“You busy?” she asks when I answer.
“Just pulling the brush through my hair before I head out. You running late or something?”
“No. Ummm, I, uh, I’m not going.”
“What?” I ask, brush in midair, hovering over my head. “Why?”
There’s a long pause that makes me distinctly uneasy. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, Vi, but seeing what you’ve been going through has made me realize that I need to make some changes. If I don’t, I’ll lose Dennis, and then I really will be miserable. It’s time for me to grow up and stop letting my past cripple me. You know, be a victor not a victim. All that shit.” I hear the smile in her voice at the last.
“Oh. Well, that’s good. That’s a good thing, Tia.” It’s all I can think to say.
“Please don’t take that the wrong way.”
“I’m not.”
“I think you are.”
“I’m not. How can I take it the wrong way? You’ve turned a corner. That’s great.” And it is. I have no idea why it doesn’t exactly feel that way.
“I just . . . well, I’m not cutting on you. And I don’t want you to think I’ve somehow benefited from your pain. At least not in the bad way like it sounds.”
“I know you don’t mean it that way, Tia. But the truth is, you have benefited from it. And honestly, that makes it a little easier—knowing that at least one of us has gotten something good from it. It makes what happened less of a waste.”
“Well, it helped me to see that Dennis is good to me. He’s good for me. And he really loves me. He forgave me when he didn’t have to. I know it wasn’t easy for him, but he loved me enough to look past my betrayal and see it for what it was. And he stuck with me until I could fix myself. I can’t risk losing that.”
Finally, I feel a genuine smile. “Tia, that’s awesome. I agree with all that, and I couldn’t be happier for you.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Of course I’m not mad! Don’t be crazy.”
“I know you think I needed those meetings.”
“I did. But that’s because I wanted you to get some help. Now, it sounds like you’ve finally got a handle on things.”
“I do. I just hate it had to come this way.”
“Tia, as much as I wish I could erase everything that happened, I can’t. But it makes it more . . . tolerable to know that it helped someone I love.”
“I wish it hadn’t happened either. I always wanted you to fall in love, not be alone, but I never would’ve wanted you to go through something like this. Not even for me and Dennis.”
“Well, I brought it on myself. I’m a victim of my own poor decision making. No one else to blame. Now, I just have to move forward and be smarter.”
“Do you really think we can be smart when it comes to love, Vi?”
A knee-jerk answer pops into my mind—YES—but I hesitate to speak it aloud, mainly because I really don’t believe it anymore. So I give her the truth instead.
“I used to think so, but now I’m not so sure.”
“I think the only thing we can control in love is how we act. I think the rest is all left up to the heart. Like Dennis. He chose to forgive me. Over and over and over because he loved me. And it paid off because his heart was in it. I think as long as your heart’s in it, everything will turn out just fine.”
“I wish I believed that, Tia.”
“Maybe one day you can,” she says simply. I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing. When the silence stretches on, Tia continues. “Well, at least now you don’t have to worry about going to those awful meetings. You are officially free on Thursday nights.”
That sounds like a good thing unless, as in my case, you avoid free time like the plague.
“Yep. Free as a bird.”
After we hang up, I feel that freedom like a thousand-pound weight dragging at my feet, threatening to pull me under. Already this week, I’ve cleaned the house, washed all the curtains, rearranged the pantry, organized my shoes, and cleaned out the fridge. And I’m going to clean and polish my floors this weekend because I’ll have to move the furniture.
I look around my house and realize I have nothing to do. I can’t even invent something to do. It’s all been done. The only place I haven’t torn through like a tornado is Dad’s. But maybe it’s high time I take some of my constructive energy over to his place. That would benefit us both.
Without even stopping to give it more thought, I rush to my bedroom, change into cleaning clothes, and hit the door at a run. Free time is the enemy!
I hit the road as soon as I load the backseat of my car with chemicals, gloves, and brushes. It’s as I’m driving the couple of miles to Dad’s that I happen to think about how long it’s been since I’ve had a call from the tavern. I’m about due, it seems like. Maybe I can be there to keep him company and dissuade him from drowning his woes in a bottle tonight.
Because of my load of cleaning paraphernalia, I pull around back so I can go in the laundry room door. I cut the engine and grab an armful of supplies and haul them up the steps to Dad’s back door. I use my elbow to bang on the screen. I listen for the telltale sound of his heavy footsteps trudging to answer. Only the trudging never happens. My father never comes to the door.
Setting down my chemical arsenal, I go back down the steps and around to the front of the house. I had been so preoccupied upon arrival, I hadn’t even noticed that my father’s truck is nowhere to be found. With a deep sigh, I walk to the dying shrub to the left of the front door, fish out the spare key that’s tied to a string that dangles inside it, and open the front door.
I replace the key before closing the front door and walking through to let myself in the back, my enthusiasm dampened considerably by the likelihood that this night will end with me going to fetch my obliterated father from his favorite dive. With a sigh, I tell myself to buck up. I wanted something to keep me busy—well, I’ve got it. Between cleaning this giant man cave and then babysitting for the remainder of the night, I should have zero time to think about Jet.
I’m elbow deep in bleach when I realize fate had a different plan for the evening. I hear banging from the other room. That has to be my father.
Men are so noisy!
Holding my dripping hands up, I walk from the kitchen into the living room to greet Dad. He’s standing at the front door, banging dirt off his shoes, sending little particles of caked clay all over the tile of the entryway.