Chapter Four
I wake up early and head to my mom's basement gym. It was only
a little after eleven when I got home last night and I have excess
energy I need to burn off. I feel that knot in the pit of my
stomach, reminding me that life sucks.
I left Andy's not long
after Rory did. I remember that I told her she'd been a bitch to
Chelsea. The knot twists more tightly. Her eyes flashed wounded
before they found their way to annoyance.
But her thing with Chelsea
is what's annoying. Chel fucked up. I know that as well as Rory,
but so does Chel. She admitted as much and apologized, and with
senior events coming up, them not being able to be in the same room
is going to complicate things. Not just for me, but for all of our
mutual friends.
Of course, that's not the
only reason I practically fucking begged Rory to come over
tomorrow. I do think it's a good opportunity for them to be in the
same room together and maybe get along for once, but I wouldn't
have been so pitifully desperate if just for that.
I just want to see her. I
want to be able to see how she's holding up, with fewer people and
fewer distractions. And I want her to meet Thea. And maybe get
along with Chelsea. Bits has been asking about her also, and I know
she'd like to see her. My mom, too. But my motivations are mostly
selfish. Because the simple fact is, I begged her to come to brunch
because I just want to be around her.
I run nearly twice my
normal distance on the treadmill, intent on ridding my body of all
this nervous energy. I know what I have to do—I have ever since we
met with the detectives in Miami—and doing it with all of this
tension stored up is a dangerous idea. Flying into a rage, even on
the phone, while demanding a favor probably wouldn't produce the
desired result.
A month ago I would have
been confident that I would never reach out to that man again.
After all, my last words to him five years ago were pretty damn
conclusive.
Get the fuck out of this
house, you drunk piece of shit, or I swear to God I will destroy
your reputation and your fucking career if it's the last thing I
do.
I then proceeded to dial 9
- 1… and he left before I had to make good on my
promise.
It's one of those memories
that becomes ingrained into your identity. The kind that you don't
intermittently recall, but that is constantly with you, even when
you aren't actually thinking about it. My mother's smashed nose and
the river of blood pouring out from beneath the tear-soaked
dishtowel, a terrified ten-year-old Bits crumpled beneath the
kitchen table, huddled in a pitiful ball of fear.
Everything changed that
day. All the years my mother threw herself into the line of fire to
protect me had fueled me, and I knew my role had evolved into
something else. I was only thirteen, but I was finally bigger than
her. Stronger. And it was no longer her job to protect
me. Or that's how I saw
it anyway.
But now… now. Though it
kills me to admit it, I need him. Rory needs him. And for her I can
swallow my pride. I can compartmentalize my personal opinion of the
man, store it away on the same shelf I've stored my love for Rory,
as a means to an end.
I take a long shower after
my workout. I know I'm stalling, but I also know I won't
procrastinate forever. Today is the deadline I gave myself, and
today is the day I will do what I swore I would. Seeing Rory last
night—her haunted eyes, no doubt reflecting the exhaustion of weeks
of terror-filled, sleepless nights—has only further solidified my
resolve. I will not let what happened in Miami destroy all the
progress she's made. I will not allow her demons to consume her.
And in order to make sure of it, the first thing I need to do, is
make sure the worst demon—that
motherfucking bastard—does not get away with attacking her again.
I wait another hour, until
my mom and Bits have gone out for their weekly girl's afternoon of
whatever-icures at the spa. They've both been happy lately. After
everything they've both been through, I don't want to cause them
any stress, and I don't know how this is going to go—if it will be
civil and to the point, or get heated and loud. After all, it has
been five years.
My mom is all excited
about some theater tickets she has for tonight, and I suspect she's
going on a date, though I haven't questioned her about it. She's
been spending weekend nights in the city more frequently, and I
wonder if she's seeing someone. While I don't especially want to
think about my mother dating, she's been alone for so long, and she
deserves to find happiness wherever she can. So I won't mess up her
good mood by allowing her to overhear whatever occurs on this
call.
I dial his number, my
stomach a pathetic ball of unsettled knots, and I silently chastise
myself for it. He doesn't deserve my nerves, but here they are all
the same.
