Chapter 31 One Last Heartbreak
One Last Heartbreak
YOU DIDN’T THINK IT WAS ALL BUTTERFLIES AND roses, did you?
Ever after happily doesn’t work like that—mine sure doesn’t.
I’ve learned that nothing in life is free and happy moments are fleeting.
With every great high I’ve achieved, there’s always been a low lurking around the corner to humble me, to remind me that even if you’re on top of the world, it can all be taken in a matter of seconds.
I really believe that’s why I have such intense impostor syndrome.
The universe constantly reminds me where I came from.
As I’ve said before, my curse and blessing in life has been to give back to those who have helped me on my journey.
Bill was always coming in and out of my life. That man and I couldn’t get along for any real amount of time ever. But he was always a presence. And in classic Bill fashion, he wanted to make his presence known at the end. And go out with a bang. Boy, did he light shit up.
My dad was on wife number eight—I think I fucking stopped counting—and he’d married her behind our backs.
Her name was Hagatha, and like all the women he had in his life, I did not trust her.
When my dad told me he wanted me to be friends with her, the five-year-old me who was now allowed to stand up for herself did just that.
“I’ll be cordial with her, but I will not be her friend. I’m tired of you forcing all these women on me,” I told him. And with that, my dad cut me out of his life for another year. Oh well.
* * *
I WAS IN THE MIDDLE of touring with J but decided to take a break at our house in Vegas when the call came. My dad had cancer, and he’d known about it for years but never told me. Now things were dire. As soon as I heard the news, I flew out to Houston to be with him.
As I walked into his house I saw him on his recliner, tiny, gray, and withering away.
All I could do was cry. Cry because I hadn’t had time to process and cry for the little girl who still so desperately loved him.
Hagatha was there and kept reiterating how exhausted she was from waiting on him hand and foot.
She had wanted him to tell us, she said, but he wouldn’t.
We went to one last doctor’s appointment and were told that his diagnosis was prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.
There was nothing more to be done. He had three months to live.
The only thing I could think of was bringing him to Nashville to be with me, so we could try for some different opinions.
At least we could put up a fight and see if we could keep him here longer.
It didn’t help that Bill truly refused to believe he was dying and therefore refused chemo.
But he asked me to help him get better, and as his daughter, that’s exactly what I was going to do.
* * *
AT FIRST, BILL AND HAGATHA stayed with J and me, but eventually they wanted their own space, so I moved them to the same facility where my mom had stayed.
It didn’t take long for me to see through Hagatha’s facade.
They fought like cats and dogs—but hey, that’s my dad’s love language, so I stayed out of it.
I was smart enough to know that if I got in the middle, I’d lose my dad.
He would always choose the women over me.
It had been like that since I was five years old, and Bill’s an old hound you can’t teach new tricks.
I would even stick up for Hagatha sometimes, because honestly, Bill was a dick, and she was taking care of him.
But I didn’t realize how bad things were between Bill and Hagatha until they came to our house for Thanksgiving.
We have a huge family shindig every year, and he was watching everyone sing their little hearts out on our karaoke machine.
He seemed so happy and even a little at peace.
I kept glancing over at him, because in my heart I knew it would be our last Thanksgiving together.
But Hagatha wanted to leave, and she made it known.
She wasn’t whispering at him or hinting.
She was screaming into his ear. For all the yelling and screaming I’d heard around my dad all my life, this felt different.
More sinister. She was fucking losing it on him as he sat quietly in his wheelchair.
It was hard to watch and even harder not to intervene.
But I definitely made note of it. She didn’t care that this was his last time with his family, Hagatha wanted her way. Bill eventually gave in and they left.
* * *
DURING ONE OF OUR CONVERSATIONS, Hagatha confided in me that my dad had had cancer for twenty years and had never told anyone. She had found paperwork with the diagnosis and a treatment plan that he’d refused.
This man refused chemo because he had said he didn’t want it to ruin his sex drive. Instead, he went through all kinds of crazy treatments. I can’t imagine keeping such a dark secret to myself for so long, while also doing nothing to help myself. I’ll never understand what he was thinking.
