Chapter 26
26
The Past
College
“ I found some of your father’s old stuff when cleaning the attic,” my abuela says, dropping a box at my feet. “I thought you’d enjoy having this.”
She came to visit today, and we went out for lunch.
“Thank you,” I reply, and she kisses me on the head before leaving my dorm.
I settle on the edge of my bed and open the box marked Daniel’s Things .
A beat-up flip phone rests on a pile of clothing and old Polaroid pictures. I open the flip phone, and it’s completely dead. I search the box and find a charger at the bottom.
Growing up without a father was tough. My mom did everything she could to make me feel close to him. She took me out to dinner on Father’s Day, shared stories about him, and always signed his name on my cards with a halo above it.
After plugging the phone into the charger, I hit the power button again. It takes a second to come on.
This could be considered an invasion of privacy, but curiosity gets the better of me. The phone is bare-bones, not like the smartphones we have now. I scroll through the options and select Texts. I browse through the messages until one stands out to me.
It’s a conversation between my mother and father.
Daniel: You’ll have a bastard kid, Paula.
Dread washes over me.
I’m an only child.
The text is about me.
Clutching the phone tight, I fight with myself on whether to keep reading.
Unfortunately, I do.
Daniel: I told you I didn’t want a kid. I’m dying, for fuck’s sake. And this is what you do?
I go through text after text, reading their exchange.
Paula: I told you I wanted a son. He’ll be a part of you I can hold on to. Please don’t be upset with me.
Daniel: Why? A kid doesn’t deserve to grow up without a dad. I did, and it wasn’t fun. We discussed this. You need to get an abortion. I don’t want this. I don’t want him.
I was unwanted.
I fling the phone across the room.
A satisfying crack echoes as it hits the wall.
It breaks.
Good .
I wish it’d caught the fuck on fire.
I slide down to the floor, leaning back against the bed frame, and bury my head between my knees .
Unwanted .
Essie pushed me away at the park a few days ago, and now this?
I feel like I’m suddenly losing everything.
A tightness forms in my chest at the thought of her.
I’ve texted her a few times, but she hasn’t replied.
What did I do wrong?
I’d thought she was okay with what we were doing.
I’ve always respected her when we’re together. I’d never want to force myself on her.
My phone vibrates, a call from my mother lighting up the screen.
I ignore it.
She calls again.
Ignore.
For hours, I sit there, not speaking, not moving, thankful River is gone for the weekend.
When I finally check my phone again to turn it off, I find a text from Essie.
Essie: Hi. I’m sorry we haven’t talked much. I’m really struggling to find the words to explain myself. Please don’t be upset with me.
Please don’t be upset with me.
Is that a prologue to rejection?
I feel like I’m breaking down, and if I read a message from Essie that’s bad, it’ll completely crush me. I drop my phone on the floor, stand, and smash it with my foot.
Then, I do it again.
Again.
Again .
Until it’s nothing but fragments.
I pack my bags and drop out of college.
Delete all my social media .
I sleep in my car for a few nights. That’s hard because it has so many memories of Essie.
A couple of days later, a friend from Cali sends out a mass email that he’s looking for a roommate. So, I move there and work for his father’s construction company.
I avoid my mother.
She sees me as a substitute for something she lost.
Eventually, she and my abuela find me. That’s when my mother shows me a letter my dad wrote to her before he died. In the letter, he apologized for treating her so horribly when he found out she was pregnant. He confessed his fears of being judged as a bad father for bringing a child into the world, knowing he was terminally ill and couldn’t raise him.
I feel sorry for him after reading the letter … until I find out he left my mother pregnant and alone for eight months. She didn’t see him again until his funeral.
After going through his things, she found he’d saved all my ultrasounds she’d mailed to him while pregnant. Each one had My son and a smiley face written on them.
I’ll always wonder if his love was real or if he wrote that in guilt. But my mother has always worked hard to keep his good name and convince me he loved me.
A week later, I decide I need to go back to who I was.
I enroll in a school in California, start therapy, and graduate from law school.
Essie is always on my mind, but I’m scared of rejection.
I regret smashing my phone after reading her text.
It takes two years before I finally search her out.
She declines my friend request and blocks me.
She wants nothing to do with me.
I spend six months working for a California law firm before moving back to Iowa. I shamelessly stalk Essie online and find out where she’s working. I apply to the firm, not expecting a response, but a week later, their call feels like fate. Charles went to law school with a partner at my old law firm, and he gave me a strong recommendation.
California became my healing haven after I left Iowa.
But that healing cost me the one thing I wanted.
It cost me the girl I loved.