20. Connor #2
“You need to speak to someone. A therapist or a grief counselor. Maybe go to a support group or something. Whatever you think will help. Maybe you need medication, Dad. I don’t know. I just know you can’t go on like this. We can’t go on like this.”
He looks down and swallows.
“Mom wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life hiding away. She loved you and she’d want you to be happy.”
More tears spill over and he wipes his face with his sleeve.
“I can make you something to eat. Some soup or something. You could take a shower and we’ll just sit for a while. You don’t have to say anything. Just try. For me.”
He looks at me again, that pain is still there, but I can see him forcing himself to hold my gaze, to take in my face.
“You look so much like her.”
I smile.
“She was so beautiful.”
I nod.
He touches my face and I close my eyes, letting myself imagine a day when my dad can comfort me again. When I can have him back.
He drops his hand and takes a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll go and take a shower.”
“I’ll make you whatever you want to eat. What do you want?”
He stands up, squeezing my shoulder on the way past. “Anything. Whatever you want to make, I’ll eat.”
Dad is freshly shaven and in clean clothes when he comes into the kitchen. I have some tinned soup on the stove because I couldn’t find anything else to make, but it’s better than nothing.
“Smells good,” Dad says.
He still looks and sounds exhausted. Still lacking that spark. But I’m taking baby steps here.
“Take a seat, it’s almost done.”
He takes his old seat at the table, his gaze flickering over to the empty chair where Mom would have sat.
When the soup is done, I pour it into two bowls and put some bread on a plate and serve it up.
“It’s hot,” I warn him as I take my usual seat next to him, opposite where Mom used to sit. “I can make you that curry ramen you used to like….” I tingle with nerves as I say it. Worried I’ll send him running back to the study.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Your mother really made it….”
“I know. But I have the recipe. And it was really good.”
He nods. I don’t tell him I’ll let him eat as much of it as he wants, because that might set him off.
I know what it feels like, walking into the house and forgetting to take my shoes off.
It would highlight the fact my mom wasn’t there to tell me off and remind me that dogs poop outside and now I’m dragging poop into the house, whether I have actual dog poop on my shoes or not.
Or failing to say Itadakimasu, or using a fork when I should use chopsticks, or being lazy with my footnotes.
Remembering that she isn’t here to remind me has broken me many times before.
It’s the weird things that trigger grief I’ve found.
Not necessarily the most obvious or happiest memories.
I see the effort it takes my dad to eat a few spoonfuls of soup and knowing how thin he is under his clothes scares me .
“Promise me you’ll see someone,” I say.
He pauses with his spoon in mid-air.
Please don’t run away now, please stay with me.
He nods.
I let him go back to the study once he’s eaten half a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. I wash the dishes and sit on the couch, think about turning on the TV before deciding against it. When I look at my phone, I have texts from Scout, asking how I am and when I’m coming over.
I can’t go over there. I can’t see Connor. And I don’t want to fight with Scout. But every time I see her, I get mad. She doesn’t even know what she took from me, and it isn’t her fault.
Fuck. No matter what I do now, I can’t fix this.
I cover my face and try to be quiet as my shoulders shake and my eyes well up.
“Elliot? What’s the matter?”
Shit. I swipe the tears off my face and sniffle any rogue ones back up. “Nothing, I’m just … tired.”
Dad hovers between the kitchen and the living room.
Finally, he takes the armchair facing me and asks again.
I look at him. He is my dad. Not the dad I remember, but that man is in there somewhere. I used to be able to tell him anything. He used to be able to make everything better.
“I really fucked everything up, Dad.”
He shuffles to the edge of the chair and puts his elbows on his knees, paying attention. Is it easier for him to focus on something other than Mom? If I’m not hassling him about to eat or take a shower, can he be present long enough for me to talk to him properly for the first time in years?
“I got involved with Connor. I ended things, but it’s still ruined things with Scout.”
“You mean, romantically involved? ”
I nod.
He smiles a little. “You always had a crush on him.”
A soft laugh escapes. “Yeah, well … it’s a mess now.”
Dad shakes his head and rubs his chin. “Does Scout know?”
I shake my head. “She’d hate me. She’d hate us both.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. She already thinks Connor steals everything. Imagine how she’d feel if she thought he’d stolen me?”
“Why does he have to ‘steal’ you? Can’t you all be friends?”
“No. It wouldn’t work.”
He leans back and I think he’s given up trying to solve the problem. My heart sinks. But then he says, “How do you feel now?”
I frown, confused. “What?”
“You did the ‘right thing’ and ended things with Connor.”
“Yeah.”
“But you still feel bad.”
“Exactly.”
“So, why don’t you just do the thing you want to do and feel slightly less bad?”
I splutter a laugh. Has he lost his mind? “You and Mom are the ones who taught me ethics and right and wrong and all that. You admire the Stoics.”
Dad scoffs. “This isn’t Ancient Greece or Rome, Eli. You’re not ruling an empire, you’re a college student. Your actions aren’t going to define a nation.”
“That doesn’t mean I should just do whatever I want.”
“No,” he agrees. “But there is more than one way a person can destroy themselves, Elliot. One way is to give themselves over to hedonism and live only for momentary pleasures. And another is to deny themselves all pleasures in pursuit of what is morally ‘right.’”
This is the most I’ve heard my dad speak in so long I can’t even remember. But I’m not sure why I’m surprised. He is just saying the kind of thing he’s probably writing in his study. Only now he’s saying it out loud.
“So, what should I do?”
“I can’t answer that for you, Eli. But I think you already know.”