33. No One Is That Well Adjusted
NO ONE IS THAT WELL ADJUSTED
TARA
On Friday evening, I have to tear myself away from Aiden to go and have dinner with my mother. While I’m prepared to introduce him to my friends on the weekend, meeting the parents seems a little too soon, and I also have stuff I need to talk to her about without an audience.
“So, I saw your father yesterday,” Mum says after I’ve been in the house for half an hour.
Her little black and tan sausage dog, Mandy, sits next to me on the couch, sniffing my hand and prodding me to pat her.
“I didn’t realise you were planning on seeing him,” I reply, surprised.
“We were married for twenty years. As much as things ended terribly, I’m not interested in holding a grudge. I never was.”
I stare down at Mandy while I play with her ears. “How do you just forgive him for what he did? He ripped our family apart and broke your heart.” I can’t even begin to understand how anyone wouldn’t hold a grudge after something like that.
“I’ve always been of the belief that forgiveness is more for the benefit of the wronged party than the one who did the hurting.
It was only going to hurt me more if I continued to hold it against your father.
He didn’t take my feelings into account when he did what he did, and I wasn’t prepared to become someone I wasn’t because I’d been hurt.
And I certainly never wanted either of you girls to carry the anger you both did.
” Mum delivers this information so nonchalantly, while all I can do is stare at her.
“No one is that well adjusted, Mum. Surely you were angry with him, at the very least?”
“Oh, I was livid. You remember what it was like those first few months. If it hadn’t been for the Anderson’s, I don’t know how we would have gotten through.
But we did. And once I pulled myself from the pit of grief and humiliation, I knew that the only way I’d be able to move forward was to forgive him. ”
I wrack my brain, trying to remember when it was that Mum had seemed like she’d found some sort of peace.
I know that Will and Kylie’s Mum pretty much lived at our house for the first few weeks, making sure we were all fed and that Lis and I were still going to school.
Will and Kylie had camped out at our place most nights as well.
But there was obviously a time when things slowly returned to a new sort of normal.
It’s strange, looking back at that time from the perspective of an adult.
Lis and I had been fifteen and sixteen, and dealing with the usual teenage emotional rollercoaster when it felt like the world was falling apart.
But now that Mum mentions it, I don’t recall her ever encouraging us to stop talking to Dad.
If anything, she tried to get us to continue seeing him.
But Lis was adamant that he was dead to her, and I always followed her lead.
I wonder how things would have been if I hadn’t pushed him away?
The anger I’ve held for him has been like a weight around my neck for twelve years, and I can never get those years back.
I must be quiet for longer than I realise, because Mum gets up and comes to my side, giving me a squeeze when she sits down next to me.
“You and Annelisa were always going to have to deal with your feelings towards him at some point. I’ve watched you both over the last twelve years while you pushed yourselves to just pretend he didn’t exist, and it has concerned me to no end.
But if you don’t find a way to get past the hurt soon, it is going to eat you alive when he’s gone. ”
I chew my bottom lip, aware that she’s right but still not sure I’m well adjusted enough to simply forgive him.
“He wants me to meet the girls.”
Mum nods. “I know. He mentioned that when I saw him. I think it would be good for you and for them. Those little girls are not to blame for what happened, and as much as you don’t want to hear it, they are your sisters.
They are still at an age where they’ll be able to forget that you weren’t around when they were young.
But once they hit the teen years, there’s no telling how they’ll feel.
You don’t want to become the villain in their stories, Tara.
And they certainly aren’t the villains in yours. ”
I swallow hard, her words hitting me harder than I ever thought possible.
I’ve not once thought about how Jordan and Piper must feel, knowing that they have two older sisters who have refused to meet them.
Annelisa and I are the adults in all of this, and Mum is right, if we keep ignoring their existence, they are going to hate us, and rightly so.
They aren’t to blame for the actions of their parents.
Just like our father’s faults do not define Annelisa and me.
“How do we just forgive him, though? I don’t know how to suddenly just let go of what happened and pretend to be okay.”
“You are both more like your father than you are ready to admit. He was always one to hold a grudge and hold people to unrealistic expectations. Perhaps it’s worth speaking to someone, a professional, who can help you work through your emotions and help you find what works for you?
But it’s not about pretending to be okay, Tara.
It’s about forgiving him so that you can let go of the hurt and anger that has festered inside you and tainted how you view the world.
I’d hoped that Annelisa was able to find happiness with Will and not let it affect her relationships.
