Unbreak My Heart (39 page)

I studied the menu without seeing it.

“I ordered beer.”

I glanced up at him.

He aimed his gaze out the dark window. “How pathetic is it that I don’t know if my twenty-six-year-old son likes beer.”

“I like beer just fine.”

He said nothing.

The waitress poured the pale liquid—poorly—into glasses, leaving three inches of foam on top. Next round I’d forego the glass.

Yeah. I figured this would be a multiple-beer conversation.

We both ordered hot beef sandwiches.

That was one meal that reminded me of him. The few times he’d taken me out to eat, it’d always been to a truck stop café because that’s what he knew and where he usually ate.

Neither of us was good at small talk. But we tried.

“While we’re waiting on food, you wanna fill me in with what’s going on in your life?”

I told him about being selected for the army’s experimental program with the VA that resulted in me being in Phoenix to attend school. I talked about Raj, but didn’t mention hanging out with my McKay cousins or my relationship with Sierra. He’d mutter about McKays, just because that’s what the West family did.

He talked about a few of the more unusual items he’d loaded and driven across the country.

The food arrived. We each ordered another beer before we tucked in. I kept shooting glances across the table at him, searching for some familiarity. The harder I tried to rattle those memory banks, the more I realized there wasn’t anything there.

But I did notice he wasn’t shoveling in food like I remembered. He pushed his potatoes around on his plate. Set down his fork. Swigged his beer.

He’s stalling.

As much as I wanted him to get to the fucking point of this meeting, I wouldn’t push him. Whatever he needed to say…he had to work up to it.

That kicked those alarm bells in until my ears rang from them. I purposely slowed my eating pace to match his.

But he only ended up eating half of it. I hadn’t seen that before either.

The waitress cleared our plates.

Dad turned his focus to picking the soggy label off the previous bottle of beer. When he finally started to speak, his voice was so low I had to lean closer to hear him.

“I don’t gotta tell you I’ve always been a loner. That’s why long haul works well for me.”

“So you asked me here to talk about your career as a truck driver?”

His eyes met mine. Sometimes I forgot I’d inherited the color and shape of his eyes, so it spooked me to see such wariness in them now. “No. It’s just…I don’t know where to start with this.”

“You talking in circles isn’t the way to start. Just rip off the fucking bandage.”

“You’re right. Lemme get through”—he looked away and cleared his throat—“the worst of it before you start asking questions.”

“Okay.”

Long pause. Then he said, “When I was a kid, I was sexually abused. But being a kid…you don’t really know that it’s wrong if that’s how it’s always been. If it’s just part of the day or night…” He cleared his throat again. “My first memory of it was when I was three years old. And it’s not one of them ‘false’ memories, where you see a picture and convince yourself you were there when you weren’t. I know how old I was because there are pictures of my birthday party—the only birthday party I ever had. A picture of me with the plastic truck someone gave me as a gift, I remember holding it tight that night as he…when…”

I felt hot and cold, then that surreal sense of disbelief that accompanies shock.

“Like I said, I got a little older and I figured what he did to me and expected in return was probably wrong, since it was only just the two of us and he said I couldn’t ever tell anyone.”

I managed to choke out one word. “Who?”

“My dad.”

My food threatened to come back up. I swallowed it back down, taking a healthy drink of beer, praying that helped.

“It went on until I was twelve. Over the last couple of years as I’ve started to deal with this, I tried to pinpoint why that’s when it ended. Had my mother found out? Had I stopped looking like a child? I do know that’s when my folks became born-again Christians. Was it the cause? Was it the effect? But it just stopped.”

I waited and watched him working through this in silence.

“This is where it’s fucked up, son. So fucked up I don’t wanna admit it, but you need to hear all of it.” He fiddled with his beer bottle. “After the abuse ended, I should’ve been relieved. But not only did the…physical contact end, all contact ended. For my dad it was like I ceased to exist. He ignored me. He wouldn’t even look at me. I had no idea what I’d done wrong. No idea how to deal with such complete rejection. So I followed him out to the garage where all the stuff happened and I tried…”

My father seemed to shrink before my very eyes.

I felt so goddamned helpless. I reached out and put my hand on his arm and wasn’t surprised when he flinched away from me. “It’s okay. Take your time.”

He nodded. Keeping his eyes closed he drained his beer.

I signaled the waitress for two more.

Finally he leaned forward again. “I followed him out to the garage and tried to do what he’d always made me do before. He…hauled me up off my knees and backhanded me. He beat the hell out of me, calling me a sick little pervert, claiming I’d been possessed by evil and he wasn’t letting me lead him astray from the righteous path ever again.”

Rage immediately supplanted that sick feeling.

“He sexually abused me and then shunned me. We didn’t have a normal conversation after that until I turned fifteen. Now I can guess it was because I didn’t look like a boy and the temptation was gone.”

“And so did you just…block all of this out?”

“Yeah, for a few years. Especially those years I lived at home. I left as soon as I graduated. In those days if you passed the test for the Commercial Driver’s License then you could be trained on the road by a company that hired you and not have to go to vocational school. I started out a secondary driver for long haul. I intended to get a fresh start someplace else.” He looked me in the eyes for the first time since he’d started talking. “Then I found out about you.”

What to say to that? My birth had forced him to keep a residence in Wyoming. So he couldn’t cut ties with his family.

“I’m a shitty dad, Boone, I know that. I’ve always known that. I took one look at you when you were a baby and I felt sorry for you. You had a fucked-up mom and dad. I suggested adoption because you deserved better than you were gonna get, but your mom… She had visions of us bein’ a family. Which I promptly crushed when I accepted jobs for logging hauls in Canada and didn’t return to Wyoming until you were seven months old.

