Now he was trying to rewrite history, to purge us from the official record, to deny that any of us had ever existed. It infuriated us all. But the most infuriating thing was that my mother was going along with it. She knew it was an insult. She knew it was bullshit. She knew it was incredibly painful for all us kids. But she refused to stand in his way.

“Fuck it, Mishka,” she said. “I'm out of tears. I am bone dry. If he wants it gone, fuck it, good riddance.”

In order to get the annulment, my dad had to sit for interviews with a priest, then write something up establishing that the marriage had been flawed in its inception. Like a fucking essay on “What I Did over My Summer Vacation.” They'd been married nineteen years, bought three houses together, and raised a family—how could he argue it wasn't a legitimate marriage?