Chapter 19 Memphis City Blues #2
“Because you’re the reason we don’t have a relationship,” she said.
“You preferred drinking yourself to embarrassment than accepting that your mother wasn’t perfect.
Skipped college and martyred yourself. Twenty years later, you can’t fathom that I’ve changed, because you haven’t.
You’d rather your father be unhappy than know that he forgave me. ”
He looked to his dad for some form of rebuttal, a futility considering he was clearly in on this ridiculous charade. And maybe Casey was, too, because his mother sounded just like him.
Jamie could understand his mother feeling trapped in a family she was never ready for.
Parenthood was an excruciating undertaking for him now, in his financially secure thirties; for an eighteen-year-old, forced to rely on a man for everything, it must have felt impossible.
But she made the worst available decisions at every turn, and she’d never been accountable for them.
Leaving his father to pick up the pieces.
All this time, Jamie believed their dad tolerated her narcissism for the sake of the kids.
It was why he worked so hard to preserve an amity with Lucy.
He always appreciated his father’s brand of stoicism, his quiet determination to be a good dad.
Especially now that he knew the difficulties of single parenthood.
But maybe it came down to the fact that his father loved his mother; the pain of what she did refused to erase that.
“I need some air,” he said. He escaped the increasingly stuffy room, trading it for the backyard.
In the time since his last visit, sometime around Christmas, he noticed the patio had been converted into something much more charming than the bare canvas there before.
Now, there were flowers planted along the courtyard, yellow, pink, and orange begonias livening the space.
There were some nice wicker sectionals and a matching dining set, complete with a lighted umbrella, the beige color giving off posh when it should have seemed dull.
Jamie knew this was his mother’s doing; she and Casey had this talent in common.
Their father’s taste was more classic, to put it kindly, and less trendy than this setup suggested.
But Jamie had to admit it looked far better than its previous iteration.
Having someone around to take care of his dad, even if it was Diane, for however temporarily she’d be around, perhaps wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
“God.” Jamie sighed. Making excuses for her again.
His mother had been right about one thing: She did drive him to drink.
And today, he was itching for something, that little buzz to dull the razor-sharp edges of his anger.
He loathed that this was his reaction to her.
When she wasn’t around, so long as she remained some abstract idea, he could almost laugh off her selfishness.
He and Casey joked about their awful mother often.
But whenever he was in the same room with her, a rarity by his own design, this ire bubbled back to the surface.
He probably needed a therapist, but whiskey always worked much faster.
His dad kept a fifth of Jameson in his den, making it easy for Jamie to summon his younger self and sneak in to get it. He sat at Sam’s desk, vacantly thumbing through the neatly filed paperwork, mostly bills and bank statements, before finding the liquor.
“Now what the hell are you doin’?”
Speaking of his younger self, he startled like a child at the sound of his father’s heavy twang catching him in some delinquent act. “I just need a little somethin’,” Jamie said.
“Why do you start sounding like an alcoholic whenever your mama’s around? It ain’t healthy.”
“Neither is your relationship with her.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about my relationship with her,” Sam said.
Jamie wanted to argue, but his father was right, and he was being petulant.
He relented, setting the bottle back in its drawer, and stood from his chair, allowing Sam to take the seat.
“I gotta get a handle on how I react to her,” he said, using the edge of the desk as his stool. “I don’t know what it is.”
“I think you think that if she hadn’t done what she did, your life would’ve been different. And that might be true, Jamie, but ain’t no proof that it would be better.”
“I don’t want better,” he said. “But different might’ve been nice.”
“People think that…”
“Come on, Dad. You never wondered about your life if you hadn’t been saddled with two kids alone?”
Sam immediately dismissed the thought with a guffaw. “You two are the only good thing I ever did.”
“We have to say that,” Jamie replied. “But seriously…”
“I’ve thought about it,” Sam said. “And the truth is I think I would’ve been a lot less happy without y’all around.”
Jamie nodded.
“I’m glad you stayed, Jameson, God knows I am. But if I’d known you’d regret it, I would’ve kicked you out of this house myself.”
“What?”
“When you decided not to go to Vandy…”
“Well, I didn’t decide on my own. We couldn’t afford it.”
“But you could’ve gone somewhere,” Sam said. “I wish I’d had the forethought to make you go. All these regrets ain’t good for you.”
Jamie sighed. “I’m fine, Dad.”
“You’re not. You’re mad at yourself. You’re mad at me for not being mad at your mama. Of course I wish she hadn’t done what she did. But what good does it do to hold it against her? People are human. Another truth is that I was a bad husband.”
Jamie narrowed his eyes at his dad, offended on his behalf.
“I was. Being a good parent and a good spouse are two different things. And I didn’t give your mother what she needed either. Nothin’ in a relationship is ever just one person’s fault.”
Jamie looked to the floor, wanting to believe that, but he refused to take the blame for Lucy’s infidelity. He’d done his best to understand it, but he drew the line at shouldering that responsibility with her.
“I understand forgiving her, if you really needed to, but why did you have to get back together?” Jamie asked. If in twenty years, he considered running back to Lucy, he hoped to God that Casey would cut off his feet first.
“I don’t know what to tell you, kid. We had unfinished business.”
Jamie sighed. Maybe that was why he was so inexplicably drawn to Eve.
He couldn’t make sense of it, but it felt like there was something there worth exploring.
“I met this woman out in Gatlinburg,” he said, figuring it would be nice to talk about it with someone .
“She’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, and somehow, she enjoys my company.
But she’s also messy and…withdrawn. Half the time, I’m not even sure she likes me.
” He chuckled at his own description, recognizing that Casey was correct that he had no business judging anyone.
“I know she’s not some magic cure to all the things that’ve gone wrong in my life, but…
fuck if the world doesn’t seem better when I’m with her.
” He looked at his dad, searching for recognition in his eyes. “Is that Mom? For you?”
Sam smiled, audaciously showing off his broken tooth. “Always has been.”
“Then…I guess I get it.”
Just then, Jamie felt the recognizable sensation of his phone vibrating in his pocket, and as always, he checked the message in case it involved Jack. Instead, it was Eve, speak of the devil, doing her best to render everything he’d just said absolutely fucking pointless.
Sun, Aug 17 2:14pm
Eve Ambroise: Hey. I hate to do this this way, but it’s the only way I can maintain my resolve. I have to finish this play and my focus isn’t where it needs to be. It would be best for me if we put a pause on it all. I hope you understand. And take care of yourself in the meantime. xo