Chapter 32
Kensie
The closer I approached my childhood home, the queasier my stomach grew.
I hadn’t told my parents that I was coming in case I changed my mind.
It’s been two years since I visited them, and they’d only been to Houston a couple of times once I graduated from college and decided not to return to Shreveport.
After the disastrous visit with Canaan two days ago, I resolved to start living again, to push forward with my career, and to rebuild my personal life. And it started with my parents.
Our home had been remodeled and expanded to a four-bedroom house with a deck, up from a three-bedroom house.
From the outside, we appeared to be the ideal family.
A married couple, both heavily involved in the church, with their only daughter, an honor student and a member of the choir.
No one knew that my parents were barely civil to each other and ignored me since I was a quiet child, comfortable in solitude.
When I pulled into the driveway behind my father’s Ford pickup truck, the porch door opened, and my mother, who could pass as my sister, walked out. “Kensie, you didn’t tell us you were coming.”
I opened the door and climbed out of my car. “At the last minute, I wanted to see you. Is that okay?”
Mama pushed her microbraids behind her ears impatiently. “Of course, it is. Don’t know why you don’t visit more often. We’re always home.” We met in the middle and hugged stiffly.
“Is Daddy here?” I looked around her to the porch.
She waved her hand. “I wish he would go somewhere sometimes. Always in the house, bothering me when he’s not on the boat.
I’ll tell him to get your bags out of the car later.
” My father has worked offshore ever since I can remember.
He would be gone to the Gulf for two weeks and then home for two weeks.
Mama, who was a manager at JCPenney’s, always seemed happier when he was away.
We entered the living area that had been refurnished with a beige leather sectional since the last time I was home. “It looks good in here, Mama.”
She waved her hand. “I know it’s not Houston chic, but I love it.”
Daddy, a husky, dark-skinned man with a bald head and full mustache and beard, walked into the room with a bottle of beer in his hand.
“Baby, I didn’t know you were coming. I would have thrown something on the grill.
” He smiled and warmly hugged me to him.
The Irish Spring soap brought back good memories of how excited I would be to see him when he came home before the inevitable arguments started. “How long are you staying?”
“A couple of days.”
The ends of his smile dipped, though he gestured for me to sit like I was a guest and not his daughter. And in many ways, my childhood home no longer felt that way. “Do you want something to eat? Kim, go warm up that roast from yesterday.”
Mama scoffed. “Your idea, you can warm it up.”
My father’s smile turned into a scowl, and I raised my hands. “I can warm up the food.”
Mama shook her head. “No, no . . . I’ll do it. It’s enough for all of us to eat together. Just sit down and relax. We’re so glad to see you.”
“I’ll help too,” my father volunteered. “It’s not often my baby comes home.”
The blend of sadness and happiness in his tone evoked my guilt, though I knew it wasn’t his intent. “I’m glad to see you too.” I hugged him again.
And for a second, I felt like the beloved only child of Al and Kim Garrett.
After a full stomach and light conversation about the latest in Shreveport, we headed to the den that hadn’t been updated.
The brown sofa next to my father’s recliner was at least fifteen years old.
ESPN blasted in the background as it always did whenever my father was home.
This was his man cave more than our family room.
Once we were settled in our places, my father in his recliner and Mama and I on opposite ends of the sofa, I clasped my hands together. “Where do I start?”
“Start what?” Daddy asked.
“Al, she didn’t come all the way here for nothing without calling,” my mother said sharply, shaking her head. “She obviously has something on her mind.”
My father snapped, “It’s a simple question. Don’t know why you have to be so nasty.”
I groaned.
“Because you ask questions when you already know the answers.”
Before he could retort, I hit the cushion beside me. “This is what I’m talking about . . . this.” I gestured to the two of them. “I don’t come home because it reminds me of all the sadness I used to feel growing up here.”
“Sadness?” Mama questioned.
“Yes, sadness. I was sad a lot when I grew up here.”
“You never seemed sad to me. Rarely saw you cry,” Mama said, folding her arms, already guarded.
