Page 4

When I walked back through the front door of the house, it was still empty. Not surprising—Dad didn’t even get off work for another two hours, and then he’d reward himself for a hard day’s work for three or four hours sitting at the bar.

I called his cell shortly after mom took her last breath, but it had gone straight to voicemail. One would think that your wife being on her literal deathbed would be reason enough to keep close tabs on your phone… but, what the fuck did I know?

The sight of that piece of shit assaulting the boy played across my mind like a film screen, followed by another burst of fury.

You should have protected him! You’re weak and pathetic…

I balled my hand into a fist as blind rage took over and tears pooled in the corners of my eyes, threatening to fall free.

I never could have protected him, anyway. “Look at yourself, you pathetic fuck…”

I whimpered aloud, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirrored panels at the back of mom’s china cabinet.

That was the moment that everything changed. Something inside me had galvanized; changed on an alchemical level by the boy on the sidewalk. His honey eyes swam in my vision; my angry heartbeat throbbed in my throat. I pulled my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans, and, after a quick Google search, I pressed the call button.

“Emberford Family Fitness.”

“Uhh… hi. I was wondering if you guys had personal trainers.”

“We sure do! Can I have your membership number so I can pull up a schedule for you?”

The girl sounded nice, A little ditzy, but nice.

“I’m not currently a member,”

I admitted, discomfort burning my gut.

“Oh, well, wonderful! Thank you for giving us a chance. My name is Monica. Have you ever visited any of our facilities in the past?”

“No.”

“No worries. Can you tell me a little about your fitness goals?”

“I’m gay and fat, which is a bad combination,”

I blurted out. “There’s nothing I can do about the gay part, so the weight will have to go.”

“Oh, don’t say that.”

Her voice was like hot chocolate, warm and sweet. “Everyone is different, and everyone has things about themselves they want to work on. We also don’t like mean self-talk. We like to say, for example, that someone is just starting their fitness journey.”

The snort came out faster than I could stop it. “Uhh… okay.”

After a moment’s pause: “I’d love the opportunity to show you around the facility and have you meet some of our trainers and staff. I can do 3:30 this afternoon.”

I still had to deal with my father once he finally stumped in the door.

“Today’s not great for me, actually. Do you have anything available tomorrow?”

“9 AM?”

“I’ll see you then.”

I pocketed my phone and looked around the empty room. The people from hospice care had set mom’s hospital bed up in the living room. She never wanted to be cooped up in any one room, having had a tendency to be claustrophobic. When it came time to make those kinds of decisions, she chose the living room. I think it hurt my dad that she had chosen to not spend her final days in the bedroom they’d shared for the last 15 years. That’s when things really fell apart.

My dad loved my mother more than anything else on this planet. Watching her slowly deteriorate from the vibrant firebrand of a woman he’d married over two decades ago to nothing more than a cancer-ridden shell had completely done him in. He faded into a man that came home drunk in the middle of the night so he didn’t have to face the cruel reality of his wife’s fate.

He wasn’t strong enough to cope with the fact that his time with his beloved wife had a fast-approaching expiration date, and, consequently, he’d missed spending the last few months of her life together. He had started mourning her well before she died.

My gaze landed on the hope chest tucked back in the corner by the television. I swiped at my eyes and my feet began to move with a new purpose. I pulled the chest out, a thin layer of dust transferring from the sides of the chest against the black sleeves of my shirt.

I set the chest atop the wooden coffee table and unlocked the brass hardware. Lining the bottom of the small trunk was my baby blanket. Baby blue, adorned with puffy white clouds sprawling across it.

On top of the blanket sat her old Polaroid camera and a closed manila folder. I bit my bottom lip, trying my hardest to stave off more tears as I picked up the camera and turned it around in my hand. Despite the world being well into the digital age, mom had always insisted on bringing that old camera everywhere. It used to drive my dad nuts when she would send him out to pick up more film.

“Jesus, Meg, I bought you a $3,000 digital camera,”

he’d gripe as he headed out the door to catch the specialty camera shop on Elm before they closed. He never seemed to remember the camera on the back of her phone that took better quality photos than the Polaroid and the digital camera put together.

“Digital pictures can be deleted! They aren’t real,”

she’d argue.

With a head full of memories, I set the camera down on the table and pulled the envelope out. There wasn’t anything written on it, but it was somewhat bulbous in shape. I unwrapped the small piece of twine that held the flap closed. Inside, there was a stack of random pictures and a bunch of folded-up old letters. I set the letters aside and flipped through 3x4 Polaroids.

There were pictures of me and my Dad. One of all three of us outside the local church carnival. Another snap: the stray cat that used to hang out behind the alleyway. One more shot displayed the roses my dad had surprised her with for their 20th wedding anniversary. A random collection of moments in time that she felt needed to be memorialized forever.

