by L. J. Stock
There were nights I would wake up and wander into your room just to watch you sleep. I remember I would stand there thinking life couldn’t get more perfect. Just before your mom’s accident, we were actually talking about having another kid. Nine years was a big difference, but it was all part of the adventure. We’d only been trying for a couple of months when she died, and I never told a soul, but she was about four weeks pregnant when she died.
It’s not an excuse for the way I treated you, but I was broken when we lost her. I’d never loved anything as much as I loved your momma, and losing her made the world lose its shine. Nothing had meaning anymore. I couldn’t find the motivation to get up out of bed, and when I did, the first thing I could think to do was grab a bottle to dull the pain to make me numb enough to forget. I was so selfish. It didn’t occur to me that you were hurting, too. When Jen confronted me that first time, it was because you’d gone missing. For two days you’d disappeared, but by the time she’d come to me, I’d been too numb to even care, and when I sobered up, I found you in your bed curled up and filthy with leaves tangled into your dark hair. I didn’t feel all warm and fuzzy seeing you there. I didn’t feel relief that you were safe. I felt annoyed that I was feeling all that pain because I was forced to sober up to find you.
I knew you were better off without me in your life. All I had to offer you was bitterness and bad habits that would get you into trouble and put you in an early grave, too. I wanted more for you. I wanted you to have a life away from me, but you turned Jennifer down and stayed with me. I resented you for that back then. For being a constant reminder of what a failure I was—reminding me of what I’d lost and stirring up that pain inside of me when you went and turned into a teenager on me and mirrored your mom. Just looking at you became torture, so I buried it all deeper and started bringing women home, hoping that I could find relief from missing my Kimmy. It just made me angrier, more bitter, and I lost myself in the cycle of it. I hated you. I hated myself, and I hated your mom the most for leaving us. I never thought for a second that you stayed because there was a part of you that held out hope that I would pull it all together.
I still hate myself for everything I put you through, Miki. I have an expiration date on my life now and faced with my past and my mistakes I know one thing: my biggest regret is that I wasn’t a father to you. That I didn’t put my misery aside and be the man you used to think I was. Your hero, your idol, your daddy. I regret that I took all of those looks of adoration you gave me for granted. I regret shitting on all of your unconditional love until it stank so much you had no choice but to leave it behind. I actually managed to make the bond between us sour and irreparable, and I can never blame you for that because I was the one who pushed you to do it.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about this since I was locked up, and you know what fucks with me the most? Knowing I was the one who ruined everything. I was the one who locked you out until you started living your own life by your own rules and I became nothing more than a roommate for you.
That night, when the Hill boys came over, I would love to say that there was some deeper part of me that was trying to be the father I’d neglected to be… trying in some way to protect you from the mistakes that I’d made, but I can’t, my reaction was selfish. It was just plain anger. You’d chosen my enemy over me. You’d started living your life when mine was stuck in a holding pattern. You’d become a person with her own mind while I wasn’t looking. I didn’t think about you. I didn’t think about how scared you would be or confused you must be about the situation you got yourself into. I didn’t think about anything but myself, and how I had failed.
I can’t take anything back from that night. I can’t change what happened, and I can’t redo my actions. I can’t even say I wouldn’t do it again because I was drunk and no matter what scenario I think about, I would have reacted badly because I’d chosen to drink. I never meant to hit you, kid. I never intended to raise my hand to you in any way at all, but I saw your stomach, the large swell of the child growing inside of you, and I lost myself. I don’t really remember what was said even because all I can see is you going down, your first instinct to protect your baby and leave yourself vulnerable. Then he was there, and I couldn’t think, I couldn’t react. All I could see was you crumbling to the floor and the blood. I don’t think I remembered that I even had a gun in my hand, and I pushed the kid with it, my finger squeezing that trigger before I realized what I’d done, and then he was falling, too.
That night was hell, but I know what it cost you was more than I could possibly imagine. It wasn’t until Jen came to visit a few days later. She was a momma bear and a hellcat all in one ball of madness, and she told me all of it. You weren’t with him to be vindictive and pay me back. You loved him. You loved him, and I took him away from you. I left you alone with a baby and no way to survive.
Nothing I ever do can make up for that night, or for the years of neglect before it. Even trying would be an insult. All I can say is I’m sorry and tell you that it’s the most sincere thing I have ever said to another human being. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when your mom died. I’m sorry I ignored you when you needed me the most. I’m sorry I resented and then hated you. I’m sorry I didn’t give you the attention you deserved. I’m sorry that I took everything you loved away from you and left you alone, and I’m sorry I left you with a sullied name as a legacy.
With all that being said, I am leaving you the house, the land it sits on, the hundreds of acres I won in that fucking lawsuit and the safety deposit box, the contents of which is the total I received when I sold off the other fifty acres of the Hill kids’ land. Do with it as you please. It’s yours. It was always yours.
