Chapter 15 TARAN #2
“Really? Because it seems to me like you’ve got a lot to say to him.”
I considered this, watching the road. And pronounced after a few moments, “Yeah. No, you’re right. I do.”
“Do you, um… want me to come?”
I glanced at him again. He just sat there, biting his bottom lip and looking at me with those big, green eyes of his.
“Would you?” I wondered. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask. And yet, the thought made me feel a little bit lighter, less full of dread.
“Of course I’d come.” He scoffed, mock-offended. “The fuck kind of boyfriend am I? I even declared my intentions to your mother. What more do you want from me?”
“You’re such a drama queen.” I laughed, though.
He laughed some more, then sobered again. “Seriously, though. If you want, I will. But if you’d rather—”
“No. Come. I want you to come.”
“Okay.”
We were quiet for just a second longer, the moment suddenly full of meaning, full of something I couldn’t articulate. Gratitude, affection, love.
And then Diego said, “I can’t believe she brought up spanking you.”
And we dissolved into laughter for another ten minutes.
***
Dear Dad,
I think this is insane, because I don’t believe in the afterlife. I wish I did, because it’d be nice to think you were out there somewhere listening to me. But I don’t, so
I sighed, tore out the paper, crumpled it, and threw it into the trash.
Dear Dad,
I don’t know where or what you are now. But I know there’s a part of you in me and Mom both, and I know I’m grateful for that.
I’m grateful for you teaching me to throw a ball and for having LotR marathons with me.
I’m grateful that you taught me it was okay to be sad and happy and scared and generally have feelings, because a lot of guys never heard that from their father.
I’m grateful you never acted disappointed, even though I know I disappointed you sometimes.
Fucking sad. If I got the chance to talk to him again, I wouldn’t want to sound sad. I’d want to sound firm, and rational, and make the most of the opportunity. I’d want to make myself as clear as possible.
I tore out the page, crumpled it, and threw it.
Dear Dad,
You used to say that parents knew more than kids thought. It was a good tactic for a while, because I assumed you knew every time I swore in the locker room somehow. Then somewhere in middle school I realized you didn’t, and you couldn’t, and what a fucking relief that was.
Nope. Nope, now I was just getting shitty. I crumpled the page.
My phone buzzed on the table next to me. I picked it up and saw he’d changed his name in my contacts so it had a heart beside it. I kind of loved it.
Diego <3
Are you ready for some serious catharsis this week my good bitch?
Nope.
Can I help to get you ready for some serious catharsis?
It’s just a grave visit.
That stoic shit might work on someone who doesn’t know you, you big fucking marshmallow of a man.
Trying to write out what I want to say.
Not going well?
No. How’s the recording going?
It’s fun. Kinda cool to have the whole cast here reading at the same time. I guess that’s unusual.
He had a job narrating a local author’s kids book with a bunch of others this week. Fittingly, he was playing the misunderstood friend with a tough home life who teaches the main character lessons about love and friendship. Or something.
Classic Diego.
You’re crushing it, I’m sure.
We’ll see. If they like me they could ask me back for another one.
You got this.
And then I set my phone down. And picked it back up to add one more line:
I love you.
Diego replied with a gif of Han Solo saying, "I know." Then:
You know they make wedding rings that say that? I love you. I know. We should get those.
Are we getting married?
No that’s heteronormative bullshit but we should definitely get nerdy Star Wars rings because that’s subversive and gay and punk as fuck.
Even if Disney owns it. Shut up.
I chuckled, gave it a heart reaction, and went back to my notebook.
Dear Dad,
I’m in love. I don’t know if I’ve been in love since I was seventeen, or if that was just teenage obsession, and now I have him back, I’m looking back through rose colored glasses. I never forgot what you said that night you saw him leaving the house after midnight.
That’s not the best family.
But that’s not what I mean. Mom would’ve said that too. As a kid, it went right over my head, for the most part. I didn’t know about economic class and the push to turn our world into a capitalist juggernaut that uses the poor and undereducated for fuel.
Okay, now I was just getting high and mighty, and I hadn’t even gotten to the homophobia part.
Fuck my life; what was I even doing? Was it even possible to distill the shit that had been going through my brain nonstop for the past few months into a few concise sentences?
Maya Angelou or Robert Frost or some other fucking poet could do it, maybe.
