Hand curled into a fist, I bang on Dad’s hotel room door. It’s dramatic, I know, but I’m fueled with everything; rage, sadness, painful love.
The door swings open and when I set my gaze on Dad, my swirling emotions die off. Just sucked plain out of me. It’s not fair. I should get to be angry at him, but I physically can’t be.
On his face is the same emotion he had when Mom left. It’s in the way his body sags, dejected, depressed, and hopeless. He doesn’t show this side if he can help it. I might be the only one who’s seen it. It minted itself into me when I was a boy, slashed into the open wound of losing my mother.
I didn’t want to lose him too.
Taking a heavy breath, I sigh and close the door. I’m the real adult here. I accepted that a long time ago. “Dad,” I say after the door has clicked shut.
I make a feeble attempt at righteousness, hoping to drum up justification for why I should still lambaste him. That would be kicking him while he’s down because he won’t get it. He won’t understand. And yeah, I’ve read books on this kind of thing. There’s some psychological term for the situation I find myself in, but guess what? When you’re in the middle of it and you love the person anyway, all that stuff means shit.
“All right, lemme have it,” he says. His jeans are too baggy and pretty sure that’s a mustard stain on his t-shirt. He’s not wearing socks. The room holds the faint zephyr of the weed he probably smoked on the deck.
Running my hand over my face, I call for the strength to have this conversation. All I can see is fucking Jack, which means I relate to Dad. He falls hard, which is why I never wanted to. Look at him. I don’t want to be that, but I am that right now because if I don’t get to have Jack forever, I’m gonna spend my life trying to find another Jack and I won’t. I’ll be my dad, who tries to force a life with women who don’t want what he wants just so he’ll have a scrap of the something he had before.
With Mom.
Well, shit. Dad was the one having the experience, but I was the one using it as a cautionary tale for my life without having experienced love for myself. I spent my life making damn sure no one was gonna crawl their way in because of what I knew Dad went through, but love got me anyway and I’m just as hopeless.
My understanding breathes a greater level of compassion for him.
Making myself at home, I grab a beer out of his fridge, pop the top, and sit on the couch. I’m gonna go in a different direction. “I know you gave Mom my number.”
Sitting on the opposite couch near a highball glass of amber liquid, he sighs. “You want me to admit I still talk to Chelsea? Okay, fine, I still talk to Chelsea. I didn’t think any good would come from you or anyone else knowing. It’s not often. She wanted updates on you three.”
“Do you think she deserves that?” My words are as biting as I feel.
“Merc, it’s complicated, okay?”
Taking a long pull of beer, I try to understand that. If I’ve learned anything it’s that parents are just humans like the rest of us. We tend to idolize them even when they’re the furthest thing from an idol. Even when we don’t want to. There are a lot of things parents should do and a lot of things they’re supposed to be, but it’s not like there are any required courses you have to take to become a parent. You can just have a kid and see how things go.
I don’t wanna know Mom’s reasons for leaving us. I’m not likely to agree with them. It was already another blow knowing she went off and had another kid after she left us. One she actually fucking kept. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around that. It’s doing a fucking number on my heart. However, you can still have compassion for someone you don’t understand. That’s where I’ll have to leave it for now.
“Fine. Tell me yours. For talking to her.”
“Selfish ones. I still love her, Merc, and I’ll do just about anything she asks me to. She’s the only one who will still talk to me. The rest are just gone. Sandy’s gonna be too.” A tear runs down his left cheek. “Why doesn’t anyone wanna love me, Merc?”
And fuck.
Just like that, my feelings on this matter will be left under the rubble of this catastrophe. Right or wrong that’s the way it is. It’s always been this way and it might always be. The first gut-wrenching time I saw him cry over Mom, severed my heart so bad, I vowed to protect him. Parents are supposed to be the ones protecting their children, not the other way around, but that’s not the way it is for us.
Setting my beer on the glass coffee table, I get up and plop down next to him, putting an arm around him. “It’s okay, Dad. It’s gonna be okay.”
He nods. “Thanks for agreeing to take the baby, Merc. I was hoping you would. I want them with us, but … I’m not a good father.”
“Sorry, but not really. You’re an awesome Grampa though. You love the hell out of all of us. You’re fun. You have a level of positivity I’ll never possess.”
Dad is a big kid and that had its perks growing up, especially when I was a teenager wanting to stay out all night at parties. It was only looking after children that ever put a kink in those plans, not Dad who was also out late at said parties.
“If we start having babies, will that get you to finally stop?” I ask.
“Kinda like that, Merc. Don’t really plan the children part—I know that I should, but us Meyer’s are fertile beings.”
“Don’t say that.” I’m imagining a bunch of teen Meyer pregnancies.
He laughs. “I mean it though. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I’m just gonna coast for a while and enjoy what I’ve got. I’m missing out on what I’ve got by forever searching for what I think I should have. Rachel hates me and don’t think Dawson likes me so much either. Bryce is indifferent, which is almost worse. Thinking about the little ones growing up to hate me too is breaking my heart to pieces.”
“What about me, Dad?” It comes out unbidden from somewhere deep in my soul. I hope he sees this change of heart through, but none of it’s motivated by how much he throws at me. I’m not even on his god damn radar.
