Authors: Kirsten Rees
The following day we drove home together and at my Mother’s insistence I spent the rest of the day at my childhood home. An hour of discussing work, the weather and the usual trivialities and she less than subtly moved onto her children. As expected, my Mother knew all about Joshua’s girlfriend – she had an uncanny way of finding out whatever she wanted. I filled her in on the breakup without mentioning Joshua’s break-down.
“Our family seems so screwed up when I used to think we were so perfect. I guess we’re just like everyone else after all. I knew Matthew had some issues with Dad leaving, but I’d hoped my little brother would be spared any drama in his life. I wanted his life to be good and fulfilled. And now he’s just as broken as…” I hadn’t meant to say that last sentence and it came out in a whisper and she heard me anyway.
“Broken as what Nina, broken as you are? Sweetheart, I know there are things you won’t or feel you can’t tell me.” she said.
“I’m fine Mother, please just focus on Joshua, he needs you right now.” I replied.
“Joshua just needs time. Why do you do that, you make it seem like your brothers are more important to me than you are. I may love you in different ways but I love each of my children equally and always will. There is nothing you could do that would make me love you less than I do, and if you ever need help with anything, I want you to know that you can tell me.” She barely paused between sentences, as if she felt she just had to get it all out. This wasn’t the ‘last’ goodbye I had in mind – I wanted it to be a nice moment between us and here she was worrying and getting upset that she was somehow flawed as a parent which was so far from the truth.
I took in her words for a moment. Looking around the garden I had spent so much of my childhood in, I thought of the happy years I’d spent here and how much my life had changed since then. My Mother sat patiently across from me, her back straight but her shoulders relaxed and her left hand gently resting on the table – it was her technique for business meetings, a strong calm demeanour. But she had a ‘tell’ and I noticed her right hand sat in her lap clenched so tightly it made her knuckles white. I took a deep breathe, looked her in the eyes and lied straight to her face.
When I got home that night, I ran a bath and climbed in not caring that the hot water was too hot for my bare flesh. The flat seemed too still without Oscar and I missed him. Lying back, I stared at the ceiling and realised it would be the very last thing I would see if I were to swallow all those tablets and drink the vodka right here. If it worked I would suffer from severe stomach cramps before slipping in to unconsciousness and then I would drown. It wouldn’t be a nice way to go but then death rarely is, ‘to go gently in to the night’ is a lovely sentiment but not one that I could imagine.
I know that everything that's happened is self-inflicted. To me relationships have become my form of self-harming, the pain I feel is like a relief, because at least I feel something. Better than nothing at all. The thing is my relationships have never been normal. I don't know if I unconsciously went into each one and they ended up so complicated I had a perfectly good reason to end or walk away from them or whether I am just drawn to allure of the unpredictable and impossible.
So I didn't date the nice guys, I've spent years partying with the ‘bad’ boys and I did with the best (or maybe worst) of them. The ones that in the heat of the moment make you bite your lip and knock back that last shot of vodka. The bad boys are the ones that are supposed to break your heart. But you can't break something that's already broken.
I climbed out of the bath and made it far as the floor. Leaning my head against the cistern, I waited until my heart slowed. The tears running down my face began to dry in sticky lines down my cheeks and I really needed to get a tissue for my nose soon. But still I sat there just staring at nothing.
My memories of Joshua shouldn’t really matter since it was unlikely I would be taking them with me, yet I couldn’t bear the thought of ending my life without knowing he was going to be okay. I needed a little more time.
13.Meeting My Dad
Four weeks was my deadline, literally. I knew it wasn’t long enough for Joshua to heal, but the longer I waited, the more I risked finding another reason to stay. Ten days after that night, I was in our kitchen back home. Joshua had stayed in my flat, for four of those nights, sleeping on my couch, drinking hot chocolate and watching movies. It made me nervous having him there but it seemed to help him and that was all that mattered.
Since I rarely fell asleep before the early hours, I had sat in the chair next to him, talking and listening until his eyelids were heavy. When they flickered shut, I dimmed the lights, turned off the TV and sat for a while until his breathing became shallow and I knew he was asleep. I quietly moved in to my own bedroom and waited until sleep finally came to me too.
I came home to bring some of my belongings back to the house on the pretense that I had no room for them in my flat. I sat with my hands underneath me to stop from fidgeting. We had had very few occasions to be sat like this, while my Mother paced the floor trying to find the words to tell us whatever it was on her mind. I looked at Joshua and he shrugged and Matthew had his eyes firmly on his hands which were clenched on the table.
After a moment she looked at each of us and getting straight to the point informed us that our Father wanted to meet with us.
Over the years he had been mentioned only ever when one of us brought him up and my Mother would gently, but vaguely answer the question and change the subject. Yet, ever since he had been called to the hospital the first time she collapsed, she had been dropping him in to the conversation every now and then. She now confessed that she had seen him several times and he had even been helping her since her surgery. Our estranged Father had been taking her out for fresh air and fetching her things as if he were a kindly neighbor just stopping in to check on her and not the man who had walked out and deserted her so many years before.
He had been in my Mother’s life again since the summer before and although she seemed wary of letting him back in to our lives, I knew it was more for our sakes than her own. Since she had left the hospital, she explained that it had been a slow and gradual process.
“I will always love the man who helped me bring the three of you in to the world, but for me that man is gone. He changed and that’s why he had to leave us, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a part of your lives in time.” she said.
Joshua looked elated and I realised he had a completely different perspective than Matthew and I. The two and half years between me and Josh meant that I at least could still remember the awful time after he left and Matthew had very distinct memories of our Father. On the other hand, to Joshua his Father had returned after years of secrecy and unanswered questions. He was the first to speak and agreed to meet with our Father as soon as possible. He had barely finished his sentence, when Matthew pushed his chair out scraping it sharply on the floor and left the room.