I tried my hardest to get right with his wife to make his last days peaceful. I put every feeling I had for her aside for the sake of Bill. I mean, Hagatha couldn’t be all bad, right? She was taking care of him—allegedly, but I don’t think it was out of the goodness of her heart.
The reality was that Bill had somehow acquired a bunch of dilapidated buildings and come into his own as a regular old slumlord.
I didn’t know how they got together. My dad had told me that Hagatha had been living with some other dude who couldn’t take care of himself before she latched on to my dad.
I couldn’t ignore the fact that he had money now, and suddenly, there she was.
The hospital in Nashville exhausted all options for treatment. I even had a friend who owned a cancer center in Mexico give my dad treatments of vitamin C and various IVs to try to slow down the progress of the cancer, but nothing worked.
So I got the idea to make a bucket list for Bill—anything he wanted, I’d pay for it.
I couldn’t stand idly by while he just waited for life to leave him.
And unlike my mom, he didn’t want to die.
He told me over and over. And he fought like hell to stay here.
I wanted to make the last few months he had the best of his life.
I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t forgiven him, and I’d never forget any of it.
But some part of me was still that little girl who idolized her rocker dad, who ate little slices of hot dogs out of his shirt pocket.
And that little girl wanted her dad to be okay.
He was the first man I tried to fix, starting from day one. He was the last one too.
I put them into a cute little townhouse and moved them out of the senior nursing home.
I figured that being out of the nursing home setting would help him flourish, and for the most part, it did.
He surpassed the three-month mark that the Texas hospital had foreseen.
He started putting on weight and getting some color back in his face.
He used his scooter to get around. He was a shell of himself, but there was life in him still.
But no matter how perfect I wanted his days to be, the fighting continued. My heart kept breaking over and over—if I were on my deathbed, all I’d want is to be surrounded by love. I wouldn’t want to go out like that.
I tried to stay out of it. I knew what would happen if I got too involved. When I showed up at the condo to check on my dad one afternoon, there was broken glass everywhere. I didn’t ask questions not because I didn’t want to—but because I knew I couldn’t.
* * *
“I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE,” Hagatha said by way of hello. “I’m leaving your dad for the night.” Hell of a way to start a phone call.
Bill was in a wheelchair. He couldn’t do anything for himself. The man needed twenty-four-hour care. But as far as I understood, my dad was in the hospital that night, having tests done. And I know how overwhelming caregiving can be. I empathized. Bill was safe, so why not?
“I just need to reset.”
“Okay, go take whatever you need,” I told her. But then she started rambling.
“Bill doesn’t need me. He just wants her.” It took a little bit of negotiating to understand who the hell she was talking about, but it turned out to be some kind of health aide or nurse of Bill’s that she was jealous of. Let the man live. Jesus Christ.
“Okay, Hagatha,” I said. “Go do what you got to do.”
I called Bill to try to figure out what was going on. One day, I’ll listen to the recordings I have of all these calls. J told me to capture his voice so I could hear it after he passed. That day, Bill finally got honest with me—as honest as he’d ever get for the rest of his life.
“I never told you this because I didn’t want you to have this on your shoulders,” he said. “Hagatha was homeless when I met her, and I took her in off the street thinking that I could help her.”
I tried to keep my cool, but I was already mad.
“Dad, you made her the executor of your will. You don’t even really know her.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen,” he said.
“What’s not going to happen?”
“I’ll take her out of the will.” His voice cracked as he fought back tears.
“Are you at the hospital right now? Do you need me to come?” I asked.
“No, I’m at home,” he said.
“Wait. You’re at home? She left you?” Bill started crying, just big sobs over the phone. Bill was a fucking dick, but at that point, he was a sick man in a wheelchair, crying his eyes out alone. I thought about the broken glass, all the fights, the screaming at Thanksgiving, and it fell into place.
“Is she getting violent with you?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, still crying. He told me she threw shit at him, broke things, screamed and screamed.
I raced over to get my father and I was going to move him into our house. No way in hell I was leaving him with that bitch one more second.
