“Shelly, I am aware what Claire was like with you. She’s a jealous person, always has been, always will be. When you were born, that jealousy came to the forefront, and I should have protected you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t. Not only from your mom but from that asshole too. I made decisions I’m not proud off, decisions that impacted not only my life but yours too and for that, I’m so sorry, Shelly, I’m so fucking sorry.” A lone tear falls from his watery eyes, and I watch as it falls down his face and lands on his clasped hands that are resting on the table.
“I hated you for so long. I hated that you didn’t protect me and then I hated you for leaving me,” I tell him honestly. The hurt that slashes through him also cuts into me. “I’m not saying it to hurt you. That’s the last thing I want. I want to be honest with you, though. Trent made me realize that I needed to see you because I still love you.”
“Shelly, I love you and I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he says solemnly, I don’t tell him that I haven’t forgiven him for not being there to protect me. “Instead of ending things with your mother, I drank myself into a stupor, I was stupid and selfish, I’m sorry. I keep apologizing, yet I haven’t nearly apologized enough.”
“Why didn’t you leave Mom? I mean you surely knew that Sebastian isn’t yours.” Shock writes itself all over his face. “Come on Dad, Grandma left him out of her will. I’m not stupid. Besides Mom told both Seb and me the truth.” I’m sick of the lies. Everyone in my family has lied at some point in their lives and that includes me and it’s just too much. For once, I’d love honesty.
A heavy sigh escapes him. “Yes, it started when your mother turned to other men, I wasn’t good enough for her, the only thing she wanted was the money Mom had. If Mom had given me what she left you, Claire would have had it spent within a year. I had a suspicion that Sebastian wasn’t my biological child and that was solidified when he had that accident when he was six and needed a blood transfusion. Neither Claire nor I was a match. That gave me the answer I was looking for. The doctor took me aside and explained that Sebastian could not have been mine, Michelle, it was something I suspected for a very long time.”
I frown, why hasn’t he said anything?
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter if I did or not, Sebastian isn’t mine and there’s nothing I can do to change that. I’ve never treated him any differently, he’ll always be my son, just not my biological son. I’ll always love him just as I’ll always love you.” He’s full of emotion, I can’t even begin to imagine what my dad’s been through, but saying that, he should have been there for me when I needed him the most.
Silence descends over us, my head drops, and I stare at my hands, I have no idea what I’m meant to say. I love that he still considers Sebastian his son, but what Mom did doesn’t excuse his drinking. It’s always going to be between us, I don’t think him blaming what Mom did for his drinking is right. Mom was wrong, God, she’s been so wrong for a hell of a long time but Dad’s a grown man, he should have divorced her and moved on. Grandma had all the money and she would have made sure we were okay. Instead, he did what he wanted and didn’t care about the consequences.
“Your grandma use to come and visit me once a week. I’m still so fucking angry that they wouldn’t let me out to go to her funeral.” The anger in his voice makes me look up at him. Shaking his head, disappointment is written all over his face. “You thought I didn’t want to be there didn’t you?”
I nod. “I thought you hated me,” I whisper, it’s too fresh, too raw. Especially with what happened afterward.
“No Shelly, I’ve never hated you. I wanted to be there for you that day. I knew that out of everyone, my mom’s death would have hit you the hardest. You would have felt it more than the rest. I wanted to go so I could say goodbye to my mom, but I also wanted to go so I could be there for you.” His eyes hold a sadness, one that I saw Grandma have so many times when she looked at me. “Mom told me what happened Shelly, she was so scared, she thought you were dead. I failed you so much, there’s nothing I can do to make up for all the pain and suffering I’ve caused you due to my selfishness.”
I gasp. She told him? I didn’t think that Grandma told anyone. I knew she was scared, she told me herself that she had never felt fear like she had when she found me on the floor bleeding. She thought I was dead, that she would never see me again. I can’t believe that Grandma used to come and see him every week. Why didn’t she tell me? “I’m sorry.” The shame I’m feeling as yet someone else has found out how weak I was knocks the breath from me.
