Charles was the one that had grown protective of Frank. He treated him like family, sticking up for him when people attacked him. “Charles was my best friend in the world,” he told me, and I believed him.
Frank happened to be very handy when it came to carpentry so, even though he never went far with schooling or education, he managed to always have a job. Charles and he remained friends, and lived next to each other as they grew into young men, Charles marrying a beautiful young lady named Maggie. Maggie believed in Charles, and therefore, she believed in Frank, too. Like Charles, she took him under her wing and made him family.
Before long, Sara was born. Frank was a member of the family in the DuBeaus’ eyes, and Sara referred to him as “Unca Fank” almost as soon as she learned to speak. Frank grew protective of them all. He had no real family of his own, and he cherished the one that had, in essence, adopted him. He still had episodes, but he hadn’t come to realize how seriously disturbed he actually was.
“I watched Sara grow from a baby into a little girl,” Frank told me. His eyes were watery as he said it. I had been listening to him speak for close to an hour. “But, that is when I started to have other feelings, too. I began to think differently about my Sara. Somehow, I was having these horrible thoughts. I won’t tell you what they were; they are too awful to repeat out loud. I began to sort of black out when they started. There would be periods where I remembered thinking these things, but I didn’t remember what I had done while thinking them. I thought they were just daydreams.
“At some point I finally grew conscious to the beast I had become. They were never just daydreams that I was having; they were real. I had hurt the only people that cared about me.” He cried while telling me, and I found myself crying for Sara, for what had happened. He told me how he couldn’t ever face the DuBeaus again when he realized what he was doing. He entered himself into therapy, and proceeded to spend most of his adult life working through it. He had left without a word to them as to where he was going or what he would do. He left without a good-bye, knowing he could never look them in the eyes again. He told me these things, and seeing the pain in his face, in his eyes, I believed him.
Goddamn it all, I believed him.
He told me that he spent his life alone, except for doctors, fearing how he might hurt anyone that ever came into his life. He had never married or really dated after that. Except for me, he hadn’t had any children. Before Sara was born he had dated a girl locally for several months that had moved on to Florida. Less than 8 months later, I was born, the product of their brief fling together. That was the extent of his parenthood before his interaction with Sara.
I began to feel sorry for the man sitting in front of me. I tried to not let myself feel anything positive for him, but I found that I couldn’t stop it. The sincerity with which he spoke arrested me. He had spent the past twenty years trying to fix the things that were wrong with him. He spent every day apologizing for the things he had done.
I left his house with a heavy heart. We didn’t shake hands; we didn’t exchange any words. He simply told me that if he could ever do anything for either of us, to help repair the damage he had done, that he would gladly do it. He said he would spend the rest of his life doing it. And, again, I believed him. I had simply nodded my head, mumbled that I had to go, and I left.
Now I was going to be back with Sara in a matter of minutes, and my meeting with Frank Chance had left me little in the way of knowing what I was going to do and what was going to happen.
No lights were on in our hotel room when I pulled into the parking lot. I walked slowly to the door, sliding the card, and opening it when the light turned green. Sara was still asleep, exactly how I had left her hours before.
Once again, I undressed. When I finished I got on the bed next to Sara and watched her sleep for several minutes before rolling onto my back and staring at the ceiling. I thought about Sara and what she had gone through. I thought about the equally shocking event of having met my father tonight. I thought about the strange way fate had brought Sara and I together, already having been connected to one another through my biological father. And, of course, I thought about our relationship together. A million questions ran through my mind, but no answers. I drifted off to sleep without knowing it, dreaming of all the same things that I had been thinking of, my sleep being indistinguishable from my being awake.
15.
I woke up, unable to breathe, at ten the next morning. Sara giggled. She had been holding my nose shut.
“Hey, what’s the big idea, gorgeous?” I said to her, laughing, surprised by her improved mood.
“I was getting bored…you’ve been sleeping for hours,” she told me. “Did you go somewhere last night?”
“Yeah, I sure did,” I told her, trying to think, mind still foggy from sleep, “I went for a little drive. Couldn’t sleep.”
“I found your note when I woke up,” she said, grabbing it from the nightstand, and waving it back and forth in front of my face.
“Ahhh, my note. Good thing I left that, eh? You probably didn’t move a single inch while I was gone.”
“Oh, Adam. I was so tired. Yesterday…” she trailed off, not needing to finish. I thought again about our visit with her mother. Then, I thought about my visit with Frank, my visit with my father.
“Sara, I’ve been thinking…” I said to her, slowly, taking her hand.
“Yeah?”
“Well, Sara, let’s just go back to Florida. We don’t need to know any more, right? I love you, I am happy with you. Let’s just leave it like that.”
“I don’t know, Adam,” she replied, pulling her hand from mine and crossing her arms. She turned her head to the side and stared at the sun-filled window. I waited for her to say something else.
“Please, Sara,” I prompted her.