“Because I never wanted you to see me cry. You already seemed overwhelmed most days. I didn’t want to add that I wasn’t happy here and couldn’t wait to leave.
” I looked at both of them. Neither returned my gaze.
My mother’s jaw was tight, and she faced forward.
My father studied his hands. “And I couldn’t tell if you were glad I left home or sad because you certainly don’t call and check on me that often. ”
“You don’t call us either,” my mother retorted. “I’m your mama. It’s on you to call me first. I’m not chasing behind a child I raised and gave everything.”
“Here we go,” I interjected. “I don’t need to hear for the millionth time how much you sacrificed to have me.”
“Maybe you do, since you come here unannounced, talking about how unhappy you were when we did our best to give you whatever you asked for.” She shook her head and pushed off from the sofa. “I’m not about to sit here and take this because you probably going through something.”
“Did you want me?” I cut to the chase. “Huh? Did you and Daddy really want me?”
“Why would you ask me that?” My mother slowly sat down again on the sofa. Her expression was pained.
“Yes.” My father’s response was confident and sure, unlike my mother’s stalling question. “I wanted you from the first time your mama said she was pregnant with you. Couldn’t wait to be a daddy.”
Mama wryly said, “He did. The smile that crossed his face when I told him. Meanwhile, I was scared out of my mind that I was becoming what I never intended: a teenage mother.”
Some of the butterflies in my stomach calmed at their answer, tinged with warm nostalgia. “You just seemed unhappy, and you never had another child. I assumed you didn’t want me . . . that I wasn’t enough or that if I could’ve been different, you would love me more.”
“Loving you was the easy part. I was unhappy and resentful for a long time because the future I’d envisioned didn’t happen.
I’d earned a full scholarship and planned to study law in Oklahoma, and because I got pregnant by a preacher’s kid, I had to give all that up.
I wanted to take you with me to college and raise you by myself, but your daddy and the grandparents on both sides weren’t having it.
We tried to have another child, but it just never happened.
So we figured one was all we needed.” She finally looked at me.
“You thought all this time that I didn’t want you? ”
Hearing her explanation rang true to the depths of me, and an overwhelming sadness struck me at how much time we as a family had wasted by not simply communicating and allowing our souls to speak.
The strength of a relationship is about the undercurrent of emotion that connects people.
Most people miss that as I had with Canaan, and he with me.
We let the superficial part of us guide our interactions, so we didn’t trust each other and allowed the true, deep love to flounder.
I didn’t want to do that with my parents anymore because, at a gut level, I’ve always known they wanted and loved me.
And if we didn’t sift through all the nonsense, we would continue to be a divided family.
“Kensie, you really thought I didn’t love you?” My mother’s voice trembled, and her eyes watered. She mistook my silence for my answer.
“I knew you loved me. Still know that you do. You made sure my hair and clothes were neat, fed me, and gave me mostly what I wanted and all that I needed, gave me kisses and hugs on occasion. Yet, I felt like an obligation, not a desire. That you would’ve preferred to be single and free.”
“That’s not true,” her voice rose with indignation. “I worked hard to make sure that you had everything you wanted. Made sacrifices you don’t even know about.”
“Oh, I know about the sacrifices. You made me aware of that anytime I asked you to do anything besides going to school. Like I burdened you. I didn’t always feel the warmth of a mother’s love.”
“And your father gets none of the blame for why you don’t come home?
I was here every day with you, trying to work and get you to whatever activity you wanted, while he was gone two weeks out of a month, and I’m the reason?
” She shook her head vehemently. “That’s not fair, Kensie.
I did the best I could with what I knew. ”
“It’s not just you, Mama. You two as a couple are the main reason I don’t like being home.
I almost liked it better when it was just you and me.
As much as I missed Daddy, when he came home, the arguments would start, and then the angry, cold silence would begin, which, in my opinion, was the worst. Be honest, do you wish you could’ve been single and free? ”
My father was silent, staring at my mother. Thick anticipation hovered in the air, waiting for her answer.