“Why don’t you ever talk about your father? You talked about your whole family the other night on the patio, but never about your dad. Why?”
I’m surprised by her question, and yet, I’m not. She strikes me as someone who pays attention to the details. I know that’s a detail I’ve neglected to mention.
“Because I miss him. It’s still hard to come to terms with the fact that he’s gone.” She looks at me then, eyes glassy, and gives a slight nod before setting her gaze back on the water. She doesn’t ask what happened to him, as if at this moment that’s not the information that matters most.
“You were close, then.” It’s not a question, but I answer anyway.
“We were.”
“I hardly knew my mom, and what I remember…” Liv lifts her chin and tilts her head, as if lost in thought. I clasp my hands in my lap, watching the fish glide under the surface of the water around my feet, and wait for her to share more.
“She and my dad were high school sweethearts. They got married young and had me pretty young too. It was unplanned. There’s very little about my dad that I remember, except hearing him tell my mom that he never wanted me to begin with. He stuck around for a while, and when I was just about five, he left. Never saw him again.” She pauses, looking out across the lake with a contemplative gaze.
“My mom spent a lot of time in bed after he left. She would get angry really fast and cry a lot. My grandparents came by moreand spent time with me while my mom locked herself away.” Liv drops her other leg over the side of the dock, twisting her fingers together.
“I remember one time waiting outside of school for her to come pick me up. She was late. Really late. I thought she had forgotten me. The school had to call my grandparents, and they came to get me. We moved in with Gram and Pop shortly after. I was six.” Liv inhales like she’s pulling courage from the air, taking a large breath in through her nose and releasing it.
I don’t know what to say, so I stay silent. She doesn’t sound like she wants my thoughts, anyway. If I had to guess, it seems like she needs the space to voice hers.
“Once I climbed up onto the couch to cuddle with my mom. She used to cuddle with me all the time. She wanted to be alone, though. I said I wanted to sit with her, and she told me to stop being so difficult, and to go find something to do.”
I bristle at the use of the word difficult. She wasn’t being difficult. She was a kid who wanted her mom.
“I remember thinking I had done something wrong, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I just wanted to see her smile again.” She’s shaking her head like the memory is almost too unbelievable, even for her.
Unable to help it, I reach out and take her hand in mine. Liv looks at our hands—hers is so small in mine—but doesn’t pull away. Instead, she shifts her body to be more comfortable so our fingers can remain entwined.
“She used to sing to me at night when I was really little. Those are some of my first memories. She’d sing and cuddle in bed with me. Then Dad left, and everything changed.”
Having grown up with a mother and father who were very much involved and present in my life, I can’t even imagine how hard it was for Liv to grow up with a father who left and a mother who shut down and cut her out because of it.
“Eventually, she left me, too,” Liv states. I rub my thumbacross her hand, shoving down the frustration building for what six-year-old Liv had to endure.
“At first, she started going out a lot, not coming home. I remember my Gram arguing with her one night about something. The next day, Mom was gone. That was that. She didn’t say goodbye. No hug, no kiss, or sorry explanation. She just… left.” Her hand swipes angrily at a stray tear that’s streaking down her cheek. “I wasn’t enough for her. Not worth sticking around for.” Her voice is sharp.
“Did you ever ask where she went?”
“I asked, yeah. I don’t really remember the answer making much sense. Looking back now, it was a kind of non-answer, you know? It made Gram upset when I asked. I knew that much. So I didn’t ask again.” Liv sighs heavily, her shoulders slumping before she straightens them and attempts to sit taller.
“My Gram and Pop raised me, loved me, and made me feel special. I’m forever grateful to them. Still, I spent most of my life hoping to get my mother’s attention, trying to be someone worthy of being loved. To make a name for myself. I won track meets, was valedictorian in high school, graduated with honors in college, and started a business for goodness' sake.” Liv releases a sardonic chuckle. “You know, I stupidly checked the mail every fucking day hoping I’d get a letter from my mom saying that she saw me, my name, anything, and was proud of me. I hoped she’d find me and maybe finally want to know me.”
Her hazel eyes, glistening with unshed tears, meet mine. “A letter never came, and now I know it never will.”
She hands me a paper folded in half that I didn’t notice she had. I take it, unfolding it and scanning the page.
It’s a death certificate.
By the looks of it, her mom died of an overdose almost five years ago.Goddamn.
“I’m sorry.” I hand the paper back, and she tucks it away. More tears streak down her face, and this time, I can’t stopmyself from reaching for her cheek and turning her face toward mine. Her head dips down as if embarrassed to be crying, so I nudge it back up with my finger under her chin.
“Hey,” I whisper, reaching up and slipping her glasses off her face. I fold them neatly and place them on the dock before grasping her cheeks gently between my hands to wipe her tears away with the pads of my thumbs. Her eyes fall closed as she releases a breath through her nose.
“I just wish I could have been enough.” The look on her face nearly guts me.
“I have no explanation for your mother’s choices, Liv.” And I don’t. I couldn’t begin to try and understand, so I’m not going to. Turning my body so I’m facing her, with one leg hanging over the side of the dock, the other between us, I scoot closer. “But I need you to listen to me. Are you listening?”
She looks up through wet eyelashes, nodding almost imperceptibly.
