Page 63 of A Taste of Whiskey
“What kind of answers?”
“What you’d expect. Why did my mother leave? Why didn’t she stay nearby and have a relationship with me? Why did my father get even more closed off? But I didn’t have answers because my father wouldn’t talk about it. When I went away to college, I was sidetracked, but those questions were always there, and your mom and I kept in contact by video sessions, and of course I was back here during the summers.”
“I remember. I looked forward to seeing you all year.”
“You weren’t alone in that. I couldn’t wait to see you, either.”
“Really?” Disbelief shone in her eyes.
“Yes, really. School was stressful. I mean it was fun and there were parties and girls and all that, but it was like I saw all of that as a chaotic tunnel, and you, and this place, were the light at the end of it.”
“I don’t even care if you’re making that up.” She cuddled closer. “I love hearing it.”
He laughed. “I’m not making it up.”
“That makes it even better. So, did you ever get your answers?”
“I had to. I realized if I was ever going to help others through personal issues, I’d better get my arms around my own. It was the summer after my sophomore year. That’s the first time I really made an effort to talk to my father about it.”
“How did he respond?”
“Like you probably imagine. He said he didn’t want to talk about it and wouldn’t talk about the details or the divorce. He said he did his best and couldn’t go back and change things or change himself, and that was that. I tried a few more times, but he continued to refuse to talk about the past. He shuts down.”
“It must be too painful for him, but it doesn’t sound like he gave you any answers.”
“He didn’t, but my mother did.”
Her eyes widened. “You talked to her that summer?”
“It took me a little longer to get up the nerve to call her, but I did a few months later.”
“Wow. What was that like after so long?”
He thought about that for a minute, remembering how strange it was to hear his mother’s voice. “It was weird. I was nervous but not overly so. I remember going through scenarios in my head before I called. Like, what if she didn’t want to talk to me or was upset with me because I was so rebellious after she left. That kind of thing. But then I remembered what your mom had said when I told her I was going to reach out to my mother.”
“What did she say?”
“She said before I made the call to look in a mirror and remind myself how far I’ve come since my mother left. She said to remember that back then, my mother had the power to turn my life upside down because I was a child, and as an adult, I was in control, and she couldn’t hurt me unless I let her. She said to consider the source before opening the door to the pain. That was big, hearing that I had a choice in who I let hurt me. People don’t usually think that way when it comes to their parents. But she also said sometimes people who have been through that kind of abandonment will revert to feeling like a hurt kid all over again when that wound is reopened. And if that happened, that was okay, too. She’d be there to help me through it.”
“That sounds like my mom. So, did you revert to a hurt child?”
“No. It was strange, but when I heard my mother’s voice, it was like talking to someone who I knew in my head I had known and loved at one point but who I had also hated for a while, and by the time I made that call, I didn’t feel much of anything other than the desire to get answers from the only person who could give them to me.”
Compassion shimmered in her eyes. “Oh,Ez. That realization must have hurt.”
“It didn’t. It was actually cathartic. As I was asking the questions, I realized it didn’t matter what her excuse was. She was a mother who had left her son behind. Good or bad, in my eyes, that told me who she was. At that point I just wanted to know why so I could close that door.”
“What did she say?”
“Not a lot. She said she wasn’t getting her emotional needs met by my father, which came as no surprise, but she had to know he was like that before they got married. And she said she didn’t want to get caught up in a messy divorce or try to win custody to take me overseas. In her head, she was making my life easier by leaving me with my father. But that’s a rationalization, and a bad one. She remarried a year after she left us, and she made no effort to remain in my life.”
“I don’t know how a parent can do that to a child. To walk away like they don’t exist?”
“That’s because your love guides you. I think for my mother, there’s a level of selfishness and weakness that guides her.”
“Like Tina?”
“In a way. The thing is, humans are flawed, and hate can eat away at a person. All I could do was accept what she did and decide if I wanted her in my life or not.”
