Page 6 of I’m Not Yours

“Because, I think . . . I think it’s better that way.”

“Better for us not to see each other?”

“Yes. It’s . . . it’s too complicated . . .”

“It was a long time ago, Allie.”

“I know. But, but why . . . why see each other?”

“Because I’d like to see you again. How’s that for honesty?”

It had always been like this between us. Raw, amazing honesty. Unless it was about my childhood or my father.

Those parts I hid. I held my head in my hands.

“It’s lunch, Allie—only lunch.”

“I can’t, Jace. I can’t do it.” I heard that zinging silence.

“Are you seeing someone?”

“What? No. No, I’m not seeing anyone. Just because I’m saying no, it doesn’t mean that I’m seeing someone.” I paused. “Are you?”

“No, I’m not. If I was seeing someone, I would not be asking to bring you lunch. Or dinner. Or to walk through your apple orchard with you to pick apples for my pie.”

Loneliness radiated from my heart. Without sounding whiny and pathetic, that loneliness has been lodged there for so many years. “I would have thought you would be married by now.”

“I would have thought so, too. I wanted to be married with loud, rowdy kids running around, but it didn’t work out that way.”

I didn’t respond to that one; I couldn’t. My voice would have been all trembly and emotional and he would have known I was crying.

“I thought you would have married Zack, Allie.”

“Who?” Who was Zack?

“Zack.”

My mind raced. Oh my gosh. That Zack. “Uh. No. I didn’t marry him.”

“Why?”

“Uh . . . it’s a long story.”

“I’d like to hear it.”

“It’s boring, too.” I covered my mouth before a sob escaped, then I rushed to change the subject. “When did you move here, Jace?”

“About three weeks ago.”

“Why? Why here?” I actually patted my heart because it started to race.

“I like Oregon. I like the hiking, the fishing, the biking, the city. I got a great offer from the hospital.”

“Well, congratulations. You’ll like Oregon. Okay, Jace, I have to go.” I put my hand over the phone so he wouldn’t hear me make a fool of myself. I am not a quiet crier and I was beginning to sound like a drowning hippo.

“Why? Where are you going? Can’t we talk?”

I tried to get myself under control so I could answer him. I bit down hard on my lip. “No. No, Jace. No.”

“Allie—” His voice softened, so gentle.

I hung up. I felt terrible for hanging up. But he would persist, and I wanted to see him again; and that I shouldn’t do.

That I couldn’t do.

I thought the pain of seeing and leaving Jace was going to kill me again, and since I hate being pathetic, I decided to get something done around my dad’s house and keep my hands busy.

The walls and ceiling were painted white, which helped. The wood floors were solid but scuffed. The only thing new was his bed; everything else was old, and the place was cluttered.

The whole house had to be cleared out. I’d cleaned it some when I arrived, because I couldn’t stand to live in it as it was, but now I had to get rid of stuff.

I would sell the home, and the sooner it was cleaned out the sooner a Realtor could list it—and the sooner I could put miles between Jace and me.

For the next three days, being careful not to bust my stitches, I packed up plastic bags full of my father’s clothes, shoes, pillows and bedspreads, sheets, old lamps, chipped dishes, and two worn-out rugs.

I hauled out old furniture to clear up the space, then his hunting gear, then his fishing gear.

I kept one fishing pole, the one I used when I was a kid to literally catch dinner for us.

I don’t know why. Why keep a memento of poverty?

When I saw an old blue cardboard box in a closet, my hands started to shake and I pushed it back into a corner to deal with another day. Some things are best handled when you are not feeling like an emotional, ragged mop head.

I filled up my entire car with his stuff.

I could hardly see around the junk in the back when I checked the rearview mirror as I drove to Goodwill.

I dumped that load off, then took more stuff to Goodwill in two more trips.

When I came back I threw out another eight bags of trash and arranged for them to be picked up, and the next day drove a separate load to a company that shreds paper.

I passed the giant steel goat statue in the curve of the road.

I liked that goat, and it gave me my only smile that day.

When I came back, I cleaned. As I cleaned, I cried.

I hadn’t seen my dad in years. He was a tall, beefy man with black hair, and my mom said he used to be handsome.

They had met, ironically enough, when she was in college on spring break in Florida.

He was a bartender. She said she was bowled over by his tough-guy demeanor.

He had scars on his forehead, left cheek, and chin.

He was also charming, which soon faded, and aggressive.

My guess is that she was a young, impressionable, innocent girl having a wild spring break and became pregnant.

She was from a conservative family, was humiliated and scared, and married him.

Her parents were livid about the marriage.

My dad tried to contact me a few times in past years— sadly enough, on my birthday and my mom’s birthday—but I did not return his calls because I refused to be terrorized by him for one more day.

In the last six months, he called several times and left messages, asking me to call him.

On one of the messages he said he loved me.

It was the first time in my life that my dad told me he loved me.

I did not return that call, either. The “I love you” part should have come years ago, minus the backhanded slaps to my face and the total neglect.

Now I was in his house, next to an apple orchard that he had bought with an inheritance from his wretched father, a man exactly like his son in personality and temperament. I remembered Grandpa Tad. He was hell on wheels, too.

I scrubbed the bathroom and thought of the tiny bathroom in our trailer, how it smelled of my dad: beer and alcohol and unwashed man.

I scrubbed the kitchen sink and thought of all the times I’d spent at the sink in our trailer, trying to cook with whatever we had in the refrigerator, which was usually next to nothing. He’d come home drunk and scathing when I didn’t have dinner ready. Without money, it was hard to buy food.

When I swept the floors I cried again. I could never sweep that trailer clean enough for him.

While I scrubbed the floors, I thought of how dirty the floor of our trailer would get each day, how he would yell if it wasn’t clean enough, but he always dragged in mud.

I washed the windows. I stripped all the droopy curtains and put them in trash bags. I dusted.

On the third day, when I was finally done, it was a whole new house, open, white, and clean. I left only a table and chairs, shelves, a couch and two chairs in the family room. Much better.

I found the red-and-white flowered quilt in a closet.

It had been my mother’s. I remember being on that quilt with her while she read books to me.

I took the quilt out of its zippered plastic bag, shocked that my dad still had it, fluffed it out outside, and laid it over the couch. I sat on the couch and shook.

Bob and Margaret climbed into my lap. Margaret whined at me until I found her stuffed pink bear, which was under the couch. The cat, Marvin, climbed on, too, and settled on the pillow next to mine. He meowed at me; I meowed back.

My dad’s urn was propping open a bedroom door.

I ran my hand over the quilt. So much had died with my mother.

I blamed him.