Rootbound

Twenty-Three

Tait

Henry’s observation sets my heart racing at a new rhythm. Because, when it comes to Charlie, I fucking deserve to know why. I shouldn’t have to move forward until I get some goddamn answers to things, shouldn’t just be expected to be happy because of some obscure scale of blessings and hardships I’ve built for myself in my head. Because I haven’t let it go. And if I did, then I want it back. I want to know why he didn’t try to stay in our lives, and I want to figure out if I want the Logans in it going forward.

I let my husband go. Let my friends go. Let my mom go, taking her as I could when she’d be good to us, but always letting it go when she wasn’t. I let my damn house go, didn’t even take a piece of furniture with me.

“Why did you stop trying… with Ava and I?” I say as soon as Charlie’s in front of me.

He sucks in a quick breath, but the look on his face says he knew it was coming… Grady was right—he wears his internal conversation on his face. Another thing we apparently share. I see the tilt in his brow go from embarrassed discomfort, to irritation, and settle on something in between.

“You’re ready to start this now?” he asks.

“I think it’s as good a time as any… I mean, I’m here anyway,” I say, and try to shrug, not wanting to bulldoze him before I can get some answers. “I guess I want to know why the split even happened in the first place.”

He takes a deep breath before continuing, his eyes scanning back and forth like he doesn’t know where to begin.

“Did Viv—your mom—ever tell you how we met?” he asks.

“No, but I don’t see how that has anything to do with this?” I feel my face frown.

“Tait. I won’t claim that I was a good husband when it came to your mother. Young, stupid… We couldn’t ever get on the same page, it seemed. I feel like it is important for you to know how we began, though. Can you let me tell you? It’s important, I think, for you to understand.” He is talking to the ground, but I can hear the emotion in his voice. I nod, and he must see it out of his peripheral, because he proceeds.

“Your mother and I met for the first time when Duane brought her home with him for summer break in college.” My mouth falls open in confusion, but he trudges on.

“He was very clearly smitten with her, but she wasn’t nearly as much with him. Still, I knew how he felt about her, and I didn’t care. It felt… out of our control. I can’t explain it. It was like love at first sight, and the more we got to know each other just felt like confirmation of those feelings.”

A ball of sadness and anger rolls in my stomach… the words “out of our control” are so similar to what Cole once told me.

“Duane and I were constantly at odds with each other. He had the brilliant business sense, was a walking calculator, and was—is—still good at everything he puts his mind to. But, he hated it here. Ranching was never for him, and even now I think he would rather be in charge of his own separate thing. Your grandfather wasn’t gracious about it, which pitted us against each other constantly… and… well, your mother and I weren’t exactly proud of what we were doing, but…” He sighs shakily. “We were in love. And then… then we found out about you.” He shrugs.

This is news to me, too. I’d never thought to ask about my conception.

“Our plan was to give Duane time, to stay a secret until the sting wouldn’t be as bad. But I knew… I knew how he looked at her. I knew it wouldn’t help. Your mom, though. She didn’t want to constantly live under the umbrella of being known as a cheater, or the one who broke Duane’s heart. We had every intention of doing things as right as we could so that we could have the best future together as possible. When we found out about you, our plan went to pot, obviously, and we needed to come clean.”

“Was Grandma awful to her?” I ask, unable to stop.

He looks at me quizzically. “No, not at all. Not then. But your grandmother is a bear. She was determined to steer the whole family in a direction that she deemed fit, and she bulldozed everyone else. But she and Dad really never held it against her, or me for that matter. I think your mother couldn’t forgive herself, though, Tait. We married, and I needed to work, and to feel like I could provide, and could make her happy in this situation that I felt I put her in. Dad had his first stroke right before you were born, and I ended up taking on more responsibility at the ranch, but your mom wasn’t having it. She was angry that I couldn’t go out and do something—anything—else, and that I didn’t want to. I should have listened to her, should have seen that she was starting to become truly unhappy here. I guess I was willfully ignorant.…”

He takes another deep breath, then looks over at me. “Do you remember anything about the split when it happened?” he asks.