You’re going to have to go to the lawyer with this letter. I did it so you would be the only one who could claim it. He already knows where everything is. He’ll steer you in the right direction. He’s a good guy who’s done right by me.
I love you, Miki, and though I haven’t always shown it, I have always meant it.
Your dad,
Jeff Quinten
The tear dropped from my chin before I was aware I was crying, and it smudged the ink of his name as the thin paper absorbed the dampness. My dad hadn’t blamed me, which was what I’d feared he would do. He’d taken all of the blame on himself and even felt remorse for Dustin. He’d accepted culpability for what he’d done and the path he’d taken and yet, it changed nothing. Dustin was still dead, Dad was dead, and I was alone.
As his voice faded in my head I felt the first sob escape my chest, and I dropped my forehead to the table, on top of the letter that said some of the things I’d wanted to hear, twenty years too late.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
By some miracle, Meg and Rob managed to keep the kids away from me while I’d been in the kitchen reading the letter. Once the sobbing had started, Meg had taken me onto the front porch while Rob had herded the kids out the back of the house and into his five-person ATV to take them fishing. Meg and I had stayed there in the swing, me sniffling while she read the letter, too.
“God. What an asshole.”
I laughed half-heartedly, knowing she was just doing her best to make me feel better about the whole situation. I didn’t need to feel better, though, surprising even myself. I was resigned to the whole confession because he’d been right about one thing: the letter changed nothing. Knowing that he’d seen where he’d gone wrong in the past was nice, and his admission of guilt was a relief to see. Sadly those things all came too late. Dustin had been dead for over fourteen years. My mom had been dead for over twenty-two years, and my father had just died on me, too. Apologies and confessions couldn’t possibly change any of that. They just made me understand the situation a little more. Everything I felt had been justified, and I had found my peace with that at the very least.
“He always was.”
“But this is just…”
“It’s justification for what I always felt. He never would
have admitted any of those things while he was alive, and that’s why he wrote the letter while he was faced with his own mortality. Doesn’t change the past or the future, but it validates all the resentment I felt growing up. At least I wasn’t crazy.”
“No, you’ve always been crazy.”
“Shut up,” I said, laughing as I leaned my head on her shoulder. I looked out over the distant county road beyond her property boundary and sighed thoughtfully. “It also makes me realize how lucky I was, and am, to have you and your parents. I don’t think I would be where I am without y’all, and I’m pretty sure I would be another version of him, bitter and angry at the world.”
“You could have still been that with us in your life. You survived because you refused to give up. All you ever wanted after your mom died was to get out of this town and succeed, and you did that. You even finished high school when most would have just given up and applied for a GED. After the hand life dealt you, you picked yourself up, got in your car and drove.”
“Only because I couldn’t be here.”
“I don’t buy that, Kay. It would have been much easier for you to stay here with all the memories and ghosts of him around every corner. Surround yourself with what could have been while playing the grieving widow and mother to a fatherless child. Shit, it’s what your dad did. When life got hard, he numbed reality and hid from life, pretending you didn’t exist because it was easier than looking at you and seeing your mom. You and I both know that Holly is sixty percent Dustin and forty percent you. You see him every time you look at her, but you love her for it. You don’t punish her.”
“She’s all the best parts of him. I can’t even imagine not loving her with every part of my heart and soul.”
Megan smiled and squeezed my hand with hers. “Mom’s always said you’re the best parts of your parents, but you’re more Kimberly than Jeff.”
I laughed and pulled my feet up, hugging my knees to my chest while Meg continued to swing us. Sitting in silence, we enjoyed the cool spring breeze for a while, lost in our own thoughts. The insects were just starting to get into their groove of the song when Meg broke the quiet and plunged them into submission again.
“So, what are you going to do now? He’s told you he left you everything, no more speculation needed on that. You going to go to see the lawyer?”
Turning my head and resting my cheek on my knees, I smiled. “I am, and I’m going to sell what I can and then put the money in an account for Holly.”
“Nothing for you?”
“I may have a card for the account if a need comes up, but we’re comfortable, Meg. I love that she’s going to have a good amount of money in the future, but for now, she’s learning the value of a dollar, and she actually wants to work. I don’t want her turning out like Libby was. Nothing comes free in life, and that’s the foundation I want her to build on.”
“Libby peaked in high school.” Meg snorted. “She’s still beautiful, but nothing comes free to her now. Rumor is she got married to an older guy for his money and got caught screwing some other guy in a motel room when her hubby hired a private detective. He understandably divorced her, and she got nothing. She tried to put herself out there again, but she went big or bust that first time and the old man had a lot of friends, which meant little princess Libby got a bad reputation.”
“Is that why she’s living in Wichita Falls?”
“Absolutely. She can’t show her face in Dallas or Fort Worth.”
There was a certain amount of glee in the tone Meg was using. She was enjoying Libby’s failure, and I was pretty sure most of the kids that had been in school with her shared that opinion, including me.
