Sawyer
Zelda has long shifts at the library and work to catch up on for her grad classes, so it’s back to texting for the rest of the weekend.
It turns out to be a good thing, because I need to get my head straightened out.
On Sunday morning, over a tray of breakfast casserole, Aunt Linda looks me in the eyes when my phone buzzes another time—another message from Zelda.
“You’re very popular.”
She didn’t say a word about the fact that I came home in the early hours of Friday morning, though I’m sure she wanted to.
I give her a smile. “I have my moments.”
“Have you been to see your dad?”
I can see why she wants to know, why she’s pressing, even though we both know I don’t want to talk about this. This is what I came here to do. I can’t stay at Linda’s endlessly because there’s a girl down the street who’s in the process of blowing my world into a zillion pieces.
“I really don’t know if I’m going to, Aunt Linda.”
She puts down her fork, and I put down mine.
“Is there—?” She looks out the window. It’s a sunny morning, and the yard is looking better than ever, the grass green and even, the flower beds finally tended to her satisfaction. “Is there some reason you’re putting it off, Sawyer? You’ve been here over a week.”
Something wells up in my chest, and I can’t press it back down. I can’t. “You don’t remember how things were. Is that it?”
“How things were with your dad?” Her eyes are pools of concern, but I’m having trouble stifling my irritation.
“Yeah. How things were with him, before I moved out.”
Linda shakes her head, pressing her hair back behind her ear.
“You know, I never wanted to press you too hard. Sometimes teenagers need a place to get away, and I was happy to do that for you so that you didn’t feel—” Her eyes scan over my tattoos.
What she’s not saying is that she didn’t want me to feel like I had to get in with a bad crowd.
A pang of guilt flashes through my gut. Of course, that’s exactly what I did, the very moment I moved out of my dad’s house.
“I didn’t want you to feel like you had nowhere to go, when you needed to get out, and I was happy to give that to you.”
“And I’m—I’m grateful for that. But I wasn’t—” I stare into her eyes, and she looks right back. “It wasn’t teenage angst.”
Linda shrugs one shoulder. “It probably didn’t seem like it then, but it’s a phase that everybody goes through when—”
“He beat the shit out of me.”
Her face goes blank with shock, and then her forehead wrinkles. “What?”
“My dad. He beat the shit out of me, more than one time. Especially when he was drunk.”
Linda’s mouth drops open. “Are you serious?”
“Why the hell would I make that up?” My hands ball into fists and I force them to relax.
I force myself to put them in my lap. The last thing I want right now is for Linda to think I’m some out of control criminal who might take out his past on her.
I’ve never been totally clear about what I do for a living, but we both know that if I had a regular nine to five, I’d have told her about it a long time ago.
She presses her lips together, and tears gather in the corner of her eyes. “I never knew.”
“Well, it’s not like I was going to complain about it.”
“That must have been—”
“It was terrible.”
Linda puts her face in her hands and takes a deep breath. The silence that descends on the kitchen is thick with the deep breaths she’s taking to try to steady herself. When she takes her hands away from her face, her eyes are red. “I don’t know what to say, Sawyer.”
“You don’t have to—”
“It was my responsibility, as your aunt, to prevent that kind of—”
“No, it wasn’t.” I cut her off in a firm voice. “It was not. It was his job not to be an abusive asshole. It was his job to do that, not yours. You gave way more than your share.”
“But you have to blame me for—”
“For not noticing? I had a lie ready for you for every black eye. I know you thought I was fighting at school, and that was fine with me.”
“You could have told me.”
“I didn’t want to do that to you. Put you in the middle like that.”
She’s shaking her head again, her mouth turning down into a frown.
“What you have to understand is that—” She has to stop to find the words.
“Your dad and I had a close relationship growing up, but that didn’t mean—” She throws her hands up.
“None of that means I wouldn’t have done anything in my power to—”
“I know.” I reach across the island and take her hand in mine, giving it a squeeze.
“I know, Linda. And we don’t have to—” I really don’t want to drag this out into the next decade.
“I know you would have done everything you could, okay? I know it. But I was a teenager, and I thought I was doing the right thing.”
I thought I was doing the right thing.
My own words echo in my head. What the hell do I think I’m doing right now?
They’re followed closely by Zelda’s.
You’re not a worthless asshole.
She could be right. She could be right, and it might be that I haven’t seen it all these years. Asshole, maybe. Worthless?
I guess there’s still time.
I let go of Linda’s hand. “I wanted to tell you why I haven’t been over there.”
A worthless asshole would stay away from his dying father. A worthless asshole wouldn’t give him the chance to apologize, if that is what he has on his mind. A worthless asshole wouldn’t put things off until it was too late.
“He’s worse, Sawyer.” Linda’s lip quivers.
“I don’t know how long it’s going to be until—” A tear spills out of her eye and down her cheek.
“But my head is spinning. If that’s how things were between you, you shouldn’t feel any obligation to—to go see him, if you don’t want to. I’m sorry for pressing you.”
“You know what?”
She picks up a napkin and dabs at her eyes. “What?”
“I’m going to go over there right now.”