“Not specifically. I remember Grandpa passing, living on the ranch for a little bit after that… then when we moved with Mom… she kept saying you would be coming soon.”

“Well… Your mom didn’t grow up in a volatile home or anything. Your grandparents were great people, but they also never fought, not even the good kinds of fights. They were passive aggressive at best. So, your mom hated fighting. I say that in the hopes that you understand all that came next. A part of me thinks that she didn’t feel like she had a choice other than to leave… that she wanted to force my hand, maybe?

“When I needed to take the ranch over, I needed time to figure out how to change things, and I did—I wanted to change it all so that I could make her happy, wanted to make it into a thriving business so that I wouldn’t be stuck running cattle and be gone all the time, never able to take vacations. I truly tried, Tait. But I got swallowed up in running the place and her fears probably all seemed like they were coming true. I didn’t know how to expand when I was drowning as it was. She asked me to move countless times. She wanted me to leave it to James and Duane to run. But James wouldn’t have changed anything, which means he would have eventually forsaken work for fun, every time. Duane… Well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to compete with him a little. I liked that this was mine, that it became my identity. It’s probably why I was throwing myself into it harder when he got involved. He came home from his big shot job and took an interest in investing in everything to help facilitate some of the changes we wanted to make.

“By the time things were starting to run smoothly, I had let Viv down in so many ways. I was already so sure that I had been too shitty to her to ever make up for it, and that is what she started to tell me. She never seemed happy when I was around, but was angry with me for being gone so much… And all the while she was pulling more than her share of weight at home and with you guys. But, suffice it to say—I just seemed to be the cause of her unhappiness, and it got easier to stay… away.

“Eventually, she had enough of not being one of my priorities. I thought that the work I was doing was to set us up—thereby making her my priority.” He stops here and seems to consider something for a while, his foot shaking anxiously.

“Is that when you met Grace?” I ask.

“It is. And while nothing happened until after the divorce, I realize now that I was having an emotional affair, even if Grace herself thought we were just friends. For that, I am sorry… No explanation justifies it.”

I nod, appreciating the blunt honesty.

“And then, everything else just happened. There was already so much distance that by the time she decided to physically distance herself, I didn’t have the fight in me, anymore.”

He sighs a few times, agitated, before continuing.

“So… yeah. When she ultimately decided to leave, I was… angry. And I wasn’t exactly helpful. I was angry at her and refused to beg her to stay, or to at least stay near—to help me stay close to you guys.

“And, when it became clear that neither of us could compromise… she was afraid that the life she could give you guys wouldn’t compare to what we all had here, and she didn’t want to compete. I realize now that we were young and making our decisions based on us, and not you guys. I can’t tell you how much I regret that, or how sorry I am. Each time I did call, it seemed like it made it worse for you guys, too. By the time I grew up and pulled my head out of my ass and realized that years had passed, you really were happier without maintaining ties, it seemed.

“And, Tait… I need to be clear. I don’t feel like it is right for me to speak to her character when she’s not here. It seems too easy for me to say whatever I want to now, to make sense of it. So I won’t do that, and I won’t make excuses for myself. I thought I was doing the right thing by your mom, and I still don’t know what the right thing to do was. I can’t say that I wish I would have picked up and moved with our family when I had the chance, because I met Grace, and God, I love her, and don’t deserve that woman.…” I can see him struggling and bouncing around mentally, so I stay silent and wait for him to wrap it up.

He is looking at me, his eyes so similar to mine, but brighter and tear-filled, and I feel some of the anger in me deflate. I know how easy it is to get lost in ourselves, even in a marriage. I know he’s leaving pieces out, but this feels like an honest start.

