Chapter 29
Seth
“That’s my old high school,” I tell Layla as I point to the large brick building on the corner. “When we come back in the fall, I’ll take you there to meet one of my former coaches. The head coach died last year.” The words get stuck in my throat. Coach Rogers was the first male adult in my life who cared about me. He’d drop me home after practice. He’d even pick me up sometimes, and when it was time for me to go to college, he and his wife drove me to Connecticut. It was the first time I ever left New York.
A few times, he bought me a bus ticket to come home for some of the holidays. Throughout all that time, my dad sat on the couch. I tell Layla that the day before I left for UConn, he cried and begged me not to turn my back on him.
A few years ago
“You’re all I have,” he sobs on my shoulder.
I resist the urge to shove him with all my strength and rage inside of me. Instead, I gently push him away and throw the few things that I own in my old suitcase. I make a mental note to tape over the tears on the fabric.
“I know it’s shitty around here, and I’m a shit father, but—” He stops talking long enough to wipe the tears from his eyes.
I decide to tune him out and not respond. There’s no need to tell him that I’m leaving and never looking back. He’ll figure it out soon enough. There’s nothing for me here but bad memories, tragedy, and misery. I don’t want anything more to do with him, this town, or any of the people in it other than Coach Rogers and his wife.
Getting the basketball scholarship at the University of Connecticut is my ticket out, and I’m not going to squander it. It might not lead to the professional league, but it’s leading me the fuck out of upstate New York and this shitty fucking trailer. Not to mention my dysfunctional, co-dependent basket case father. Fuck him and fuck this life I was born into.
Maybe this scholarship will only allow me to play in college, and that’s fine. I have something else. I have my mind, and if basketball ends in four years, then I can fall back on other things since school has always been easy for me. Whether it’s numbers or the sciences, I can easily catch on. My mind is like a camera. I only need to read it once, and I will never forget it.
“Sethie,” my father says. He grabs both my hands and the old, faded shirt I was holding falls to the floor. “Please don’t—”
“Don’t what?” I snap. “Don’t leave? You want me to stay in this shitty trailer with you for the rest of my life?” I yank my hands away and pick up the shirt. “Why? So I can continue to take care of you while you fall apart? While you cry like a fucking little girl?”
The shirt is ugly and faded like everything else here. I look at it and sigh. I can’t take this with me. I ball it up and toss it to a corner. I look around the room. It’s small. The walls are gray and there are cracks in them. The blinds on the small window are barely holding on. The twin-sized bed, which I’ve had since I was about ten, has a lumpy mattress. The sheets were once navy blue but have faded so much over time that it’s hard to give a name to their current color. Those sheets, like my old shirt, also have holes in them.
In a fit of frustration, I kick my old suitcase across the small room. It hits the wall and half the contents spill out. Everything I own is cheap, ugly, and faded. There’s nothing new to take to college. There’s only shame and embarrassment. That’s all that’s ever been here for me, and looking at my father now, a broken man, sobbing like a toddler who just dropped his ice cream cone, I’m glad he’s confined himself to this house. I’m glad he won’t be able to come and drop me off because this is a shameful secret that I’ll never let out.
“No.” He licks his dry lips. “It’s not that. It’—”
“Isn’t it enough that I’ve had to take care of you for the past seven years?” I snap, interrupting whatever bullshit he was about to spew. “Now you want to make me feel guilty for leaving? Any other parent would be happy for me. Any other parent would be proud and eager for me to leave this mess and have a chance at a halfway decent life, but not you.” He takes a step back when I point a finger at him. In the past seven years since my mother left, it’s fallen on me to take care of him. It took him two years after she left for him to tell me she’s not my real mother, and that my real mother left, abandoning me with him. She never looked back because she didn’t want to have me, but her religious family forced her to. No one heard anything about her for years. Not until the news of her death.
Looking back now, I don’t blame my former stepmother for leaving. I’m surprised she lasted as long as she did, but when he told me she wasn’t my real mother, things made so much sense. I never felt a connection. She was never mean. She took care of me, but there was never any love.
“I don’t want you to feel guilty,” he says. He’s standing taller now, and the tears have stopped. His eyes are still red, and despite him standing to his full height, he looks small and broken. “I want you to go. I want the best for you,” he says quickly.
“Really? Since when?” I stop and wait for him to answer. Right on cue, the tears return, but no words come out. “If you want the best, you’ve never done anything to make sure I have it. You didn’t even do anything to make sure I had the worst. You didn’t do shit!” I yell before I kick the suitcase again. Something takes over me, and I kick it again and again until the flap finally breaks away from the rest of the suitcase. Now, it’s trash like everything else in here.
“I couldn’t—” he begins.
“Every other parent does!” I thunder. “They figure it out, but not you.” I point at him again. “And now here you are, crying like you give a damn. If you care, dry your fake tears and let me go.”
“I want you to go, but I don’t want you to forget me! That’s all.” He inches closer and reaches for my hands, but I move them away as if his touch is contaminated.
“Don’t touch me,” I snap.
“Sethie—”
“Why? You forgot you had a son. You forgot how to be a parent. Who am I kidding? You never knew how to be a parent. You know what you are?” I taunt. His tears continue, but I’m too enraged to care. “Let’s be honest, I’ve been more of a caregiver than your son. You’re not worried about me. You’re only scared now because you don’t know how you’re gonna have food to eat since there’s no one here to go shopping and cook while you sit on your ass and pour beer down your throat.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t give your brothers access to your food stamps,” I warn, cutting him off. “The last time you did, they sold it, remember? But I’m sure you’ll figure out a way just like you’ve always figured out a way to get beer.”