“Babe, you’re fucking strong. One of the strongest people I know.” Trent’s voice rings out in my head, and slowly, I begin to find air again. He’s not even here and he’s helping me as he always does.
“Shelly, are you okay?” Dad’s voice calls to me, and I hear the worry in it.
“I’m okay, I didn’t realize that Grandma told you,” I say softly, not wanting to alarm him anymore, his pained gaze tells me that he’s still worried, especially as I’m still trying to fill my lungs with the oxygen they need.
His eyes darken. “Of course she told me. You’re my daughter Shelly. I deserved to know. Hell, if I had found out from someone else I would have been furious. I also received a visit from Peter Ethington the day after Mom’s funeral. Ethel has even come to see me a few times.” His nostrils flaring, he’s remembering something. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that all alone.” They told him about what happened the night of Grandma’s funeral. God, I never wanted him to find out.
God no, he shouldn’t be apologizing for that! “It wasn’t your fault, you wanted to be there, you wanted to be at Grandma’s funeral. What happened that night, I couldn’t…I’m sorry…” I bite my lip, unable to truly confess what I was feeling that night. My dad, even though I’m mad at him, has done a lot to make up for what’s happened, him being here is one of those things. If I was here instead of him, I wouldn’t be alive today. I would have taken my life.
Dad begins to cry softly in his hands. My instincts tell me to go to him, to hold him but I if I do that. I won’t be able to finish this talk, we won’t be able to try to patch things up. “I’m so sorry, baby girl, I’m so fucking sorry,” he repeats over and over again.
“Daddy, I’m okay. I have an awesome counsellor, I have people around me who love me and support me, and I have Trent.” I can’t keep the smile from my face when I say Trent’s name, God, it’s not been that long since I came here to bring him home. I thought he’d stay for a while and then move on, I never thought he’d be my happiness, my home.
Dad stares at me, those green watery eyes which are so much like mine are full of amusement. “When I sent Trent to you, I knew he’d look after you, Ethel had told me that you were in a rut, that you were living but you weren’t really. You were going through the motions. Shelly, sending Trent to you, I knew he’d protect you with his life. He’s the greatest man I’ve ever known. I trust him with my life and in doing so, I trusted him with yours. I was right to do so baby girl, that smile on your face, it’s the first piece of happiness I’ve seen you have since we’ve been speaking. I never thought he’d be the man you fell in love with.”
“Why are you grinning like a loon?” I ask, he’s got the biggest smile on his face.
“Because you’re happy, I didn’t think I’d ever see you happy again.” A darkness flashes in his eyes, but as quick as it came it’s gone.
“He makes me happy, Dad. I have nightmares and he holds me through them. Every night he calls for me; it’s foggy but I can still hear him calling my name. I try to break the dream but I can’t. But hearing him and having him hold me, Dad, I just don’t have the words to describe how much that means to me.”
“That’s all I ever wanted for you. For you to be happy.” His smile is still there, stretched into an ear-to-ear grin.
“He makes me food even though he can’t really cook, because sometimes I forget to eat. When I’m feeling low, he’ll talk to me abo
ut anything and everything because he knows that I’m in the darkness and he wants to pull me out of that funk.” I can’t stop gushing about him. I’m so happy that Dad is happy about it.
Our times up, and I can’t believe how quick that went, I talk fast in hopes of getting what I want to say out before I have to leave. “Trent’s been dying to see you, he’ll visit next okay?”
“That would be nice, what about you? Will you be back to visit?” No emotion colors his voice. It’s a mechanism. He’s trying to put distance between him and the question because if I say no he can act as though it doesn’t hurt. Dad and I are so much alike in that sense.
“I’ll be back the week after next. I promise.” I make a cross sign over my chest with my fingers. Seeing other people begin to leave, tears form as my guilt hits me yet again. “I wish I could bring you home. You don’t belong in here.”
“Shelly, don’t think like that. You’re happy, and I’m happy because of it. I’m sober, Shell, I’m sober and I’m alive.” His eyes flash with that darkness again.
“Daddy, what aren’t you telling me?”