But trying to do it myself felt like trying to unpick a mass of string that was tangled and tied and frayed and dusty—the sensation was dull and the work was even worse.
The biggest thing I’d learned, in these last few months with Diego, was that facing the past and learning from it was a healing thing.
Even if it didn’t feel like it in the moment, it was so worthwhile. So worth doing the fucking work.
Dear Dad,
I hate that I flinch from words you taught me.
I hate that if we shared a locker room as teammates, you would’ve been the one talking shit on the boy I had a crush on.
I hate that you did talk shit on the boy I had a crush on.
I hate that if you’d known about my crush, you would’ve made me feel wrong, or bad, or disappointing, even if you tried not to.
I hate that even though you loved me so much, you hated something about me. You just didn’t know it yet.
But I’m a grown ass man now. And even if you were still here, and I was bringing Diego to dinner with you instead of to your grave, I don’t think you’d ever apologize.
Just like Diego’s dad never apologized. So is it cowardly not to bring it up now, with your ghost?
Is it cowardly to let it go, walk away, like I do with everything else?
Or is it the only real choice I have here?
***
We picked Mom up from church, and Diego held the passenger side door for her, then got into the back seat without a word.
“Thank you,” she told him, and then smiled at me. “You ready?”
I nodded, because I wasn’t, but I never would be.
The sun was out, so the pretty silver streaks in Mom’s hair caught the light as we walked through the cemetery gates.
Mom had a basket of big summer flowers in her arms, and Diego and I followed, him with a rose he’d brought from home, me with a wad of paper in my pocket that I couldn’t stop squeezing restlessly.
We stopped behind the familiar marble stone, and I said, “That’s it.”
“Damn, it’s huge.” Diego stepped carefully between some other Kovacs graves to eye the front of it. He frowned. “Why is it…?”
“It’s for me,” Mom said with a little laugh.
He looked at her, eyes wide, appalled.
“I know, I know. I just thought I’d save Taran the trouble someday.”
“Truly morbid,” I commented, just as I had when she’d commissioned the thing in the first place.
“Holy…” Diego let that trail off, though, as I came up beside him. Under his breath, he asked me, “Is he actually down there?”
“Yeah. Church doesn’t do cremation,” I said.
“Fuckkkkk,” he huffed quietly.
Mom knelt by the headstone and settled her basket of flowers in front of it. “Happy birthday, honey. Wish you were here.”
I kissed Diego’s cheek and went to kneel next to Mom. She took my hand and squeezed it, and when she looked up, her eyes were misty. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course,” I murmured, squeezing the crumpled letter in my pocket even harder.
“He left us so suddenly.” She blew out a long breath, like she’d been holding it forever. “You have to live like there’s no tomorrow. Even you young people.”
“You’re not exactly ancient,” I reminded her. But she was right. One day, Dad was talking shit about the Steelers coaching staff, the next they were telling us it was a tiny little blood clot that killed him.
She nodded and pressed my hand, then made to stand up.
I started to help her, but Diego was already there, holding out his hand. She took it with a smile, then said to me, “Do you need a moment?”
I nodded.
She picked her way back to the path, leaving Diego shifting uncomfortably behind me. When I made to stand, he took my hand, even though I didn’t need the help. I kept it, tucked it into my arm, and stood there with him at the foot of my father’s grave in silence for a long second.
“You gonna leave it?” he whispered, tossing the rose gently so it landed in front of the headstone.
I let go of the wad of paper in my pocket. Shook my head.
“You sure?” Diego asked.
I pulled him toward the path but stopped to put my hand on the massive headstone. It did seem kind of silly to come out here and not say anything. Even if I was saying it to the air.
So I said, “Hey, Dad. Tried to write you a letter but it turns out I suck at writing.”
Diego squeezed my hand.
“This is Diego,” I said. “I’m sure you remember him from school.”
Diego shot me a questioning look but didn’t say a word.
“So, I love him,” I said with a sigh. “And I wish I could tell you that for real. I wish I’d told you that when I was seventeen.”
The stone was cold under my hand, even though the day was hot and sticky. There was a little breeze that kept it from being unbearable, and there was plenty of shade in the graveyard.
Mom paused on the path up ahead, turned back to look at me. Smiled.
“I don’t give a fuck what you think about that,” I said to the ground. Still quietly, but I put my whole fucking chest into it. And then, “But I love you.”