She turned and looked at me, her arms remaining crossed in a posture of defiance. I was aware by her demeanor alone that trying to talk her out of it was pointless. “Adam. You know what this means to me. After coming all this way, how could I deny myself …how could we deny ourselves… the truth?” The way she said it brought a shiver to my spine. I already knew, and the last thing I wanted was for her to know the truth. Yet, now there seemed no way around it. A silent prayer went out from my heart, to whatever god there might be, that the truth was going to be okay with Sara.
“Sara, do you love me?” I asked, thinking I knew the answer, but suddenly uncertain. Uncertain of so much.
“Of course I do, Adam.” She replied, exasperation in the words she spoke. “But I have to know,” she added, after a few moments.
I looked at her. Her gaze left mine and went back to the window. The sun was smashing against the window now in all its brilliance. I couldn’t take my eyes from Sara. I wondered how much longer I would have her. How much longer would this beautiful woman be a part of my life? I had to tell her, I was pretty sure of that. But I didn’t want to. The time tested Adam-of-old was gnawing at my innards, worried as always, that this was going to be the point where I blew it. Or, not even me, but my blood, my genes, were going to sap the very life of our relationship.
“Sara. I have something to tell you, but I’m not sure how…” I began, but faltered. “I’m not sure how to tell you.”
She turned and looked at me, curious what I had to say. The tremor in my voice probably gave away the fact that what I had to say was important.
“What is it, Adam?”
“It’s about where I went last night. While you were asleep, I got to wondering if Frank Chance could possibly still live around here.” I told her, pausing. “I did some searching around on the web, and, well, I found him.”
I shifted my weight on the bed and moved as close to the edge as I could get, closer to Sara. She watched me, saying nothing. “I found him, Sara. Last night. I went, and I found him.” She recoiled a little when I said this, but didn’t turn her attention away. I got up then, and went to her side. She was watching me as I came down on one knee
, and situated myself directly in front of her. I moved my hand up, and pushed some of her hair back from her face, and her eyes got a little moist as I did it.
“He is my father, Sara.” I said, my own eyes stinging a little as I tried to force myself not to be weak. Not now. “I talked to him, face to face, and he is my real father. But, I don’t care about him. It’s you that I care about. It’s you that I love. I just want us to leave this place, and go back to Florida and just love each other.” I tried to hug her, to pull us close to each other, but she pulled away from me.
“Adam, please, just give me a minute, okay?” she told me, standing up and pushing by me, moving away from me. I sat down on the floor and watched her walk towards the bathroom. I felt like I was losing her already, and I had no idea how to control this situation any more, or if I ever had any control to begin with. Sara walked into the restroom and shut the door behind her. A sudden, overwhelming need to get back to Florida as soon as possible hit me. I never wanted to be home so badly than I did at that minute. Texas had brought nothing but confusion and pain to us; I wanted old familiar, mellow Florida.
I sat down hard on the thinly carpeted floor and moved so that I could lean my back against the bed. I waited for Sara, the “jury”, to come back with a verdict as to what was going to happen next. I waited and waited, my mind turning the reels back to my conversation with my father once again.
“Does Sara’s mother or father know what you did?” I had asked him, one of the few times I was able to speak to him at all.
He had looked at me painfully for a long time before finally replying, “No.” He told me he had just left one day without telling anyone. He admitted himself into full-time care, put his house up for sale, and watched their lives from a distance. He went through a world of psychiatric treatment, trying to make himself “right”. To this day he still went through therapy, although lighter, and took medication for what was basically an imbalance (“Basically, things don’t work right, but seeing someone and medication help”). He was considered a recovery by the doctors he had seen, and he felt that he was recovered himself. It took him his entire life to get there, he told me, “and I’m still working on it.”
But he had never spoken with a DuBeau again. Not Charles, not Maggie, and especially not Sara. Shame stopped him. Guilt stopped him. He could never look a single one of them in the eyes again.
The question in my mind had been why aren’t you killing him right now, Adam-boy?
It was a legitimate question. When Sara first revealed the abuse, I was so disgusted and horrified that all I wanted to do was find the abuser and destroy him. I wanted to erase him from the world and hopefully use that as a step to erase the pain inside Sara.
And there I sat, right across the table from the scumbag who had killed a part of the woman I loved oh-so-long ago.
I sat across from my father. My father, who had spent the last third of his life wallowing in regret, in sorrow, in guilt. My father, who left before he hurt anyone anymore. My father, who seemed genuinely remorseful at the damage he had inflicted.
I felt sorry for him, and as much as I wanted to, I realized I couldn’t hate him. It was an unsettling feeling.
I glanced at my watch and realized that Sara had been in the restroom for fifteen minutes or so. Sara, one corner of a strange triangle, the others being myself and Frank Chance. I wondered, as I did last night, if I was betraying her by believing my father. My guilt for believing him and my love for Sara might as well be the North and South poles. They just didn’t seem to jibe, and they only served to confuse me more. I shook my head and sighed. I slumped down to the floor and curled up there, trying to just not think about anything.
