Simple Math Ch. 02

Poor little girl. We all get punished for our parents' mistakes, though, don't we?

"Hi," Sally croaks.

I nod. I don't really have a lot to say.

She glances past, observing the room within and not hiding her obvious exhaustion. "Can I come in?"

Well, the obvious answer is 'no.' But it's raining, and the baby does look cold. So...

Once she's inside, she sets the girl down, and she doesn't so much as glance at the top-heavy little diaper-wearer for at least fifteen long minutes. No sign of worry, no fretting that the baby's gone out of sight, no flinching as her daughter nearly knocks a potted plant over on my nice, white carpet. Nothing.

She also seems to be in no hurry to get to the point. "Wow, Joey," she says after some directionless small talk. "This is a nice place." She tries delivering it casually, without affectation, but immediately reveals herself with the addition of, "A lot nicer than we ever had."

I admit it: I enjoy the moment. "Yeah, well. I quit the school system." She turns, surprised, and I wave it off. "Mikey's trial became sort of a burden for me, there. Now I manage training for a company that contracts with the army. Turns out private sector is a lot less work and a lot more pay. Go figure."

The mention of her husband's name draws a sorrowful look, and she glosses over the rest to say, "I'm sorry that our problems affected you that way."

"It all turned out for the better." I immediately feel stupid for saying this, and my embarrassment becomes irritation. "Sally, why are you here?"

She winces. "Joe, I...I don't know where else to turn. My parents are both in a home. Most of my friends are in the process of blowing me off. Your mom needs even more caring-for than little Linda does, these days. I know..." she steps forward, made bold by hunger, "...I know this will be hard for you to hear. I wouldn't believe me, either, if I were in your shoes. But I do sti-"

"Don't."

"Just let me say it, please. And then, if you still fee-"

"I fucking hate you, Sally." Chew on that.

Her voice falters and fades. She looks shocked, then irritated, like I'm being childishly stubborn by not playing along. After a moment, she looks at the floor to hide her emotions. "I guess I just thought that if..." she glances up at my face, doesn't find what she's looking for there, and goes back to staring at the floor. "It wasn't you, Joey. I want you to know that, at least. It had nothing to do with you."

"The end of my marriage was nothing to do with me?" I laugh. "Next you'll tell me that I wasn't even there."

A shrug.

I shake my head. "It's a two-person gig. Neither of us existed in a vacuum. It was a part of me, for Christ's sake. A part of who I was. A part of who I wanted to always be." I tap my chest. "It was here, and it died. So don't tell me it was nothing to do with me."

She finally cranes her head to check on the kid, then hugs herself and says, "I'm sorry, Joey. Michael was just...it was like..." she traces the leather of the sofa with her fingertip, and sighs. "You were working long hours, and you never were very good about talking about our problems. You just wanted to fix everything. Then, you got so damned proud of your new position, I didn't even know how to reach you. I didn't know how to fix us."

Amazing. She doesn't even blush as she says it.

"There," I say, "see? I knew I was in there somewhere."

But she's lost in the storytelling of it, now. "By the time you caught us, I honestly didn't know what I felt anymore. On the one hand, you were part of what was keeping me from having it all. On the other, I wanted you to swoop in and put me in my place, save me from myself. Be my protector. You didn't do that. You just turned right around and walked away, like you didn't even care." A theatrical shiver. "I couldn't believe that you would do that to us! So I kept delaying things, preventing the divorce, waiting for you to realize that it was your job to fight for me. To fight for us." She looks around the room again, and makes a sour face. "I kept waiting for you to help me fix us, and now I see that you were too damned busy fixing things for yourself."

"We were over, Sally. You saw to that. Christ...you've changed so much, I don't even recognize you anymore. Why would I want to fight for someone like that?"

"I didn't change. I just got tired of being bored all the time. Tired of a life without adventure, without passion and danger and desire."

"So you were happier after leaving."

"Yes, dammit. I was."

"And yet you still thought that I should have to save you."

"You're such an asshole," she hears a noise, glances around, locates the kid, then looks back at me. "You didn't give a shit about me."

"You know better than that. You were my whole world." I decide to change the subject. "I was relieved when you finally stopped slowing the divorce, by the way. But I admit it took me a while..." I glance pointedly at the kid, "...to figure out why."

