We're All Broken

by O. L. Gregory

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you remember her parents?”

  “Yes,” he answered, watching me, wondering where I was going with this.

  “Well, her parents had all the foster parent paperwork done from when they took in Sadie’s cousin, when her mom got arrested for embellishing at her company.”

  “You mean embezzling from the company,” he corrected with a smile.

  “Yeah."

  “Is she the one that was innocent and her boss was making her look guilty?”

  “Yeah. And the cousin got to go back to his mom. Anyway, when they took us and told me they didn’t have anywhere to put all five of us and I’d have to go by myself, I asked if they could call Sadie’s parents. I gave them Sadie’s last name and her parents’ first names.”

  “And they took you in?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you still get to see all your friends?”

  “No. Sadie was my friend from dance class, she goes to a different school.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I have the phone now.”

  “Sadie has a little sister, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any other siblings?”

  “No. It’s really kinda quiet at their house.”

  “Do you have your own room?”

  “Yeah. It’s really small, but I don’t have a lot of stuff.”

  “Do they let you call your sisters?”

  “Yes. They let me call them whenever I want. They don’t always pick up, because their foster parents don’t let them carry the phones around, they’re so young. But they do always get back to me, because the parents will return the call when they check the phones.”

  “Even Conner and Chloe?”

  I smiled and nodded. “I get to Facetime them. They talk for longer if they can see me.”

  “That’s nice of the foster parents to let them do that with you.”

  “Yeah. And there’s always so much noise in the background, they show me what the other kids are doing sometimes.”

  “Other kids? Are they in a group home?”

  “No. It’s a family that has five other kids. Some of them belong to the parents, the rest are adopted. And they’re all older. They all help the twins with whatever they need.”

  “That sounds like a sweet deal. I’m so glad they could at least be kept together. They still have each other.”

  “Charlotte and Sophie are together, too.”

  “They are? They never told me that.”

  I nodded. “They’re in a group home. But they get to share a room with each other. They take turns sleeping in the top bunk.”

  Daddy smiled. “That’s good. I’m sorry you got stuck alone, but I’m so glad they put you with a friend.”

  “Yeah. They said it’s hard enough to place two together. The man—”

  “The social worker?”

  “Yeah, he would have tried to get me with two of the others, but I had a friend’s house who’d take me and it made his job easier. Said it’s better to group the kids by age, and there’s a large gap between me and the others anyway.”

  “What’s taking so long, Daddy? Why are we still all not at home?” I asked, on another visit.

  His sigh was long and tired. “They’re making me jump through a lot of hoops, trying to get you kids all back home.”

  “I still don’t understand what happened. I mean, I get that you were having a hard time dealing with everything. And I get that it’s harder for you, because you have all of us to take care of, but what happened?”

  He swiped a hand through his hair. “Okay, I’m just going to tell you straight, and hope you get it. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You know how Mommy and I tried to teach you all right from wrong, and how to act in different situations?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. See, my parents never did that for me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, my Mom died giving birth to me.”

  I’m sure I look horrified. I'd heard the story before, but it meant more to me now that I knew what it meant to not have a mother. Poor Daddy didn't even have a chance to know what he was missing out on.

  “I didn’t kill her,” he was quick to say. “She had me at home, and there were complications. It actually happens a lot, that’s why a lot of women choose to have their babies at hospitals, in case there’s a problem. Well, my Mom was at home, and help didn’t get to her in time.”

  “Okay. What about your Dad?”

  “My dad was not a good person. He was a very bad man. He used to hit me, and yell at me, and throw things at me. For a long time, I thought that’s how people were supposed to act.”

  “Is that why you started yelling at us.”

  He nodded. “See, when I met your mother, she made everything seem so good. I never really had to deal with bad stuff on my own. When something bad would happen, I’d look at her and see her smile and we’d figure out how to solve the problem together. When she died, I didn’t have her to help. And, sweetie, I’d never learned how to deal with bad stuff on my own, without all the angry yelling and hitting and throwing.”

  “But you never hit us or threw things at us.”

  “I wanted to.”

  “You wanted to hit us?”

  “No. I wanted to hit something, anything, and make it hurt as much as I was hurting.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was afraid that I’d lose my control so badly that I would start hitting you guys. And I know how bad it feels when someone, who is supposed to love you, starts beating on you for something that just isn’t your fault. And I never, never, never wanted to do that to any of you.”

  “But you were going to so many doctors already.”

  “Right, because Grandma told me about a place I could go to, to ask for help. And the doctor there could see how much I needed the help, and she hooked me up with a couple other places to go. The problem was that I would come home to you guys, and I’d see everything that needed doing, and I’d just get so overwhelmed that I’d go hide in my office. And then I’d get mad that I was hiding, but I was so overwhelmed that I felt paralyzed to do anything about it.”