Eventually, I heard water running and sat back up. Sara came from the restroom and sat down on the end of the bed within reach of me. Once again, her eyes were puffy and red. She had been crying, but wasn’t right now. She looked tired, and I felt bad for having dropped the bomb on her good mood just minutes after waking. We both stayed where we were for a few minutes, and I tried not to watch her like I wanted to. Finally, she spoke to me.
“Adam, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do, and too much has come out on this trip for me to handle with a clear head right now.”
“I know,” I added, feeling exhausted myself, after only 40 minutes of being coherent.
“I want to visit my mother again…except I think I want to go alone,” she said. I nodded my head, slowly, okay.
“I won’t be too long, and I owe her at least that,” she finished. I lifted myself off the floor and got on the bed, watching Sara move around the room as she got herself together. She finally stopped and looked around the room and then at me. She was so beautiful. I stood up and went to her. I put my arms around her and brought her to me. We hugged each other, and near the end, her grip was tight around my neck. We pulled away from each other, and without a word, she left the room.
I went to the window and popped open the curtain just a little to watch her go down to the car. Soon enough, she was driving out of the parking lot, and I opened the curtain wider, thinking vaguely about the fact that she never looked back…if just to see if I were watching, and wave good-bye. I stood there like that, in my boxers, staring out of the window, until I realized that I had been there quite some time. I didn’t need anyone reporting me to the old timer at the front desk, so I shrunk back in to the hotel room and looked around, wondering how to kill some time.
I dug through my things and came up with a pair of shorts. I hadn’t brought any swimming trunks, but these were close enough. I decided to just go lay by the pool and soak up some sun. Maybe I would see if they had some beer in the lobby, or grab some at the little store down the road.
Just try to relax, Adam, old boy.
I quickly threw on my shorts, T-shirt, and sandals and left the room, stopping only to make sure I had the spare key card in my wallet. I thought to myself as I walked down the stairs about how some things in life were truly amazing, but most were just confusing or stomped on your heart and tested your drive to continue moving.
****
The idea of drinking beer by the pool in the middle of the morning seemed a bit excessive, so I opted for a Coke from the machine instead. If Sara came back from her visit with her mother and agreed to head back to Florida, I figured it would be a little better if I were sober.
The pool was relatively clean and quiet; only a large, balding man with an excessive amount of shoulder hair and his two young children were in the water. I sat down in a plastic lounge chair after I removed my shirt and slid off my sandals. After the initial few seconds of self-consciousness, I sat back in the chair and allowed the sun to beat at my fair skin.
I put my sunglasses on and closed my eyes. The only sounds were the occasional splashing of water or excited squeal of one of the children, and I immediately began relaxing. I had slept so well, and then became so tense after the last conversation with Sara.
“Fluke, you’re the only guy I know who’s ready to go bed after sleeping twelve hours,” Sean said to me a lot.
I did enjoy my sleep; it was just one of many vices that I had succumbed to in my life.
I laid there and thought about everything, working it through my head, trying to put it all together. I was the son of a man who had molested the woman I loved who came to Texas with me to find the man who was my father who molested the woman I loved who came to…the thought process was a big, frustrating circle.
I made a feeble attempt to change my thought process, to try and think of something else. I started playing a game in my head that I normally reserved for waiting rooms and algebra class and other dull places. I started naming off (to myself, of course, as I didn’t want to frighten the shoulder-haired man and his children by talking to myself) every song I could think of by a random band, just to see if I could remember. Today’s band was going to be Metallica, I decided.
I made it through their first two albums and to “Blackened”
before I fell asleep in the chair.
****
“Ow, Christ,” I whined.
“Sit still, dummy,” Sara said, giggling quietly.
“Not so hard,” I whined again.
“You know, a guy with your skin really shouldn’t sleep in direct sun,” Sara lectured, as though I didn’t already know this. “Especially with no sunscreen.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, enjoying the cool, moist feeling of the green aloe vera gel she was rubbing on my thighs.
It was true; I had dropped off into dream land and remained there for a solid two hours, before Sara came out and found me, roasting by the pool. She woke me up and guided me into our room. After telling me, “Sit on the bed,” she drew a cool bath and had me get in while she drove to the nearest drugstore and bought what looked like an industrial-sized bottle of aloe vera gel.
When she returned with the bottle, she got me out of the tub, patted me dry with the softest towel she could find in the room and started applying the thick green goop onto my scarlet red skin.
I was a mess…the tops of my legs and feet were fried red, as well as my torso. My left arm was burned on the top, and at some point during my little nap, I had thrown my right arm up above my head, so it was burned on the underside. My face was bright red; but, having fallen asleep with my sunglasses on, the area around my eyes and two thin lines over my temples were still nice and white. My newly multi-colored visage stared back at me from the mirror over the dresser. I had a vague raccoon-like appearance that looked incredibly foolish.
I certainly felt incredibly foolish.
Way to go, dipshit, I berated myself. Again.
“See what a tool you’re in love with, Sara? I look like a raccoon,” I lamented.
She looked up from my legs, stared at my face for a minute, and said, “No, not a raccoon, honey. More like a masked comic book superhero, I’d say. Like Robin.”
Fluke Page 21