Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
T ROY
My hands shake as I unfold the wrinkled white piece of paper I’ve picked up with the intent to read dozens of times over the last week. Only I haven’t. I always put it back down.
I’ve scheduled a call with Annette for right after my lunch plans tomorrow. I need some resolution around this, as it’s affecting me too much. So, I want to be prepared before talking to her, and reading the letter is part of that. I trust John more than I trust anyone else in the world. If he thinks reading this might help me, then I probably should. I also talked about it with Marissa, and she agrees this could help me get final closure with my father.
Mostly, though, I’ve wanted to talk about it with Shannon. Then I saw her at the restaurant yesterday. When I saw her with him, something inside of me cracked... maybe what’s left of my heart. She let him touch her. She let him use his hand to guide her out the door. The image of him touching my wife is seared in my brain.
Since that moment, I’m filled with anger, fear that I’ve truly lost her, jealousy...
There’s a part of me that also feels used. I never thought that she would be physical with me without there at least being something deep inside her that knows we belong together. Something about us that calls to her soul, like it does to mine. But I guess maybe I was wrong.
I don’t know what it was that I saw. I don’t know if it was simply colleagues having lunch or if there’s something romantic brewing between them. Before we’re even divorced. But I do know that his hand was on her longer than it needed to be if she didn’t want it there. I know that when the attractive woman working at the restaurant put her hand on me, I moved away. I wasn’t rude about it, but it felt wrong having another woman touch me, even in a mildly flirty way. Besides that, I didn’t want Shannon to think, for a minute, I wanted the woman touching me.
Here’s the thing, though. Shannon knew I was there. She knew there was a chance I would see him touching her. She let it happen anyway.
Maybe Marissa is right, and my refusing to entertain the possibility of an alternative outcome—one where Shannon and I don’t somehow work this out before our court date—could be detrimental to me. Truthfully, there’s a part of me that doesn’t care. I don’t care what happens to me if my family is safe, my kids are happy, and my wife isn’t hurt. So, ever since the judge gave us the delay, my heart and mind have refused to accept that it’s over.
I hate that I haven’t been able to share this letter with Shannon. I hate even more the reasons why.
I unfold the paper and focus my eyes on the writing scratched across the stark white paper. It’s a little difficult to read, appearing to have been written with a tremulous hand and trailing off at the end of a few of the words.
Dear Troy,
I don’t know if you’ll ever see this letter, though I have asked Annette to try to get it to you. You don’t owe me anything, even reading this letter. If you are, thank you for doing it.
I’m gonna be direct. I’m an alcoholic. I have been for many years, and I was when I was with you and your mom. I don’t know how much you were aware of it, but it was getting bad around the time that I left.
I drank myself into near oblivion for the next decade. It took a friend of mine dying from liver failure to shock me enough that I decided to get help. I’ve been sober for fifteen years now, and not a single day goes by that my body doesn’t crave a drink. Hell, sometimes the urge is so strong the fight to stay sober isn’t one day at a time, it’s ten minutes at a time. How I’ve maintained my sobriety is a mystery to me.
I’m not telling you this to excuse myself or seek absolution for abandoning you when you needed me most. I’m telling you because, hopefully, you will understand that it was a me issue. I blamed my drinking on plenty of things back then... my job, the state of my marriage with your mom, and even you. The energy you had, the dreams you used to go on about, the imagination you had—it was all something that made you uniquely you, and I behaved as if it were too much. It was never that, though. I used that as another excuse to escape into the bottle. I’m sorry for all the times I snapped at you to stop talking so much or to calm down. I hate that I can still see the look in your eyes when I would do that to you. It was like you were trying to shrink, to be less, all because I couldn’t handle my shit. So, I left.
But here’s the thing: you were a kid, and I was your dad, but I was wrong. I loved you, I did. I’m absolutely ashamed to admit this, but at that point in my life, I loved alcohol and the escape it gave me more than I loved you and your mom. I didn’t find the strength to stop while I was still part of our family. It was my fault.
I’ve written letters over the years, and I don’t know if you’ve ever read them. I suspect you haven’t since you haven’t wanted to see me, which I get.
When I got sober, I started working in the trades as a carpenter. I guess I should add that it was two years before that I became sober. I started spending more and more time with Annette. Annette’s brother was my friend, the one who died from liver failure. We spent time together while he was sick and then as I helped her clean out his house and handle his final affairs. Eventually, it developed into more. I never married her, and she never pushed me to. I was always afraid to try again. I’ve done my best to be good to her, her daughter, and her grandchildren. Still, in my heart, it’s not the same as if I got to do all of those things with you and your family. I’ve heard through the grapevine you have kids, and I hate I never got to know them... to know you. Losing that because of my inability to stop drinking is my biggest regret.
Wow, it’s amazing how much pours out when you open the floodgates, huh? I guess I should get to the point besides what I’ve said above.
If you get this, it’s because I’ve become quite ill myself. I got more years than my buddy, Annette’s brother, but my liver didn’t go unscathed from all those years of heavy drinking. Now, I find myself at the end of a battle with liver cancer. There are no treatments left that could possibly cure me, and I’ve chosen to focus on comfort and spending whatever time I have left with Annette. At this point, I don’t think it’s much—maybe a matter of weeks? I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter because it’s not enough time to right my wrongs or make up for the things I lost.
I want you to know that I love you. I loved you when you were a boy, and I loved you when I left you. Even though it’s probably hard to believe since it’s been so long, I still love you. I don’t expect you to feel the same, but I imagine since you’re a dad now, you understand what I’m talking about. The love of a parent—even a fucked-up parent— for a child doesn’t go away with time.
My wish for you is that your life has been filled with love and happiness, and I hope I didn’t mess that up too badly for you.
I don’t know if I’ll still be around when you get this, but if I am, and if you ever change your mind about wanting to see me, know that would be welcomed at any time. Thank you again for reading this and giving me a chance to tell you how I feel when I definitely don’t deserve it.
You’ll get contacted again once I’m gone with some other details, but no worries about that now.
Dad
I think back to the past and the time I received another letter, which showed up at the fire station, of all places. I was only twenty-two years old at the time. In it, he attempted to explain why he left, said he was sorry, and that he missed me. He asked to see me. I declined.
Sorry doesn’t make up for the fact that he abandoned us. That Mom had to work two jobs and, in her exhaustion, became less and less like the mother she had always been. It doesn’t make up for me being left at home alone until after seven p.m. every night because that’s what her work schedule required. Still, this letter has a different tone, and my gut tells me I won’t hear from him again.
Though only minutes have passed, I’m overcome with emotional exhaustion. I don’t know what I expected from the letter, but it wasn’t this. Maybe I thought there would be a list of excuses and justification for leaving. I expected I might be angry. I’m not.
I don’t have love for the man, but I do feel compassion for him. Doug Willson is a man who spent much of his life a slave to the bottle, and it cost him greatly.