For the first time since she's arrived, I see real remorse in her face. "After I discovered I was pregnant, things got...complicated. And Michael..." she rubs her arm. "He could be so sweet, most of the time. But then he'd get angry, and he'd...I mean, I never expected him to be so..." She glances over at her daughter. "Poor Linda. She'll never even know her Daddy."

I nod. "I'm sorry things didn't work out for you. But you should go."

She bites her lip. "She's your niece, you know. Never mind me. You should know her."

"No I shouldn't."

"She's family, Joey."

Ahh, family. The last ugly weapon of all truly manipulative people. "Sorry," I tell her, "but she isn't. 'Family' is a word that exists only in my future...not my past."

Of course she starts crying. Great. Another of the goddamn stooges crying in my goddamn face.

Does it ever end?

"Please," she begs. "I don't have ANYONE!" Funny how suddenly it's not about Linda, anymore. I doubt that it ever really will be, for her.

"Maybe not," I shrug. "But I do."

And it's true, by the way. Oh, it's not Greek Swimmer...she's been gone a long time. But it's someone even better...someone so remarkable, and so impeccably pure, that I'll not defile her by putting her in a story as sordid as this one. "I'm married, now, and we're working on a family of our own. I've decided that I won't be putting my children at risk by exposing them to people like you. Or my mother, for that matter, or the people who surround you. I won't go around pretending that blood is a binding agent." I wave my arm towards the door. "Blood is just something that soaks into the ground. Go home, Sally."

"How can you say that?" She's busy gathering up her little one, playing her indignance to the hilt. "How can you be so cold-hearted?"

"Didn't you know?" I ask as she storms out the door. "I'm the man who killed his own father."

-

That's ugly, son. You shouldn't talk that way. Not even when you're mad.

-

Ahh, but it's true, Dad. Do you wanna know how?

-

No. And you need to stop this. Now.

-

You were coming over the hill on your bike. Remember?

You were always so proud of yourself for biking to work every day. 'Fit as a fiddle,' you'd say. "Fit as a fiddle 'till the day I die.' And what a premonition it turned out to be.

I was home early from school, by the way. And I was bored...playing in the basement to pass the time, just goofing around and generally being a kid. Looking for kicks wherever they may be found.

Then I found that Halloween costume, and I decided it would be fun to surprise you.

You're awfully silent, all of the sudden. You must remember that costume, Dad. You helped me make it, after all.

I was a wolf.

So I hid in the bushes by the Sunderson place, and I watched and I watched...until I could see you just beginning to crest the hill.

I was so singularly fixated on surprising you, that I never even looked in any other direction. I just leapt right out, and scurried up to the curb on all fours, howling like a child thinks a wolf probably howls...

...and scared the living shit out of that stupid drunk in the pickup.

He swerved. You went under. I ran inside. You can take the story from there.

I never said a word to anyone, you know. Not when we cried at your funeral, not when the drunk claimed he'd seen a wolf coming at his cab, not when they called him a liar or when he went to prison or when Mom had me go see the counsellor because I'd stopped talking about anything to anyone at all.

I took the costume down to the river a few nights after the funeral, when everyone was asleep. I almost stepped in it myself. I was a scared little boy, with the worst secret in the world. I'd killed my father, and let someone else take the blame.

Mom was broken, Michael was broken, the world was broken, and I was broken. Tell me, how does a child own up to something like that?

So now you know, Dad. You know why I've carried you around and invited your opinions for all these years. It's been my job to keep some part of you connected to this world, because I'm the one who threw you out of it.

It was a penance I could stand...up until now. Hell, I might have lived with it forever, if circumstances had allowed. But I'm ready to be a father, now, and I can't have you muddying up my mind or heart anymore. I need to be a better man than carrying you around allows me to be.

What was it you said at the start of this whole mess? Part of being a good father is letting go? I'm going to take that advice. I'm going to care for my children, and love them, and protect them from everything that has ever come before. I'm going to take these things that we have done, and I am going to let them go.

I'm going to let you go.

What do you think, Dad? How does it feel to know the answer to the only question that's left worth answering?

How does it feel to know what I really am to you, and what you really are to me?

Dad?