But when she ran away, I knew I’d failed her by not insisting she speak with someone.
I don’t want to see the same thing happen with you.
You always looked to her for how to handle life, but you are your own person.
Seeing how much you both changed after he left was heartbreaking, but you needed to navigate your feelings yourselves, and all I could do was be there when you needed me. ”
This is the most open conversation I’ve ever had with my mother, and I don’t know how to process it all.
I do have to find a way to get through it all though, because I know she’s right. If my father dies before I am able to get past what happened, I don’t know that I’ll ever be the version of myself that I need to be. For myself, and for the people in my life.
Something that Aiden said to me swims to the surface of my consciousness - You can’t change the past, but you can choose how you frame it.
I can’t let how Annelisa is dealing with it affect me anymore.
Guess it’s time to stop pushing my emotions aside and deal with them, once and for all.
Once I get home, I send Annelisa a message to see if she’s around for a quick chat. Moments later, my laptop starts ringing, and I take a deep breath before answering.
“Hey, is everything okay?” she asks, her concerned face filling the screen.
“Yeah… I just had a few things I wanted to talk to you about.” I carry my laptop to my bed, leaning back against the pillows and resting it on my knees.
“Okay…” Her expression turns wary.
“I just had dinner with Mum. And she said some things that I think are important that you know.” She remains quiet, waiting for me to continue. “She thinks we should meet Piper and Jordan. ”
Annelisa shakes her head immediately. “No. No way.”
“Let me finish, okay?”
“Fine.” She leans back and crosses her arms over her chest.
I take another deep breath. “She said some things that made a lot of sense. The only ones who were really hurt by all of this was us. Dad got his new little family, but because we cut him out and didn’t really deal with the hurt it all caused, I think it’s affected both of us more than we realised. ”
“How so?” I can tell she’s going to be defensive, which is her usual way of dealing with things when she doesn’t agree.
“Well - and I say this with love - the way that you dealt with the end of your relationship with Will is a pretty good example of your unhealthy coping mechanisms.” She opens her mouth, looking like she’s about to breathe fire, but I hold up my hand.
“No one has called you out on this Lis, but what you did was shit. You hurt so many people with how you just up and left, myself included. Do you have any idea how badly you broke his heart? And you left me here to deal with the fallout alone. He wouldn’t talk to me for a year, avoiding every social event where I might be and making it all really fucking awkward.
It wasn’t until Kylie told him you were in London that he finally apologised for how he’d treated me, but by then, the damage was done.
I’ve been holding on to so much hurt and anger for the last three years that it turned me into someone I couldn’t stand anymore.
” Throughout my monologue, Annelisa’s eyes have begun to fill with tears, but I can’t seem to stop the flow of words now that they’ve started.
“I’ve been so miserable for so long, and I’m tired of it.
We should never have just cut Dad out without at least discussing how it all hurt us.
We let that one really shitty experience define the rest of our lives, and I can’t do that anymore.
I can’t risk damaging my own relationships the way you did, and if I let those two little girls feel like I hate them, I’m scared of the person I’m going to end up being. ”
I finally manage to stop talking, my throat feeling like it’s closing up while I fight back my emotions. Annelisa remains silent, and I keep waiting for her to slam the laptop shut and never speak to me again.
We stare at each other for a few moments before she finally opens her mouth, wiping away a tear. “I’m sorry that my issues affected you so much.”
I wait for her to continue, but that seems to be all she has to say.
“Is that it?” I ask, unable to believe that is all she took away from my word vomit.
“What else do you want me to say? I’m glad you’ve had some epiphany after speaking to Mum about how she just let Dad walk all over her after he blew up our lives, but I can’t just get over twelve years of hurt in a single moment.”
I shake my head. “She didn’t let Dad walk all over her.
She forgave him so that she could move on.
Of the three of us, she was the one who should have been the most hurt, and yet, she’s the most well adjusted.
Maybe that’s something worth thinking about while you hide away from everyone on the other side of the world. ”
She glares at me. “Is that all you wanted to talk to me about? I’m on a deadline.”
I glare right back. “Well, I was going to talk to you about the guy that I’m seeing, but if you’re going to be like that, I guess, that’s all there is for us to talk about.”
After a moment, when I think she might be about to change her mind, she nods. “I guess it is. I’ll talk to you later.”
The connection ends and I’m left staring at my laptop, feeling like crap but not even slightly surprised that, instead of talking about things, she chose once again to run away.