“We can talk about this later, when you’ve calmed down.”
The suggestion that I’m being irrationally emotional makes me feel irrationally emotional.
I’m not done with this conversation. I am sick to death of being rejected by this man. And for once, I don’t want to make a joke or flee the conversation or numb out with Xanax and wine. Maybe it’s Seth’s fault—his insistence on communication. Maybe it’s Rob’s fault—I’ve had enough shitty men for one weekend. But I want to air my fury. I want to let my father know he’s not off the hook for hurting me.
“No, wait,” I say. “I have a question for you.”
He sighs. “And what’s that?”
“Why didn’t you take care of me?”
“What—”
“When you left.”
“Excuse me? Where is this coming from, Molly?”
“I suppose it’s coming from two decades of biting my fucking tongue while getting hurt over and over.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” he snaps. “I know the divorce wasn’t easy on any of us, but—”
“You left me with Mom. Who youknewwas losing her mind and could barely take care of herself, let alone your thirteen-year-old. And you justleftme to deal with it.”
“If I recall, you didn’t want to see me.”
“Yeah, I was akidand you broke my heart. It was on you to fix it. And you didn’t even try to get partial custody.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever admitted to myself how much that devastated me.
“The situation was more complicated than that, as I’m sure you can imagine now that you’re an adult,” he says.
But I can’t. If I had a child, I’d put on steel-toed boots and chain mail to fight for them. I’d salt the fucking earth.
“Seeing your kid is not that complicated,” I say. “Youabandonedme. Youneverhave my back. Not even with your preposterous movie.”
“I’m not abandoning you. This was a professional arrangement with the attendant uncertainties that entails, and if you’re not enough of an adult to handle it, it just proves we’re making the right decision.”
“The ‘attendant uncertainties’? My God, you’re such a dick.”
“That’senough,” my father yells. “Happy Thanksgiving, Molly. I’m hanging up.”
The line goes dead.
I throw the phone on the counter, hardly able to breathe.
I hate him. I hate him so much. I hate that his love is conditional. That he doesn’t give a shit about me. That he always fucking leaves.
But then, is that surprising? They all fucking leave.
The phone starts buzzing.
Unbelievably, my first thought is that it must be my father calling back to apologize, because hanging up on me is brutal even for him.
But, of course, it’s not.
It’s Dezzie.
I don’t want to answer it. I want to lie down on the cold kitchen floor and cry.