He stands there, stunned into silence. The tears continue and he swipes them away. I’ve been angry at him, but I’ve never voiced it. I’ve stuffed the feelings down, and now they’re coming up. Something changes, and now instead of sadness and despair, I see some defiance. He stands tall again and sticks out his chest, and I can’t wait to hear what is going to come out of his mouth next.
“I did the best I could,” he says, his voice breaking.
“Really? That’s your answer? You did the best you could?” I scoff.
“I did.”
“Yeah? What did you do? Tell me!” I scream. When he continues to stand there without saying a word, I say, “Your best is a very low bar. Look around you, Dad.” I gesture at the dank and depressing room. “Is this your best? Your only child is about to go to college, and he doesn’t even have a fucking suitcase. All of my clothes, the ones I had to find at Goodwill, are shit! Do you know how hard it is for someone my height to find clothes that fit? When have you ever thought about what I need? I’ll tell you when. It was never. You don’t give a fuck about anything other than getting your hands on a cold beer and planting your ass on the couch to wallow in your own fucking misery. Well, I hope you choke on it.”
“I’ve always thought about it,” he whispers. He has his head down and won’t look at me.
“And then what? After you thought about it, what did you do?” I press. When all I hear in the room is a sniffle followed by silence, I say, “Yeah. That’s what I thought. You did shit. Or do you consider sitting your ass on the couch and guzzling beer something? You figured out a way to get beer but couldn’t figure out a way to take care of me. Do I have that right? You never had a low supply of your favorite drink, but when it came to buying me school clothes, you couldn’t care less. I play basketball, and I’ve had to buy second-hand sneakers, Dad. But yeah. You care so much.”
He’s against the wall, a shrunken and broken man. His previous short bout of defiance is gone, and he’s back to being a shell of a man. He’s back to the man I’ve known all my life. Disgusted with him, myself, and this situation, I look away.
I bend down to inspect the suitcase now that some of my anger has abated. I’ve carried those feelings inside of me for years, and now that they’re out, I don’t feel any better than I did before. Now, I regret the fit of rage that caused me to completely ruin the one piece of luggage that I desperately need.
“I have to go see if I can find a decent suitcase at Goodwill,” I say tersely. Normally, I’d ask if he needs anything. I’d check the fridge and make a list of food supplies that we need, but not today. “Do you know why? Because I’m getting out of here and away from you. I’m never coming back. I’m free of you and this fucking place. If there’s a God, I’ll never have to see your face again. Hallelujah.”
I storm out the front door and resist slamming it only because I know how precarious it is. One slam, and it might come off its old hinges, and I don’t have the time or the resources to fix it.
I sit on the stairs, careful to avoid the middle step with the hole in it, take a deep breath and scream. Then I count to fifty and look up at the sky, angry again at the world for this hand I’ve been given. A shitty life with a shitty parent in a shitty trailer that I can’t escape because that shitty parent is more like a child I can’t abandon.
But why should I care when he abandoned me years ago? Not only that, but he also reversed our roles, and I’ve been playing the part of the parent since I was a kid. He never signed the permission slip for me to play basketball. I left it on the table for him for days. I remember that week was particularly difficult. He stayed on the couch under a blanket for an entire week. He only ate because I brought him food. I had to force him to get up and stretch his legs. Finally, on the day that the permission slips were due, I forged his signature. For the entire time of my tenure in high school, I forged his signature on everything. Whether it was a report card or a permission slip, I signed it, and he never once asked about it.
He’s never come to a game or a play or an open house. I can count on one hand how many times he’s talked to one of my teachers, but I guess it wasn’t necessary. I was an excellent student and a gifted athlete.
After getting up and taking my bike the half mile to Goodwill, luck is on my side, and I find a suitcase. Even though it’s awkward to ride back home with it, and it slows me down, I manage to get it done.
He’s standing by the front door when I return, and I refuse to look at him. He follows me when I go into my room to pack my new suitcase.
“Looks like you found a nice one,” he says, sounding sheepish. I don’t respond. He sits on my bed and watches me. As usual, he doesn’t offer to help. “You deserve so much more and so much better than me.” If he’s hoping I’m going to refute those words, he’s going to be disappointed. I pull out another shirt that has holes in it. I bunch it up and toss it in the corner. At this rate, I’m going to wear the same three shirts repeatedly. At least I’ll have a job on campus. Maybe I’ll be able to afford some new clothes in a month or so.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. I was so in my head, I forgot he was still here. Only a few more days, and I can get out of this town, out of his dump, and away from him. “You’re all I have,” he says. “I don’t blame you if you leave here and never look back. Maybe if I was in your shoes, that’s what I’d do too.”
“You? Leave? As in walk out the front door and go somewhere? Don’t make me laugh.” I don’t bother to look at him, and I can only imagine the look on his face.
He leaves the bed and stands before me. I can see his shadow, but I refuse to look up and acknowledge him. He takes my hands, and when I try to pull them away, he holds them tight. I’ve never known him to show any kind of strength.
“But I hope you won’t do that. I don’t know what I’d do without you, and it’s not because of everything you do around here. It’s because you’re my son, and I know I haven’t been the parent you need, and I haven’t loved you the way you should be loved, but I do love you. I wish I could do better by you, and I tried. You don’t know, but I tried. I simply can’t.” He drops my hands and his head. “You don’t need me, Seth, but I need you.”
He walks out without another word. Shame hits the instant he closes the door behind him. Giving up all hope of packing, I throw myself on the bed, stare at the ceiling, and scream.