He instantly stands. “Nothing, now go and I’ll see you soon okay?”
I nod as I get to my feet, I know I can’t touch him, but I want to hug him goodbye. Instead, I blow him a kiss. “Love you,” I whisper as I walk past him. Sad that I’ve got to wait two weeks before I can see him again.
“Love you to the moon and back, Shelly. Remember that.” The sincerity in his voice makes me smile. “Always,” he tells me as he blows me a kiss.
“Always,” I reply as I walk out of the door and toward the guards waiting to search me again.
“No, Mooooommy, tell her! I wanted to do it.” The screaming voice of my five year old daughter wakes me up.
“Shhh, you’ll wake your dad,” Michelle whisper shouts back at Melanie.
“Yeah Mel, shhh, you’ll wake Dad.” May, my seven year old shouts, and I laugh. My girls don’t know the meaning of being quiet.
“Girls, it’s Father’s Day, do not wake your father before I even have his breakfast ready,” Michelle warns them, her mom tone in full effect. Her voice holds a sadness as it does on this day every year.
Nine years ago, we had the unexpected phone call from the prison, Dustin had passed away in his cell. He had been keeping a secret from us; he had cancer due to his alcoholism. Michelle took it hard as did I, we had both grown even closer to Dustin in his final year and felt betrayed that he never confided in us that he was sick. She still mourns him every day, and I know that she’ll feel the loss forever, but she’s happy because he was in her life and they made amends. She got to finally connect with her dad.
Dustin’s death isn’t the only death we’ve had to deal with in the past ten years. Agnes died only eight months after Dustin; she never got to meet our children. We had a bad winter and Agnes caught what we assumed was the “common cold,” but she wasn’t getting better and any attempts of us bringing her to the doctor were met with resistance. When she finally did go, it turned out she had pneumonia and it was severe. That year was hard, two of the people we loved were taken from us, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. Just before Agnes died, Michelle and I got married on the beach outside the apartment complex. It was perfect, everyone we wanted was there, and it was the day Michelle Nelson became Michelle Lawrence.
Two years later, our first daughter May Agnes came into the world screaming, and she’s not stopped since. When May was born, Michelle had to deal with postpartum depression. I held Michelle’s hand and made sure that she knew I was there for her, it took a while, and with new medication, she slowly started to get better. Dr. Sands is still ever present in both of our lives. She’s been with Michelle every step of the way through the hard times and the good.
Five years ago, our second daughter, Melanie, came into this world. By this time, we knew that Ethel didn’t have very much longer, she had Alzheimer’s, and the woman we knew was slowly disappearing from us. It was hard watching her deteriorate. Knowing there was nothing we could do to help her. Nothing that was going to make her better, make the woman we knew and love come back to us. She met both May and Melanie, she walked Michelle down the aisle and was there for us when we needed her, she meant a hell of a lot to the both of us and three months after Melanie was born, Ethel lost her fight.
Michelle and I have had a turbulent ten years, but through it all, we’ve stayed together, we’ve proved that we’re together for the long haul. I fucking love that woman more today than I ever have before. She’s my wife, the mother of my kids, the love of my life, but most of all, she’s a fucking fighter. She fights back that darkness every day, and every day she wins. She has a bright beautiful smile for my baby girls every morning and every night. She doesn’t let them know what she deals with. To them, she’s the best mom in the world and they’re right, she is, she’s the best woman in this world, fuck that, she’s the best person in this world. Her guilt for killing that fuckwad is still there and she deals with it better now since she had the girls, I think she finally understands why her dad did what he did.
“Mommy, are we going to see Popop today?” I hear Melanie’s excitement, both May and Mel call my dad Popop. I’ve forgiven them all for what transpired with that shit with Tina and Henry, that included my mom, who finally realized what she had lost. Both she and Dad knew that they’d never get back together and are both remarried, they are civil to each other for the sake of their grandkids.
“Yes baby, we’re seeing Popop later on. We’re all going for dinner, you’ll see Mark too.” Michelle’s sweet voice rings out and as much as I’d love to get up out of bed and join my family, I know that the girls would probably cry and then start arguing over who woke me up.