I walked in the door, and guess who was standing next to my dad?
* * *
I WAS PISSED BEYOND BELIEF. My protective instincts were in overdrive. You don’t kick a man when he’s sick and dying, and you don’t fucking hurt my family.
I wanted to say: You’re being violent with my dad, I will tear you limb from limb. But I kept my cool.
“We need to have a conversation,” I said to the two of them.
“I want to talk to you alone,” Bill said, and Hagatha’s jaw clenched.
“Bill, are you sure you want to talk to her alone?” she asked.
You could just about see her pulling the strings.
“Yes,” he said, “but is there anything you want to say first?” Hagatha stood firm.
She wasn’t going to leave, because she knew that if we were alone, he’d go with me.
But she wasn’t moving, so I said my piece in front of her.
“Dad, if you don’t want to be with Hagatha, I will send her back to fucking Texas right now and you can move in with us.” Her face exploded and she started screaming so loudly I had to tell her to shut up. Unbothered, I kept on. “I’ll move you right this very minute if you want.”
Bill didn’t answer for a second, and finally, he looked like he’d just given up.
“If we can work things out, I’d like to stay with Hagatha.”
“But if she’s fucking throwing shit and being violent with you—” I started, but Hagatha kept screaming the shrillest, loudest screeches I’d ever heard.
All my life, I’ve been around screaming, from my very earliest days. It stays with you—the way your body goes into fight or flight and your nervous system goes into overdrive.
“You’re lying!” she screamed, running around the house like a crazy person. My dad looked after her and sighed.
“I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t have said that. Come back in here and we’ll talk,” he said.
“Dad. Is she being violent or not?” And the way he looked at me was as familiar as my own face. He looked like a battered partner covering for his abuser. Hagatha kept screaming, and I lost my cool.
“Shut the fuck up and sit down. You two are acting like children,” I said. They both looked at me in shock. I was tired of it all. The arguing, the manipulation, the drama.
Bill, you are dying. Why do you want to live like this?
Somehow, I wrangled us into fifteen minutes of calm. We made a plan to get them a counselor. We were going to work together. It was going to be okay.
That night, I texted Hagatha that I was sorry for yelling. I told her about the house I grew up in, and how nothing triggers me like screaming. I thanked her for taking care of my dad, and I told her I loved them both. She texted back that she was sorry and that she loved me too. All was well.
* * *
I’D LEFT MY POPS AND Hagatha that night feeling great.
J had won an award, so we were set to fly to LA.
I was going to be gone about five days, and I figured while I was away, they could reconnect and hopefully come to an agreement that they need to start being nice to each other instead of fighting.
It was radio silence on their end the entire time I was gone, which I found unusual—but I figured I’d just give them space.
It was about five in the morning and we were getting ready to board a plane home after the awards week in LA. My phone buzzed with a text from my dad.
Hey, I moved back to Texas. Thanks for everything.
Wait. What? They packed up and moved back to Texas without a warning, a go fuck yourself, nothing??
I broke down. Bill had done some awful shit in his life, but this took the fucking cake. You abandoned your daughter for another woman. Again. But wait, you abandoned her because she stood up for you after you told her your wife was abusive.
It was genuinely hard for me to even grasp it.
That woman loaded up this dying man into a van and drove his ass from Nashville to Texas in a span of four days. In my heart, I feel she basically kidnapped a dying man.
“That’s way too long to be in a car with his body like that,” J said.
I had to leave home at fourteen because my father chose a woman over me. And even in the last months of his life, my dad had done the same. When was he going to stop hurting me? When would enough be enough?
I loved my dad so much—even when he was awful to me. But I’d reached the end of my rope, and it was time to call it.
Why? What did I do to you that I don’t even deserve a proper goodbye?
I told my dad I was coming to get him—and he told me he’d have me arrested. Arrested for trying to help him.
I was done. All I ever wanted was his love, and I was tired. Tired of fighting for it. All I could do was just go silent on him. And him on me. Once again, we weren’t speaking to each other.