I set the pictures aside and picked up one of the letters. There were 12 in total, all folded neatly into thirds, no envelopes.

I unfolded it and began to read…

My lovely Meg,

These last two weeks away from you have been the hardest I’ve ever faced. I miss you terribly, and hate the thought of you laying your head down to sleep at night without me there to wrap my arms around your waist. I wake up in the middle of the night and instinctively reach for you, but you’re not there. Just a cold pillow tucked down underneath scratchy hotel sheets. I hate it.

Besides feeling dreadfully co-dependant, the conference has been nice. I ran into one of my old classmates from college! All the way up here in New York, can you believe it? He’s working for a firm out of Oklahoma. He’s hoping to make partner, so he booked the conference for brownie points… sound familiar?

You should have seen the way his eyes bugged out of his head when I showed him your picture. The one of you in your blue sundress holding Gabe, right after we brought him home from the hospital. That’s my favorite picture. You are so beautiful that he didn’t even believe I was married to you! I can’t blame him… sometimes I don’t believe it myself.

What did I do to impress God enough to send me one of his angels?

I’m so proud of you and our son. Proud of the life that we are building together.

As always, I’ll call you from the hotel to say goodnight and check in on you and Gabriel, but wanted to drop a note about how much I miss you. I know he’s just started walking, and I do hope he’s not running you ragged chasing after him! I’m counting the minutes until I see you again, my love.

Yours always,

James.

I set the letter back down and used the palms of my hands to swipe the wet streaks running down my face. My father may have made a lot of mistakes, but there was never any question as to how much he loved my mother.

They were soulmates.

When she got bad enough to be bed-bound, he completely snapped and tumbled head first into addiction. I guess that was the only way he could face it—getting drunk enough to walk past that hospital bed every night.

I picked up another letter and began to read it. Just like the last, it was an adoring note to my mother sent from another conference, penned seven years prior to the first one I’d read. I read it through, and then another. What had felt like mere minutes had actually been hours, and I made quick work of stuffing the letters and photographs back into the envelope and sliding the trunk back into place as Dad’s car pulled into the driveway.

He’s not going to want to see all of this stuff right now, I thought.

Suddenly I was drenched in sweat, and my heart was pounding in my ears as I heard him close the car door.

Should I just stand there in the middle of the living room and wait for him to walk in? Should I be sitting down on the couch? What was the appropriate protocol to tell your father his soulmate was gone?

The decision was made for me as the front door swung open, and he walked through the threshold. He looked at me strangely for a moment before closing the door. I could smell the alcohol oozing out of his pores and the stale cigarette smoke still clinging onto his clothes.

“What’s up, Gabe? It’s late, why are you…”

his breath hitched as he looked over at the empty hospital bed across the room. “What…”

I shook my head as a fresh set of tears ran from the corners of my eyes, my throat too tight to speak.

“No, I…”

he stammered. He brought his hands up to the sides of his head and looked around the room as he started to tremble. “You didn't call me!”

His sudden increase in volume caught me off guard and I flinched as he crossed the room and took a vice grip on my shoulders. His face was beet-red and the whites of his eyes had started to yellow. I thought for a moment he was going to hit me.

“I- I did. I called your cell and your office phone twice. I couldn’t even get a receptionist to pick up.”

I stared into his eyes as they dilated, making the emerald of his iris nearly disappear. We stayed like that for a moment. The only thing moving was his trembling fingers digging into my shoulders like life support. It was like I could see the thoughts running a thousand miles a minute, as if I were staring straight through his pupils.

He let me go as swiftly as he’d grabbed me and turned towards his bedroom. “I’m gonna be sick.”

As if in a trance, I followed along behind him. Unsteady, stumbling feet took him into his bedroom and through to the master bath, where he flung the top of the toilet seat up with so much force I’m surprised it didn’t split in half. He hit his knees and wretched into the bowl over and over and over again. I turned around and covered my nose with the sleeve of my shirt. The smell was godawful, and was about to make me vomit myself.

“I’m gonna get you some water,”

I choked out. I hurried out of the room and back into the hallway, taking a deep breath for the first time. I couldn’t smell his sick anymore, but my stomach was still rolling.

I swallowed hard and rounded the corner into the kitchen. As soon as I opened the cupboard to grab a glass, I heard the gunshot.

I didn’t scream. In fact, everything in my brain suddenly became deathly quiet. I knew exactly what had just happened. I couldn’t bring myself to walk into his bedroom, so I just stood there frozen. My arm, still midair, reaching for the glass, as if God had pressed some kind of giant pause button.

After a few seconds, or a few minutes, I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket and dialed 911.

“Hi,”

I said, with an eerie calm crowding out the white noise in my head. “My father has just shot himself.”