Page 98 of Past the Broken Bridges

Because I didn’t want to be like my father.

I wanted to be the version of Paxton a redheaded little girl knew me as.

An entirely different entity.

Without cares.

Without problems.

Without a father who hit and a mother who left.

Pushing back the overgrown shrubs that my father let take over the once-well-kept area, I see the decrepit foot bridge that I accidentally damaged last year when I kicked one of the railing posts after a blowout at home. There’s a hole in the center from rotting wood, three missing pieces of railing, and a dried-up stream my father himself man-made to flow to a small pond past the tree line.

Walking past the fallen twigs, leaves, and debris that litter the ground, I kneel down by the end post where four letters are carved into the wood.

SH + PB

Running my fingers over the letters clearly written by two children, I’m taken back to all the snacks and gossip and good times spent in the backyard of a home I haven’t made decent memories at since.

The two acres my parents had attached to their house stretch far enough out that coming here felt like an escape without the risk of getting into trouble for going too far. Clearly nobody comes here anymore, but these days, it feels like a private park just for me. And, at one point, the redhead who somehow stumbled upon it in her explorations.

I smile to myself.

“This is my bridge,” she says.

“Did you build it?”

Opening my palm, I take in the tiny white raised scar from where the nail went into my hand when I helped my father put this place together. He designed the entire thing around the oak tree that he said has been there for longer than he’s been alive. The greenery, the bushes, the bridge: they were all his doing.

“Maybe one day you’ll design something just like this,” he tells me, eyeing our handiwork. “I know it would make your old man proud to see what you come up with. You’ve got an eye, kid.”

I helped him pick out some of the landscaping and chose the expensive wood for the project after seeing his sketches for it. It was one of the few bonding moments we had when he didn’t smell like booze or cigars and didn’t seem on edge from whatever fight he and my mother were in. Out here, he could let his mind stay busy outside all his problems.

Back then, he used his hands to create, not destroy.

Standing, I study the space and close my eyes, trying to remember what it was like when I was nine. The air was crisper, cleaner. The oak wasn’t half dead, with shedding limbs that come down with each rainstorm. It seems appropriate that the place I enjoyed escaping to is falling apart around me.

Unkept.

Unloved.

Forgotten.

My eyes go down to the carvings again before something hits me. Walking back to my truck, I grab my sketchpad from the back and study the design I’ve been working on aimlessly for months.

When I take it to the hidden spot, I realize I’ve been working on the very thing my father always wanted me to. A newer version of my favorite place—somewhere to go to. Something to rebuild what’d been broken a long time ago.

Maybe I always knew that was why I chose this design. It wasn’t to remember the times I had with the mysterious girl I never got to see again, but all to do with my father.

“Fuck,” I cuss, closing my sketchpad and shoving it into the back seat. Swiping a hand through my hair, I slam the door closed and…

Laugh.

Because I’ve been subconsciously trying my hardest to gain a man’s approval whose only focus in life is if he has enough liquor to get him through to the next week.

I sit in my truck for what feels like forever before I decide where to go next. Being trapped inside seems dangerous right now. If I’m left to my own devices, my shaky palm may wind up in the drywall by the night’s end. And I don’t want to think about how many holes I’ve seen my father patch or hide in my lifetime.

White-knuckling the wheel, I go to the only safe place I have left.

---