The second ring. I wonder
if this is even still his cell phone number. His office number is
prominently listed, but no one will be answering on a
Saturday.
He picks up on the fourth
ring, and I force myself to ignore the instinct to end the call and
smash the phone against the wall. If I do have anger issues,
there's no mystery as to from whom I inherited them.
"Hello?" His voice is just
as I remember it. Professional, a hint of the arrogance he may have
earned in his professional career as a high-powered defense
attorney, but certainly not in his home life. My mouth opens, but I
don't respond.
"Hello?" He asks again.
His tone is detached, almost bored. He has no idea who's calling,
and he's already written it off as not worth his time. Or maybe he
thinks the call dropped and that's why I haven't replied. But I
have to, or he will hang up, and I won't achieve what I've set out
to achieve.
"Mitch." I've never called
him by his name. Not once. But I can't bring myself to say "Dad".
It's been years since I've accepted that he doesn't deserve the
title. That he may be the man who fathered me, but I don't have a
"Dad" at all.
There are a few moments of
charged silence. I can hear him breathing, and I know that although
my voice has surely changed since I was thirteen, that although
I've only said one word, and a name I've never called him before at
that, that he knows exactly who's calling. I don't say anything
else. It's his turn to talk, and I can wait.
"Sammy?" He calls me by my
childhood nickname. As if we've just come home from a Pee Wee
Football game or something. As if no time, no life altering events,
have passed at all.
It bothers me. I don't
know how I expected him to greet me, how he could possibly
acknowledge all that warrants acknowledgment in a greeting, but it
pisses me off all the same.
"It's me," I confirm. I
suppose my tone doesn't reflect anything significant either. It is
calm, practiced. I want to keep this conversation as simple and
professional as possible.
I hear my father's deep
exhale through the phone. I can practically hear him trying to come
up with what to say next when there are so many years worth of
unsaid things lingering through the line. But I don't need to say
any of those things, and I don't need to hear them. Everything I
had to say I said the night I forced him from his own home. This
isn't about us; this isn't about me.
"Samm—"
"Look, Mitch…" I cut him
off. I don't want to give him the chance to say something that
might set me off. And truthfully, anything he might say could set
me off. "I'm calling for a specific reason," I explain. I know he's
both relieved to escape a dramatic exchange—he's always been better
at business than family—and disappointed that I'm not calling
because I've forgiven him. But I doubt he actually believed even
for a moment that that's why I was calling.
My father waits. I rack my
brain to find a way to ask for a favor without humbling myself to a
man who has earned no humility from me. I won't kiss his ass, I
can't even be respectful, but I have to achieve the outcome I need.
So I just come out with it.
"All right, the way I see
it is this. I need you to do something for me. I didn't want to
call you. For obvious reasons. But you're in a unique position to
help with something important enough for me to have called. And
after everything you've—"
But he cuts off my rant.
"After everything I've put you and your mother through, you think I
owe you," he finishes for me. Yes. That's
exactly what I fucking think.
"And Bits," I remind him.
He never laid a hand on Bits, but that doesn't mean his abuse
didn't traumatize her, too.
My father sighs. "Okay,
Sammy, let's hear it."
****
I wake up early again on Sunday. I'm still tired enough to fall
back asleep, but I don't. Last night was the first time I dreamt of
my father in a long time. But that isn't what's unsettled
me.
I used to dream about him
when I was younger, and even for a couple of years after he left.
It was always a pleasant scene that he interrupted by getting
drunk, and flying off the handle. Sometimes he would just yell and
throw things, other times he'd hit my mother or me. But last
night…
Last night I dreamt of a
family day at the beach. We were in East Hampton, where we used to
spend summers before the divorce. But he didn't drink. He didn't
blow up over some innocuous occurrence, some harmless words. The
switch didn't flip, and he was the dad I remembered from the good
times. Because there were
good times. In fact, there were more good times
than bad. But it's not the frequency of good times versus bad times
that matters. It's the magnitude of the bad times, the damage done.
And they were fucking colossal.
I decide to text Tucker
and see if he wants to hit the gym with me. We always lifted
together regularly during football season, and though it's more
sporadic now, he's definitely still my ideal spotter. Dave is too
chatty during workouts, and when you're trapped beneath a hundred