I can see how it might have been, between them, laid out before me. Charlie with his huge family, loud and boisterous, affectionate and playful, with a mass of history and tradition between them… and Mom, subdued, mercurial, with two similarly dispositioned parents but no other living relatives, and the quiet, suburban existence they led in comparison. I could see how it could become an insecurity, because I lived it. I just went the opposite direction and decided to brand myself onto Cole’s family, ignoring the less desirable history of my own. I trudged on, headfirst, and abandoned them all when I had something else to look forward to. I was a kid, sure, but I abandoned even the notion of wanting to reconnect with my family. It was born out of self-preservation, but I bore it nonetheless.

“I met your ex-husband, Cole. I’m sorry to hear that things didn’t work out with him…,” he says.

“What? When?” I ask, incredulous.

“At your mother’s service… I came to the church first and ran into him outside. I wasn’t planning to go in, was still in my car.”

“Why wouldn’t you come inside?” Something I’ve held on to with righteous anger is the fact that he didn’t bother to show up to Mom’s funeral. I’m having an internal crisis trying to process this information.

“Because I didn’t want that day to become about me. I wanted to give you girls the space to grieve… And I didn’t… This is going to sound juvenile, but I don’t know how else to put it. I didn’t want it to seem like I was only there out of convenience or something. I didn’t want to show up and have you think I was going to pressure you for a relationship now that Viv wasn’t in the picture. I didn’t want that day to be about me.” He looks away, radiating shame.

“He—Cole—knocked on my window. He must have recognized me or something because he introduced himself as my ‘daughter’s husband,’ and then asked me to respect your privacy. I told him I intended to, and that I would like to attend the burial as well, but would stay unseen. I waited until everyone was gone to say my goodbyes.”

I nod, not trusting my voice to speak, but wanting him to know I understood.

“I have probably recited this next part to myself a million times over the years, so I’d like to get it out now if you’re okay?” he says, and I nod again.

“When you were born, Tait, and when it came to you girls… it was like Vivien found what she was put on this earth to do. She was so enamored with you guys, amazed. We both were. But we stopped paying any mind to each other, except to hurt each other by what the other did or didn’t do. It’s really not a unique story, I know.” He takes a deep breath and looks at me nervously, like he’s approaching the part that he knows he’ll lose me on.

“Our marriage died the death of a thousand little cuts over time. I had to carry on this family legacy that I wasn’t ready for, that I knew she resented me for—but it was what I knew, and what I wanted, I just didn’t have the balls to tell her. I was a selfish bastard, because I was so busy being wrapped up in myself that I didn’t make sure I prioritized you. ” He takes a deep breath again.

“I think as parents, we think of our kids as a kind of extension of ourselves, and don’t realize that they are their own human people… at least not right away. I think your mother and I had become too wrapped up in our bitterness toward each other to see you guys there in front of us. But Viv desperately wanted a family that stayed together, and when we failed, she felt like she failed. I hated the idea of making anything any harder for her, and yet I was so angry at her at the time. I know this sounds like a cop out, but I felt like I was giving her what she deserved when she asked for it, the chance to be the best mom she could be to you… because, when I did come around, or when I called, all I did was disappoint her and I could see it bleed into her other actions. And Tait, she was so amazing with you guys. When she asked for full custody, I felt I owed it to her. I was so stupid… I wasn’t considering what I owed you. There’s no excuse for me allowing it to go on as long as I did. I should have tried harder for you. ”

I feel my face, wet with tears, hot and swollen. I don’t know what I expected to hear, but the simple and honest explanation makes the kernel of sadness, the one typically wrapped in anger, bloom. I always expected him to blame her… to say that she kept us away. I expected him to keep things surface level, maybe to blame work and then distance. The fact that he is owning up to what it all boiled down to—selfishness, hurt, and bitterness—has rendered my carefully considered responses to be useless.