  “But that’s more than just not yelling.”

  “Yes, it is. They found out that I have something called depression, that’s why I felt like I couldn’t even begin to do anything to take care of you guys. And then they did a lot of tests and found I have something called PTSD, which came from how mean my father was to me, my whole childhood. There’s a lot more to the story, but the point is, I had so much going on that they didn’t know about, that they realized I needed to go to a special hospital to figure it all out.”

  “And are you better now?”

  “Yes. I am better. But the doctors say that I’ll never be all the way better. I’m always going to have to go speak to doctors to manage it and make sure that I’m in control of everything I do and how I react to things.”

  “Why can’t we all come home? Is it still too much for you? Maybe we can come home one at a time?”

  “You know what? I’ve never thought about bringing you guys back one at a time. Maybe I can talk about that at my appointments this week. It is a lot to bring all five of you home and keep you all taken care of. Their main problem right now is that I don’t have a regular job anymore.”

  “But I thought you were doing a good job at work?”

  “I was. And they liked my work very much. But I had to be gone for so long that they had to get someone to replace me.”

  “What about finding another job?”

  “I’m trying, sweetie, but it’s hard when I have to tell them at the interview that I’m still fairly fresh from the looney bin.”

  “My foster parents say it’s not nice to call it a looney bin.”

  “It’s not, and you shouldn’t say it. But since I was the one in there, I get to call it whatever I want. And I choose to give it a fun name. I
get to make fun of it, if I want to.”

  “So, what are you doing for money?”

  “Well, I do still have a savings. Though, it’s much smaller now than it was.”

  “Use Mommy’s money.”

  “No. I don’t want any money that came from her death. I’ve set that aside for all of you. So, even if I go broke, you five still have a shot at a college education. It’s my guarantee that if anything should happen to me, at least I’ve done something to make your lives a little easier than mine ever was.”

  “So, what are you doing about money, then?”

  “Well, I’m still going to interviews. But you know how I was always working on that app?”

  “The one you kept telling Mom about?”

  “Yep. I have a couple ideas now and I’m coding the apps. So, if no one ever wants to hire me, hopefully I can just work for myself.”

  Chapter Six

  Therapy

  “I’d like to bring our attention to the date on the calendar,” Dr. Lorraine said.

  “Thank you for remembering,” Roger sarcastically replied.

  She smiled. “How are you doing with it?”

  “It’s been a year, exactly, and I still don’t have my kids back.”

  “I know.”

  “No one wants to hire me until I’ve been out of the psych ward for at least a year, preferably two.”

  “I know. How are the apps coming?”

  “I’m learning a lot. And that goes a long way in helping me. I love to be taking new information in. It’s good for me to have a project to sink my teeth into, you know?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “And I think I’m about ready to launch one of them.”

  “The game app?” she asked, knowing that’s the one he’d been dreaming about the longest.

  “Yeah. I have so many ideas for it, but I’m realizing that I don’t have to have the entirety of it all coded before people can start playing.”

  “You mean like launch the first ten levels or so, and keep programing while people have a chance to discover it and start playing?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “See? I pay attention when you talk.”

  He gave her a small smile.

  “I think that’s a good idea. I’m sure the levels you have completed are thorough.”

  “As thorough as I know to make them. But I can evolve it as I learn more.”

  “Apps send out constant updates.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’m glad to see you’re making continued progress. What about friends?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t have many, and… I’m just…”

  “Is it that you don’t know how to be a friend without Annabeth at your side?”

  “No. I had friends before her. Superficial, maybe, but still.”

  “Then why haven’t you reached out to any of them?”

  “Because… I’m… I’m a little…”

  “Embarrassed?”

  He nodded. “Why can’t I even say it?”

  She smiled. “This, right here, is completely normal. We always just expect people to handle whatever it is that life throws at them. And when you, yourself, stumble, you hate to admit that you faltered. Your real friends, the ones that actually give a damn about you, will understand, if you take the time to explain it to them. Their first concern, and relief, will be that you sought out help before you spun completely out of control. The ones that really get it, they’ll admire you for being able to heal and make progress. They’ll be proud of you for knowing yourself well enough to know you needed help, even though you’ve never needed it before.”

  He nodded, thinking.

  “What about dating?”

  “Oh, God, no.”

  She lifted her hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I will never push you to move on that until maybe three years out, and even then, that’s at your discretion. I’m just saying, while I understand your reticence right now, as you get everything back and settled, don’t let the loss of Annabeth close your mind to the possibility of letting someone else in.”

  “There will never be another Annabeth.”

  “No. There won’t. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else out there, somewhere, who could love you just as much, whom you could love in return.”

  “I could never love someone else as much as I loved her.”

  “Did you love her more than your kids?”

  He just looked at her. “That’s not the same, at all.”

