I don’t voice the question, but he hears it anyway.
“Madremoved away before I got to experience the joys of living there.”
“Why are you so bitter if it was her life and not yours?”
Couched behind the words is a desperation to understand him. This man who raised me. Who abandoned me for a woman a couple years older than me. Who left his family behind in the wake of his midlife crisis.
“You think we upgraded when we arrived in the States? Grow up, Denver. Jesus. You don’t even want to think about what my mother did to get us over here.” He spits the words at me. “Do you know whatI’vedone to give you the life you and your brothers so casually denigrate?ThesafetyI’ve cultivated because I’m well aware what it’s like not to have that?”
“Did Mom know?”
“Of course not,” he jeers.
“Why not?”
“Because she didn’t need to. How the fuck did you even learn about it? I askedMadrenever to mention it to you. I made her vow to me she wouldn’t.”
“Hard to keep secrets when you’re dying. I was with her in the hospital when she said it. Always remembered the name and wrote it down in a diary I used to keep. I let it tickle my curiosity, and then the opportunity to come here arrived and I leaped at the chance.
“It always seemed so strange to me how you gave her everything, to the point Mom used to complain how your mother came first before us all, but when she wanted to go home to Madrid, you refused to pay for her trip.”
“Madrid wasn’t home,” he strikes back.
“She didn’t agree.” I stick my hand in my pocket and play with my keys, anything to break the restlessness inside me. “I don’t agree either. This is a pilgrimage. Where it all began. Where our family came from, where it ended.”
“Don’t say that!”
“How can I not? You’re the one who broke us,” I shout, uncaring that the words echo around the clearing—until a train rattles past in the distance, rupturing the sound. “And for what? Because you’re running from this place? Always aiming for more, for better than what you were when you were born? Needing to prove to yourself and the rest of the world that you’ll never end up back in someplace like this?
“And the bitch of it is, you already had it all. We weren’t perfect, but we were yours. Now, I don’t even know what we are. You’re a name on the screen of a cell phone when you call me to talk to a prospective future client who’s my best friend. You sign the checks on my bills and pay my way for a degree that I suck at while forcing me to be friendly with the woman you cheated on my mother with…
“Because that’s just it, Dad. You stopped trying. You snapped up Franwhoever and forgot about us?—”
“That’s not true, goddammit. You can think whatever you want, but I didnotforget about you. Everything I do, every day, is to keep you all safe. To provide for you, to?—”
“Maybe we just wanted our dad around, you know? Maybe Mom shouldn’t be relying on her new squeeze to disciplineyoursons because they’re nightmares. Maybe you should have come to visit me inPoughkeepsie when I didn’t show up for Thanksgiving. Maybe you should have cared beyond signing checks.” Anger ripples through me, especially when he doesn’t answer. I heave a sigh. “Never mind.”
I cut the call and don’t pick up when he rings back.
The bitch of it is, I didn’t head into that conversation with an argumentative or petty or mean attitude.
It’s probably the first time I’ve told him how much the divorce hurt me and all he cares about is me uncovering his dirty little secret. One that’s only dirty in his imagination.
With one final look at the place that shattered something in my father before he even had the chance to begin, I trudge over to the taxi that’s waiting for me.
The driver’s relieved to see me.
Only a hundred euros got him to agree to stick around, and considering a couple of the guys I’ve noticed loitering seem like they’re interested in his hubcaps, I appreciate his staying power.
My mind refuses to settle during the long trip back to the center where my digs are.
I think about my grandmother and her past and the secrets that Dad’s kept from us all for decades. I think about the divorce and how it hurt. How it affected me. How I should probably have had therapy like Mom forced the boys to go to…
Mostly, I think about how we weren’t perfect but I thought we all loved each other.
By the time I reach my building, I remember the Erasmus party I was supposed to attend today.
The taxi driver looks even happier to extend my fare, and I’m happier still to charge it to the card Dad gave me when I went to Oakwood.