“At first I sent money because I promised I’d support you. But I heard she’d started doing drugs again, so I stopped paying and let her take me to court. At least with wage garnishment there’d be a paper trail of the support I’d paid instead of it going up in smoke.” He sipped his beer. “During that time she left you with her sister for a few months…”

I frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

“That’s because you were only two or something. One promise I had her make from the start was she was never, ever, under any circumstances to leave you with my parents.”

“Did she ask why?”

“Not that I remember, but I wouldn’t have told her the real reason even if she had. As far as I know, she didn’t take you over there.”

“But you didn’t keep Chet and Remy from getting to know me. So I’ll just ask this straight out; do you think they were abused?”

He didn’t answer immediately. “My gut feeling is no. They were born so close together and they’ve always been inseparable, so it would’ve been harder for him to get one of them alone. I was the rule follower. Especially when it came to positions of authority, so I didn’t ever question any of the stuff he did to me. I just did it or let him do it.”

“Do you have any idea whether your brothers knew what was going on?”

“Nope. They had their own room, I had mine. They wouldn’t have thought anything of Dad taking me out to the garage, because he always did.”

The sick feeling returned.

“I definitely think they’d be shocked if I told them now.” He stared at a spot across the room. “But there’s always that part of me that isn’t sure if they’d believe me, so…”

“What about your mother? How much of this did she know?”

“No idea. Could be when she found out, she stopped it. Could be she knew from the start and ignored it. Could be she’d sacrificed me, knowing he had those…tendencies and then he wouldn’t go out into the community to pick a random kid and end up in jail.”

“Did she treat you differently after your dad stopped…?”

He shook his head. “When I looked back at some of this stuff and tried to, I don’t know, break it down, it becomes obvious. She was always about pleasing her husband. Everything she did was for him. I overheard her talking one time, about how she hadn’t wanted more kids after me, that’s why there’s a gap between me’n Chet. Makes me think she knew what he was doing to me. And after an accidental second pregnancy she got knocked up again a third time with Remy—to protect them both.”

“She should’ve been protecting you.”

“Well, she didn’t. I was already soiled goods so why not let him continue doing what he would be compelled to do anyway. And this is gonna sound sick as fuck, but she…she has the look, the body and the build of a prepubescent boy.”

My head was spinning with all of this.

“If your next question is whether I plan to talk to my father or confront him or whatever, the answer is no.”

“Why not?”

“He’s in a nursing home in poor health. I haven’t seen him or Mom in years. And with all that born-again stuff…”

“That’s ten kinds of fucked up, Dad.”

“Yep. It’s also why it’d be pointless to address now.” He closed his eyes. “I’ve seen the scenario a hundred times. I ask Dad why he did it, if he’s even sorry he did it, and he doesn’t answer. Instead Mom jumps in and reminds me that was a long time ago, he’s asked God for forgiveness. Dad’s accepted his past as a sinner and found redemption. He’s been on a righteous path for years, so my issue with the past is just that;
my
issue. And maybe I should get right with God so I can move on too.”

The odd thing was I saw that scene exactly as he’d depicted it, so I understood. Because in some ways…it was the same type of situation between him and me. Not the abuse, but the opposite; the complete detachment.

“Besides, as soon as you graduated I left Wyoming for Nebraska and I haven’t been back. Haven’t seen my brothers since you graduated from boot camp. Being away from there…it’s been good for me. I don’t see how going back would do anything but set me back. My counselor—”

“Wait. You’re seeing a counselor?”

He blushed. “Weird, huh? But yeah. I met this woman and I really liked her. It was embarrassing to admit I didn’t know how to be with her, because I hadn’t done any of the normal…ah, dating stuff since I started driving trucks. She told me to deal with my issues because I’d been living half a life.” He looked at me again. “That’s when all this came crashing down. I checked into an addiction clinic in Omaha. Official diagnosis was exhaustion. My addiction was to work.”

“When did that happen?” I demanded.

“Three years ago. It’s taken me a while to come to terms with all of this, son. And I…hope you understand why I couldn’t make the trip to see you when you were in Wyoming.”

“I get it.”

“There is another part to this. I’m gonna hit the can first.” He stood and lumbered away from the table.

I took my phone out to see if Sierra had tried to contact me. Two text messages sent an hour ago.

SM:
At least I have a third row seat to witness the wedding of the year – eye roll. Mom is acting strangely calm, so I’m assuming she popped valium before she arrived in her limo.

SM:
What is up with all the pastel-colored golf shirts? And plaid shorts? Do these dudes’ wives purposely dress them like that in some kind of ugliest outfit contest? Anyway, four geezers were checking out my ass and I wished you were here, going all growly, sexy caveman on them, letting them know who that ass really belongs to.
My everything belongs to you. I miss you and I hope things are going well. Call me NO MATTER WHAT TIME YOU GET DONE. I need to hear your voice, Boone. Love you.

I shoved my phone back in my pocket and closed my eyes. I knew it defined selfish, but I wanted her here, waiting in the room for me. I’d need her. I don’t think she grasped how much I needed her.

I wondered how long it’d take Dad to get back into the swing of conversation after this break.

He launched in immediately after he returned to the table. “I already told you I was a shitty father. Not that it’s news to you. What probably is news though is that it was intentional.”

“Why?”

He was back to label-picking. “I didn’t trust myself to be around you, Boone. My dad was a sexual abuser. I had no way of knowing whether that…trait, tendency, whatever the fuck you wanna call it, had been passed on to me. Back then, I didn’t know half the stuff I do now, but a lot of this bad shit is learned behavior. It’s a pattern. It’s passed down. That sucks. I don’t have any idea whether my dad was abused or who did it to him. To be honest I don’t give a fuck. ‘I didn’t know any better’ is never a valid argument. But one thing I did know?”