  “Okay. Do you love your kids all in the same way?”

  “All in the same amounts.”

  “Oh, come on. You don’t love maybe one a little more than the others?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Don’t you maybe love Penny just a tiny bit more than the others?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “You sure talk about her more.”

  “That’s just because she’s the oldest, the one who’s been with me the longest. She’s got four or more years on all the others. I can talk to her, have real conversations with her.”

  “She stayed up later than the others, and you’ve spent more one-on-one time with her.”

  He hung his head. “Okay, yes. I love her a little more than the others.”

  “And that doesn’t make you a bad parent. It just means that you have an easier time bonding with her than the others kids, at this point.”

  “How does that tie into—”

  “And as you get to know another woman more and more, and find ways to bond with her, she just might steal her way into your heart. Someday. And not to replace Annabeth, any more than your other children replaced Penny when they arrived. I’m not telling you to go out and seek anything. I’m just telling you to not close your heart off to the possibility.”

  “My focus, right now, is getting my kids back.”

  “As it should be. That, and maintaining your mental health.”

  “Yes. Agreed.”

  Roger sat on the couch, a movie on the television, and picked up his hook and yarn.

  Yes, the man had learned to crochet at the treatment center, and anyone who judged him for it could learn to enjoy the pain of a black eye, as far as he was concerned.

  It was rhythmic. Yarn over the hook, put the tip through the project, grab the yarn with the hook, pull it through the project, grab the yarn again and pull it through two loops, grab the yarn and pull it through two loops, and move on to the next stitch. Yarn over, push through, grab and pull, grab and pull, grab and pull. Rinse, repeat. It was smooth, and active, a constructive use of his time, and kept his hands busy so he wouldn’t wring anybody’s neck.

  That yarn, and his one and only hook, were worth their weight in gold. Replenishing the yarn as he went was far cheaper than any of his therapists, and not even a measurable fraction in comparison the legal fees involved as a repercussion of strangulation.

  He thought about his session earlier in the day. Thought about the way he’d learned to guard his words around the therapists and psychologists and that damnable social worker. He gave them all enough to let them know he was feeling all his feelings, but he didn’t dare tell them that all he dreamt about was finding that drunkard bitch-ass in his prison cell, wrapping his hand around the bastard’s neck, and squeezing until his head popped off. If for no other reason than he didn’t want to listen, again, to how the man was already being punished within the prison system. He didn’t want to hear about how alcoholism was a disease and that asshole was a victim of it, and how he should rest assured that not having access to alcohol and being forced to deal with life in prison, without being able to mask the pain of his actions with his drug of choice, was immense punishment. Because, when he heard that, all he wanted to do was offer up his desire to kill the guy as a way to end his suffering.

  See, in his eyes, killing his wife’s killer was a win-win situation for them both. And, let’s be clear, he didn’t want anything to happen to
the man, or for someone else to do the killing. Oh, no. He wanted to do it himself, to watch the life drain from him. To watch the rigor mortis begin to settle into his body, just as he’d seen the effects begin to settle into his wife’s body.

  But, you see, any time Roger mentioned that to one of his doctors, they either frowned and made notes, or tried to reason him out of it.

  He was done being reasoned with.

  That’s not to say he wasn’t reaping anything good from the sessions. The coping mechanisms were good for keeping his actions in check around other people. He no longer had a desire to yell at his children. And while he wasn’t particularly happy over the actions of the social worker, he did understand that the man was just doing the best he could with the impossible job he had. And, it seemed that all of his children were being treated well, thus far. So, he no longer wanted to smack him around, either. He harbored no ill will at the psychologist and therapist who continued to push him with his treatment. He had no animosity over having to take pills for the depression every day. There was no longer a desire to punch anybody he interviewed with, who said thanks but no thanks.

  All of that was going well. He felt better. He acted better. His desire and attitude with his treatment of people were all back to a normal baseline. In many respects, he was whole and healed. He now had a whole new respect for the mental healthcare field.

  It had saved him from turning into his father.

  But he still wanted to kill that alcoholic asshole. And while he understood that the desire was perfectly normal, and that killing him would do nothing to bring his wife back, he had no way not to fixate on that desire.

  He’d learned to redirect that focus to his app project. He’d learned to keep his physical focus of fury on a punching bag he’d installed in the basement. And keeping his hands busy with the yarn helped him not to think about it so much, while giving his mind a break from the constant intake of information from learning how to code the apps.

  Yes, therapy and pills had done wonders for him.

  An app launch, a Facebook campaign, four visitation center visits, and eight interviews later, Roger found himself sitting outside of a liquor store.

  All he could do was picture his father’s face in his mind. His dad would drink, and then hit him. Drink, hit, drink, hit. And to be fair, his dad hit him whether he was drinking or not. So, Roger understood that it was his father doing the hitting, not the alcohol.