I can’t help but wonder how I would have felt if I had been in my mom’s shoes. Cole’s family was fun, wonderful, loving. How would it have felt to have kids with Cole, before the split? To imagine the fun holidays with them, the new siblings they’d get with their other side of the family… to constantly be compared to Allie, to swallow my personal rage and devastation so that my children could go enjoy their holidays guilt-free, to then come home to a quiet house, and a broken-hearted Mom barely keeping it together, scraping by, trying to hide any unhappiness from them. It’s so similar to what still took place in my upbringing that I lose my breath. I am suddenly so grateful that I didn’t have a baby with Cole. That I didn’t take that decision lightly. Because I know that kids aren’t an accessory to marriage, they’re not an extension of us. They just are… and I don’t trust that some of my own selfishness wouldn’t seep out onto them. I don’t know if I’d have the strength that so many parents have.

“Thank you. For sharing all of that with me,” I manage. “I think I’m glad that I ended up here. And, even though I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with all the years we missed together, I am still glad that I am here, now.”

Charlie’s eyes fill, and he says, “Your mom did an amazing job from what I can tell. And I’m glad, too.…”

James saunters over to our tree finally and asks if we are ready to go. We gather our things and load back up.

I feel Henry’s eyes on me, but I don’t glance his way. Too raw and exposed as I am.

We take off again, but this time I feel nostalgic, lost in memories, coming to terms with the fact that maybe, just maybe, everything did happen for a reason. After all, if Mom hadn’t moved us, I wouldn’t have met Cole. And even though that ended in disaster, without him bolstering me, I never would have pursued the career that I now love. I can stack the blocks of my life and make sense of them, this way.

A Garth Brooks song comes on the radio, and I smile as a memory surfaces…

I pull up in my Jeep to our little L-shaped house and immediately see Mom through the window. A smile plants itself on my face. It’s a good day, she’s in a great mood.

Mom is in the kitchen with rubber gloves, music blasting. As soon as I walk in the front door and toss my keys on the hook, she whirls around, singing into her dish brush with abandon. I join her and we share the mic, screaming a ballad about being shameless.

We laugh hysterically, hug and dance in the kitchen…

Mom and I that same night, going through wedding plans, looking over the timeline we printed off of an online wedding planning How-To page. I quickly Sharpie over the Father-Daughter Dance, and anything eluding to being given away.

“Tait,” Mom gently rebukes.

I look at her in confusion. “What?”

“I just don’t think… Well, I want you to know that I will be okay if you want to invite your father to be a part of this,” she says, leaving me stunned… I think that she must be saying this in an effort to check off some kind of Mom guilt reprieve list she has going on, so I don’t toy with feeling that out more, and respond with as much levity as I can.

“Why would I invite him to my wedding? To meet my husband for the first time? That’s silly, Mom. I don’t need him there. I’ve told you numerous times that I don’t even need this whole wedding. I’d be happy doing it at a courthouse.”

“I think you should send an invitation out that way. Who knows, maybe he’ll send a gift at least?” she counters, and I see right through her forced levity, too .

“And why would I want that now? He’s been perfectly happy to just pay you your support for us. He hasn’t pursued more, at least not for a long time, not really… so why should I be the one to try?”

She looks at me sadly, then, and her eyes start to fill with tears. Shit. Wasn’t it twenty minutes ago that we were dancing and laughing in the kitchen as we put away dishes? Now I’ve made her feel guilty, like I’m some angry, unadjusted young adult with Daddy issues. Look at me! I’m happy, I’m great, I’m marrying my best friend, and he’s as crazy about me as I am him. Ava is happy, she’s great. She’s got a new boyfriend, is away at college. She did good, we are enough, we made it. The three musketeers, all for one and one for all.

“Mom, I…”

“I have you guys. They let me have you guys. That’s all that matters to me. I just want this day to be about you, babe. I just want you to know that I support whatever you want to do. Don’t worry about me. I can face the music whenever you are ready.”

Easier said than done.…

I spent so much time worrying about determinedly and decidedly being fine for her sake, that I never considered that she might have actually been fine, then… and been genuine about trying to bridge the gap. Was she feeling sad that she hadn’t encouraged us earlier? Did she feel guilty over keeping and moving us, for us missing out on something? I had assumed that was what she meant by facing the music. Or did she feel sad for him, and what he missed? I had made that call, along with many before that, in closing him out.