Page 256 of Falling Backwards
I turn my head and touch a kiss to her hair.She responds with a nuzzle and a slip of her free hand around my arm that’s trapped between us; I love that it makes it so she’s holding on to me the best she can with us lying this way.
Ineedher to hold on to me.
“Maggie?”I whisper.
“Hm?”she hums.
“Do I feel like it again—your soul’s safe place?”
Her nod is instant and light.“Yeah, you do.”
I squeeze her hand.“You feel like mine again too.”
She doesn’t squeeze as hard as I do, but she does it for longer, and I find there to be just as much strength in that.
I ask, “Can I tell you about my dad?”
Now her hand does tighten around mine more intensely.She shifts so that her head is off my shoulder, but I can tell she has turned her face towards me on the pillow; even in the dark, I know I have her direct attention.
“Yes,” she says softly.“I would love it if you did.”
I know I would too.
I take a breath, hold it…let it out.
And I get ready to face all that has happened with him lately.
To start, I decide to talk about my dad trying to get me to go to the family reunion that’s coming up and him not respecting for a minute that I don’t want to go.
I tell her that even when my parents were still married, I never felt love from his side of the family during holidays and get-togethers, except for Aunt Joni; maybe no one else liked me because they didn’t care for my mom much, or maybe they all drank from the same fountain of assholery that my dad did, but either way, I always felt like I didn’t belong.None of my other aunts and uncles paid attention to me the way they did my cousins.My cousins didn’t include me in fun or conversations the way they included each other.I didn’t get invited to birthday parties, and no one except Aunt Joni came to mine.Even my grandparents seemed to favor their other grandchildren over me.I can remember not being allowed to play with toys that belonged to my cousins even if I was the only one there, because I was told I’d break something.I was always put at the edges of kid groups for family photos.It was never my turn to choose what played on the TV—if I told an adult that my cousins wouldn’t share TV time, either I was ordered to stop complaining or our TV time was ended entirely and I got blamed by my cousins for ruining it.
“And I haven’t heard from any of them a single time as I’ve gotten older,” I say to Maggie.“Why would I wanna go around any of them?Why would I wanna travel for hours to spend time with them?But my dad won’t listen.He insists family is important, even though they never really felt like family to me.He thinks I’m being immature and selfish.”
Her voice comes gently through the darkness, so comfortingly close.“You aren’t.I wouldn’t wanna go either.It sounds like a huge waste of time and mental energy, and what would you be wasting that for?Just to play the part of a good family member when they were never welcoming to you even when you were little?No, it’s neither immature nor selfish to not wanna do that.”
With the hand she’s not holding, I reach to find some other purchase on her like she has on me.I end up loosely grasping her wrist.“Yeah.”
Gulping, I face the other reason I don’t want to go.
“I also….Theywill be at the reunion too.My stepmom, stepbrother, stepsister, and half-brother.They’ll be there and my dad said I need to grow up and get over my anger with him so I can get to know them properly.But I’m still not ready to do that.”
There’s no helping what this facet of my divulgences is doing to my voice; I can’t help that my words are weakening just from the thought of my dad’s new family.
It occurs to me that I’ve been thinking of them as his‘new’family for years.I’ve never gotten over the shock of being left or of Ryan and Wendy taking my place or of my dad and Suzanna having Reese together.All this time, they have been his shiny, better, more exciting, brand-new family while Mom and I have just been two people he left in the dust.
Maggie has been waiting patiently for me to continue, so I tell her about Wendy’s message about my dad on Thanksgiving.She clings to me in silent support while I recount the good things Wendy said about my dad and her saying it’s painful to watch such a great parent suffer because his eldest son won’t let go of the past.
“As if I’m the one who brought all this on,” I say.“As if I’m making too big a deal out of how much his actions have hurt me.As if I’m the one with the responsibility to apologize and start behaving differently.”
The group chat for Ryan comes into my mind.My throat tightens.
In the darkness I’m staring into, I can see the texts between him and my dad.
In the quiet, I can hear the ranting voicemail my dad left me.
This is the hardest part.
I hate thinking about this part.