“Okay girls grab your cards, breakfast is ready,” Michelle calls out. She’s not being that loud for the girls; that’s my cue to close my eyes and pretend to be asleep.
“Yaaaay!” Both the girls scream, and I chuckle to myself. How they believe I’ll still be asleep is beyond me. My eyes close just as our bedroom door opens. “Happy Father’s Day!” They all call out, and I wait. It’s the same thing every year. The girls climb onto the bed and begin to jump.
I reach up and tackle both of them in one move, making their tiny frames vibrate with laughter as I do. Lifting up, I hold them both in my arms, shifting my gaze over at Michelle to see she’s holding a tray full of food.
“Happy Father’s Day, Trent,” Michelle whispers placing the tray down on the bed, happiness shining in those gorgeous green eyes. Her light purple hair shining in the sunlight that shines into our bedroom. Her bump that carries our third child neat as it always is. We’re not finding out what we’re having, we never knew with the two girls, Michelle likes having it as a surprise, I on the other hand would rather know. Hopefully this time it will be a boy.
We moved out of our apartment and into a house we had built next door, it took a while for the planning permission and then to have it built but it was worth it. We still have the apartment complex, and each apartment is occupied. It was at least a year before Michelle found the strength to advertise those apartments for rent. When someone eventually did move in, it was weird seeing the new tenants, as we’d been so used to both Agnes and Ethel being in them.
Sebastian, still lives in that complex, well, he lives in Michelle’s old apartment. Michelle and Sebastian thought it would be nice for at least one of them to live in the apartment their grandma had. So Sebastian moved into Michelle’s old apartment when we moved in here, he also moved Maggie and Bryson in with him. Seeing them together makes sense, it’s like Maggie was waiting for Sebastian to come into her life. It took a while for them to get together, they were really good friends first and it grew from there. Michelle hasn’t told Maggie about the money she has for them, the money Maggie thought she was using to pay her rent. Michelle’s going to give it to them soon, she wants them to have it now but is scared Maggie won’t accept it.
Clai
re hasn’t been seen or heard from since she left here three weeks after being released from hospital. Those three weeks Michelle was on the edge, wondering when Claire was going to do or say something. She didn’t, she knew she’d burned all of her bridges and there was no coming back from what she’d done, and she left without a word to anyone. I’m not complaining; that woman is vile and I don’t want her anywhere near my children. Thankfully, Michelle agreed, there would be no reconciliation between the two of them, and Claire isn’t allowed in her life ever again.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” Melanie cries. “I got you a card.” She reaches for the tray and takes one of the cards from it. My girls always give me handmade cards, I love them and have kept every single one they’ve ever made me. Opening up the card, I can see that she’s had help from Michelle when she made it, but she drew on the front of the card, and I can’t make out what it’s meant to be, she also signed it with her unreadable writing.
“Thank you baby, it’s beautiful,” I tell her, and watch her tiny face light up with my praise. I’m still trying to figure out what the picture she drew is meant to be.
“Here Daddy, here’s mine,” May says, acting shyly as she hands me her card. Hers has a picture of her family. Me, Michelle, May, and Melanie. Michelle’s pregnant in the drawing.
“Baby, you’re really talented, thank you, it’s amazing,” I tell her honestly. She’s seven years old and the next Picasso as far as I’m concerned. She too beams at me.
“Girls, go and play while your dad eats his breakfast, and then we’re going to play on the beach,” Michelle, tells them, and instantly the girls do as she says and race from the room.
“Thank you baby,” I whisper as I reach for a slice of toast.
She has a wicked grin on her face and I’m wondering what the hell she’s up to. “Are you going to open my card?” she asks, her words coming out in a raspy whisper, one that I feel all the way in my groin. She hands me a card and it’s quite heavy; there’s more than just a card in here. I told her she wasn’t allowed to get me a present. I don’t need anything other than her and my kids to be happy. “Open it,” she tells me. She’s vibrating with excitement.
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