“If she weren’t such a bitch, I’d feel bad for her.”
“If she weren’t such a bitch, she’d be happily married, content and have little Libby’s creating her legacy.”
“Meg.”
Laughing, she turned her head to look at me, both eyebrows high. We both knew just how low Libby would go to get her own way. We also knew she had no sympathy or class, and we were more than aware of how cruel she could be when she needed to step on someone to get her own way.
“Don’t Meg me. Erin told me that she reached out to her on Facebook last year sometime, and in a single conversation blamed you for all her bad luck in life. Dustin Hill was her meal ticket, and you ruined it all when you stole him.”
“And got him killed.”
“Kay…” Her tone held a warning, but my comment hadn’t been because I’d believed I was to blame—not all the time anyway—but because I had been aware of what Libby had been saying the moment the news of Dustin’s death had spread through town. The rumors had spread so quickly even I’d heard them before I’d left.
“Oh come on, we both know she’s been singing that song since she found out what happened that night. I’m not an idiot.”
“Yeah, well… Erin put her stupid ass in place.”
“Erin still can’t stand her?”
“God, no. I heard Libby tried to hook up with Erin’s brother to get back at her, but he shut her down.”
“My God.”
Meg laughed. “I know. It’s a comedy of errors. It’s hard to believe the woman everyone thought was going to stand at the top and laugh down at us all is failing miserably. She was one of those traffic girls on the station in Dallas before she got married, but she quit, and they won’t touch her now. The NBC affiliate refused even to give her a reference. I heard her ex-husband works closely with the station manager.”
“God, don’t tell me any more. It’s getting depressing.”
“True, but it’s also kind of nice to know that life is fucking with her after all the shit she pulled back in high school.”
“I try not to think about high school too often.”
“It wasn’t that bad. Well, not until you got with Dustin and she found out. Erin always talks about that, too.”
“How often do you speak to Erin?” I laughed, smiling when Meg met my glance again.
“Hey, just because you’re not utilizing social media, doesn’t mean the rest of us are living in that cave. She and Troy always ask after you.”
“I know. I just prefer hiding behind the bar’s name when I go on there. I don’t want people to hunt me down or associate me with anyone from high school. I do the marketing and move on. I like my corner of the world. I don’t see a need to expand right now.”
“I respect that.” I gave her a look, and she continued on a laugh. “What? I do. I may tease you about it, but I do get it, Kay. High school was shit for you, and on top of that, the center of your life is something not many people know about, but it has been fourteen years.”
“And I still like my privacy.”
Megan shrugged and squeezed my arm as we lapsed back into another round of companionable silence. I hadn’t been up that long, but I was already feeling emotionally exhausted, on top of the minor hangover that was still plaguing me. I was ready to go back to bed and hit restart on the day.
I stayed on the porch swing for a while, even after Meg had grown bored and headed inside to do the dishes. My mind was several miles down the highway; hiding under a copse of trees that I believed was on the property my dad had owned all this time anyway. If that was the case, I knew the trees were still standing, and my hideout was still exactly that – somewhere to hide, the drooping boughs of the willow and the thick stretching branches of the oak winding together to create a perfect curtain from the elements. It wasn’t like I needed to hide now, but the memories of that time with Dustin were still so vibrant, I knew if I slipped under there, the past would feel close enough to touch.
I couldn’t think about that now, though. I had to get to the lawyers and collect everything I was supposed to collect then find out what had been done with my father’s body. In the mess of emotions my selfishness had taken over, and I hadn’t even asked the simplest of questions. This made me feel like a monster, even if my father and I had been estranged.
I took my time wandering back to the apartment over the barn. I procrastinated by taking a long shower, and again when trying to decide what I should wear to a lawyer's office. By the time I was dressed and ready to go it was still early, and I cursed myself for not dragging the process out more. I didn’t even have the kids as an excuse to put the trip off. I’d fished with Rob enough to know that being at the little lake was an all-day event, and going midweek was a treat for him so he wouldn’t abuse that gift. This meant my schedule was clear, and I had the opportunity to go into Amarillo and talk to the lawyer my father had hired. I was happy to see he hadn’t used the ancient old man that had the only lawyer’s office in Childress. Everyone knew his secretary was the biggest source of gossip around town.
With a quick goodbye to Megan, I headed out and turned up the music in my car as I settled in for the almost two-hour drive to Amarillo. I didn’t mind being alone for the drive. I took the time to gather my thoughts and prepare myself for what was about to happen.
The offices of Larry Gloyd Esq. were nestled neatly in a small business tower in the center of Amarillo just down the street from the courthouse. I wasn’t sure why my father would have retained the services of a public defender when he was independently wealthy, and it wasn’t until I walked into the reception area that I realized my mistake. Larry Gloyd was not a cheap lawyer, and I immediately felt underdressed.