I said nothing and when our Mother suggested to Joshua that he look out some photos of us to show his Father, he disappeared too.
“And you Nina?” she asked.
“If you want me to meet with him, I will.” I stated.
“I only want you to be happy, you don’t have to meet with him if you don’t want to but I think it might help answer some questions for you.” she replied.
“Okay.” I said.
Then she sighed in that way she does and it makes me feel like I’ve disappointed her again. “Nina, I only want whatever is best for you. Please don’t do this just to make me happy. I know you’re really trying to make life easier for me, but it’s like you’ve been walking on glass ever since I came out of hospital.” she said.
“I think the expression is ‘walking on eggshells.’” I replied.
“Not for you my darling.” She said and smiled in a way that looked anything but happy. “If I collapsed every time I had an argument with one of my children, I’d have to give up work and live in my bedroom. You didn’t cause me to end up hospital, I had something wrong with me, it was just a coincidence, goodness the first time I felt the pain I was sipping coffee and people watching without a care in the world.” she said.
She may have been speaking the truth, nevertheless, she wasn’t the only reason I wanted to see my Father again. And so five days later, I left the house and went to our pre-arranged meeting place as organised by my Mother. I hadn’t spoken a word to him since I was nine years old and he would be standing in front of me in the next five minutes. Unless he was the type to run late, I couldn’t recall. It seemed such a simple thing not to remember about someone. And then there he was.
My Father walked towards me. Studying his features, I could see a lot of him in myself. While my brothers take after my Mother’s sunny disposition – Joshua absolutely and Matthew at least when he is in a good mood – I, on the other hand, have apparently followed my Father’s deeply, troubled side. But unlike him I hold myself accountable for my issues, whereas Matthew informed me that our Father held a deep and unwavering grudge against the world, which apparently had made him bitter and heartless.
I had sixteen years of pretend conversations in my head to prepare for this moment and even if I was stuck for words I had Matthew’s not so pent-up anger I could project. And yet I didn’t know how to tell him how I felt, or how to act towards a man who was my Father for only nine years nearly two decades ago. We couldn’t just pick up where things were left and I couldn’t start afresh as if he were someone new come into my life – so where did that leave us?
But then I pictured Joshua’s face, he had almost no memories of him and he deserved a chance to make some new ones if our Father truly was willing to be a part of our lives again. I wouldn’t do anything to hinder that, even if it meant making amends with a Father who so far had shown little remorse for leaving us. And I wasn’t so selfish that I would deny this man his last chance to say what he wanted to his daughter before she took her life.
I had decided to meet him in a park; my excuse was we should make the most of the crisp, cool days before the real cold arrived; in reality it just felt less claustrophobic.
“Hello Nina.” he said.
“Hi.” I replied simply since I had no idea what to call him.
He seemed aloof and a little uncomfortable in our surroundings. I had no idea why he wanted to see his children after all these years and myself in particular. Yet I had my answer within the first ten minutes of seeing him again.
He had seen my Mother lying in the hospital bed and thought she was going to die. From the way he spoke, I think he had become acutely aware of his own mortality and suddenly realised how alone he was. I suddenly understood a few things a little better, my Father was now afraid of the perpetual loneliness he had once craved.
“I came here because I wanted to know why you left us and because even if Matthew and I can’t forgive you, Joshua at least deserves the chance to know his Father.” I said.
“I didn’t come here expecting forgiveness and I also don’t expect any of you to suddenly want me to be a part of your life after all these years. I asked your Mother not to tell you why I left, I didn’t think you were old enough to understand.” he said.
He paused and I waited in silence.
“I’m an alcoholic and a drug addict Nina.” he said. “I’m clean, I’ve been clean for eight years now, but I will always have that dark, gnawing feeling inside of me that I fight to stay away from the temptation. When you were kids, I lost my job and I wasn’t in any fit shape to be a Father or even safe to be around you three. I would never have intentionally hurt any of you, but I could barely look after myself and you and Joshua were so tiny. It was Matthew that saw me though, he didn’t know why I acted the way I did but he heard the arguments. Then one night I left the cooker on and almost set the kitchen on fire and that’s when I knew I had to leave.” he said.
“You were wrong though, all these years, we thought you left because you didn’t love us enough to stay. Matthew hated you for leaving and Joshua barely even remembers you. It wasn’t better, it was just confusing and hard and it always felt like there was a part of me that didn’t fit.” I said and I could feel the burning in my throat as I struggled to hold in the tears. I didn’t want to cry, I wanted to be strong and tell him that we had needed him to be a Father and instead he had left us.
“I’m so sorry Nina, parents make mistakes all the time. We do what we think is best, but sometimes we end up doing the opposite. I thought that I was leaving because I loved you all too much to hurt you by staying. It made sense to me then. I know I can’t change what I did and I’m sorry for that, but all I am asking is for even the smallest chance to be here now.” he said.
It sounded like he was reading from a well memorized script, whereas my words were just tumbling out. I nodded because it was all I could do in that moment.
“I thought maybe we could start small – maybe just a coffee now and again, and we can take it as slowly as you want.” he continued “you don’t have to answer now, you waited all these years for an answer as to why I left so I think I deserve a few days anticipation. I’m not going anywhere this time.” he said.
"I need time to think, this is all too confusing." I said.
"Of course, I understand. Nina even if you decide you don't want to see me again I will understand, although it will be a disappointment, I would deserve for you to walk out that door and never come back. I can never make up for what I've done but I am grateful to be able to come to you sober and that you let me try to explain my reasons." he said.