Page 72 of Back to Me

“I talk to you all the time, Graham.”

“Right,” I scoff. “If you call shitting on every decision I make and only calling me to ask about Em, then sure, we’ll go with that.”

From the corner of my eye, I watch as he walks closer toward me. His shoulders relax as he inhales a deep sigh and sits beside me on the couch. He rests his arms on his knees and dips his head, staring at the rich forest green carpet covering the hotel floor.

“Is that what you think I call you for? To gain information about your sister and pick apart your life?”

“Yep,” I blandly say. “Every conversation with you since I was thirteen has been the same.”

A silence falls, and I hold back the emotions building. I was already broken inside from losing Sara, but now I’m feeling those broken pieces slowly beginning to dissolve into nothing. I’ve never said something so truthful to the man sitting beside me. I close my mouth, refusing to open it again and speak another truth. I won’t give him more words than he deserves.

“Did you know I met your mother in college?” he suddenly asks, breaking the silence.

I slowly turn my head to face him. “No.”

Taking a deep breath, he stands up from the couch. He walks over to the window looking out into the main hallway outside of the room. He peeks around the curtain, looking for what, I’m unsure. Then he looks back at me, releasing the fabric between his fingers. He takes another unsteady breath and paces the room.

“I, um,” he chokes out. His eyes turn soft, and I sit in amazement, having never seen him this way. “I was in my sophomore year.”

“So, what, you were twenty when you met her?”

Stopping, he looks at me, his mouth curling into a small grin at the memory. “I was nineteen, about to be twenty. We met in our sculpture class.”

My eyes widen, my head snapping up to him standing in front of me. “Sculpture class?” In all the years I’ve come to know my father from a distance, I never suspected him of taking an art class, much less of being an artist. He was always too rigid, too stern, too cold.

“Yeah,” he nods. “I was an art major with a minor in sculpture.”

“I had no idea,” I whisper.

“You and I have a lot more in common than you think, Graham,” he chuckles. Continuing to pace the room, he doesn’t allow me a response, continuing with his story, all the while keeping his eyes trained on the floor.

“She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, your mother,” he whispers. He stops walking, and I can see the memory of my mother playing behind his eyes. “I had never seen such gorgeous, rich brown eyes in my entire life. And her laugh, oh God, that laugh. I had no idea what she saw in me.” He shakes his head as if he still doesn’t understand it. “I never had many friends growing up, only a few who stuck around long enough for me to call them my true friends. Everyone always called me the nerd, the dork, and I never disagreed with them. I was the one who wore thick glasses and spent Saturday nights sketching out comic book stories.” He looks up, matching his eyes with mine. “But your mother didn’t see me the way others did. She didn’t even see me the way I saw myself.”

I can feel the tears welling behind my eyes. The room spins, listening to my father speak about my mother in a way I had never heard before. I press my lips together and swallow.

“Why haven’t you told me this before?” I whisper. “I don’t even know what to say. I thought you hated mom.”

“What?” I can hear the shock and hurt in his voice. “Why on earth would you ever think I hated your mother?”

“I understand you got divorced, but you never talk about her, Dad. And anytime I would bring her up, you always shot me down. I could never come to you about how I was feeling or even when I was dealing with Nana’s dementia. I was the one who had to take care of her. Her illness, her burden, fell on me.” I take a deep breath, swallowing the guilt for my Nana’s death. Knowing I couldn’t save her, fix her. “Actually, you never talk to me about anything, so why would I think otherwise?”

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he rests his palms on his knees. “Your mother and I may have been divorced, but it gutted me when she died.” His voice quakes. “She was still so young, Graham. She still had a whole life to live. When I gained custody of you and Em after she died, I don’t know. You both looked so much like her, especially Em. It took my breath away, the resemblance you both shared. But as the years passed, I realized you were more like me than your mother.”

“I don’t think I understand.” I narrow my eyes, searching for the words to explain how I’m feeling. It’s difficult to come up with the right words to describe how you’ve felt for nearly half your life. “So, you brushed me off and criticized my choices because I was like you? That doesn’t make sense.”

A heaviness falls on him, and I hold my breath, nervous what his answer might be. How do you explain to your son why the similarities between you are a bad thing?

“I didn’t know much about you and Em when you came to live with me. Your sister was the spitting image of your mother, in every way. But you, Graham. You may have had her smile, but you are like me in every other way. Your passion for your art. Your determination. Your stubbornness.”

I want to disagree with him. I never would have imagined we were the same. For many years, I believed my father was a complete asshole. But as I’m learning, there are always two sides to people. Even our parents.

“But, you—"

“Wait,” he interrupts. “I need to say this.” He stands up once again and rubs his fingers against his forehead. “Your mother and I were so young when we married. We married only three months after meeting. We didn’t even have a real wedding. One day we just decided to go down to the courthouse.” Looking up, he faces me once again. “A year into our marriage, we had you, and two and half years later, Em was born.” He sighs, and I can see the pain he still feels. I sit, listening to my father and truly open myself up to finally understand my dad.

“I didn’t know much of anything when I was younger. The only thing I knew I wanted was my art and my family. It wasn’t long after you were born I realized I had to make a choice.” He pauses, tears welling his blue eyes. “I couldn’t have both. So, I chose my family.”

I absorb his words and pick them apart. I try to understand where he’s coming from. I can’t understand a life where you would pick one dream over the other. Why can’t you have both?

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