Swear on This Life

by Renee Carlino

  By eleven a.m., I was at the check-in desk in the lobby of a Holiday Inn. My room was ready, so I freshened up, texted Cara and my aunts to let them know I had arrived safely, plugged my father’s work address into my phone’s map app, and headed back out.

  Pulling onto a residential road, I spotted the mechanic’s garage at the end of the street, on the corner of a main thoroughfare. I crept down the street in the Accent, trying to stay out of view, like I was casing the place, even though I was driving a bright red jelly bean of a car. I parked down the street, under a tree, and then watched. I didn’t know what I expected to see.

  After half an hour of staring at nothing at all but a few passing cars and a stray cat eating something out of an aluminum can in the alley next to the shop, I finally worked up the courage to approach.

  It was a standard mechanic’s garage with two open bays. The sign said, BENNY’S CAR REPAIR. There was an old Toyota sedan in the lifts on one side, and the other side was empty except for Benny. My father.

  He was standing there in his blue mechanic’s coveralls, trying to rub the grease off his hands with a towel. I wasn’t used to seeing his hair cropped close and his face clean-shaven. He rarely looked that way when I was growing up.

  He looked up and spotted me, his face impassive at first and then shocked as recognition dawned on him. But he didn’t make a move. I could feel another rush of adrenaline through my veins, but there was no turning back now.

  “Hello, baby girl.” His voice was husky from decades of smoking, and the sound of it triggered sense memories of smoke-filled rooms. I shook my head, desperately wanting to tell him not to call me that, but I couldn’t find the words. He seemed weary, apprehensive, as he walked toward me. Throwing the towel off to the side, he looked me up and down. “Look at you, all grown-up and beautiful, like your mom. I’m glad you came. I’m surprised, but so glad you’re here.”

  They were the kindest words I had ever heard him say about my mother to me. “You look good too,” I told him.

  “I’m a mess right now. Been working all day . . . but I’m sober.” He was looking right into my eyes with sincerity. “A hundred percent. Have been for a year and a half.”

  “Congratulations, that’s great.” I nodded and smiled stiffly. It felt like we were strangers. In the fifteen years I’d lived with him, I had never really witnessed him sober. He was drinking even when he was working at the paper mill. But the man who stood before me, in front of that garage, was different somehow. I could feel it.

  “I told your aunt not to pressure you. She didn’t think you were ready when I got cleaned up. I told her that if you ever were . . . ready or willing, I’d like to see you. I’m glad to know she gave you the message. Thank you for coming here.” He started to choke up.

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. Listen, there’s a diner a half a block down. Let me just wash up and close the shop. I want to do this right for once. Will you let me buy you lunch?”

  I nodded.

  I waited on the sidewalk, watching him as he rushed around tidying the garage and putting his tools away. He disappeared into the back and then came out wearing regular blue Dickies and a flannel shirt. It was chilly, so I wrapped my scarf around my neck two more times.

  “Are you warm enough?” he asked.

  “I’m good.”

  “It’s right down here.”

  We walked down a quiet commercial street and through a jingling door into a small, empty diner. An older waitress poured coffee and spoke over her shoulder without turning around. “Anywhere you’d like.”

  “Two coffees for us, Pat,” my father said, and then he motioned for me to sit down in the booth closest to the door. The booth itself was classic blue vinyl, and the Formica tabletop looked like it had come straight out of the sixties, though it was in pristine condition.

  Pat wore a standard diner waitress uniform, a tight gray bun, and glasses on a chain around her neck. “Hi, Benny. Who’s this pretty girl?”

  “This is my daughter, Emiline.” My father’s face was alight with pride.

  “Oh,” she said with a smile. “How nice to meet you.”

  I didn’t doubt for a second that Pat knew our whole life story. My father was obviously a regular here, but I could tell Pat was the type of woman who understood the value of discretion.

  “Likewise,” I said.

  After she left us, I looked over the menu as my father watched me. “Do you know what you want?”

  “Yeah.”

  He called Pat back over. I ordered a grilled cheese and French fries, and he ordered a turkey sandwich.

  “I don’t know if I’m gonna have much of a stomach after this, but hopefully it will be worth it . . . for both of us.”

  “After what, Dad?”

  He reached across the table for my hands, and I gave them to him. Staring down at them, as if he still couldn’t believe I was here, he said, “After I tell you what I need to tell you.”

  “Okay.”

  He sniffled. “Daddies are supposed to protect their little girls. You know that, right?”

  I felt a lump rising in my throat already. “Yes.”

  “Men, daddies, boyfriends, husbands . . . they should never hurt a woman or a child, with their fists, words, or otherwise.”

  I nodded, too choked up to say a word.

  He looked up from our hands right into my eyes. “I’m so, so sorry, Emiline.” His face scrunched up. Suddenly, we both collapsed across the table. His body was a shaking mass of sobs—painful, body-jarring sobs that matched my own.

  Pat left a stack of napkins next to my elbow and then went into the back, leaving us alone.

  “I couldn’t forgive myself. I didn’t think I deserved your forgiveness,” he cried.

  We held each other over the table until the tears subsided. “I didn’t think so either, but I need to forgive you. I’m ready to forgive you,” I told him.

  “You don’t have to, Emiline. For so long, I made excuses. I blamed your mom and I blamed the paper mill for closing, but it was all my doing. Your mom left because I pushed her away.”

  “But she left me there with you,” I said. He flinched, like my words had hurt him. “I mean, how good could she have been if she abandoned her daughter like that?”

  “She’s far from perfect, but I don’t think she knew how far I would sink after she left.”

  I nodded. “Do you remember Jase?”

  “Of course I do. If I could apologize to him as well, I would.”

  “Maybe you will someday. He wrote a book about everything we went through. He’s practically famous now. I think the book is helping me work through it all.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Tell him thank you from me.”

  Thank you? That surprised me.

  “Jason was always like that . . . driven to help you, driven to protect you. He looked out for you . . . when I should have.”

  “He did,” I agreed. I tried to will my eyes to stop watering, but it was impossible. Just the sheer emotion of being in his presence made my throat ache.

  After a few deep breaths, my father nodded to Pat, who was peering out from the back room. She returned with our plates, and we eased into our meal. He’d look up every couple of bites to shoot me a subtle smile, like he was making sure I was still okay.

  “I spoke to your mother about a month ago,” he said, breaking the surprisingly companionable silence between us.

  I choked on a piece of grilled cheese. “What? I had no idea you even knew where she was.”

  “Emiline, I said a lot of bad things about her when you were growing up. It might be hard for you to believe, but some of them were true. Not all of them, but some.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I said I drove her away, I meant I drove her into someone else’s arms. She was always looking for a hero. She’s on her fourth husband now.” He arched his eyebrows. “That poor schmuck.”

  I laughed bitterly, and my
smile faded quickly. “How could she just leave her daughter, though?”

  “It’s hard to understand because you’re not like her, thank god. You never were.”

  Hearing those words felt like a hug from God. When your own mother, the woman who conceived you and gave birth to you, is heartless enough to abandon you on a dirt road in some rural town in Ohio with a mean alcoholic, you’re always a little concerned that those awful genes will come to life within you at some point.

  “Why did you speak to her, then?” I asked.

  “I had to talk to her about the property.”

  “The property on the road?”

  “The very same.”

  “I thought the bank took it and tore the house down?” I had just assumed that my father had lost the property. I couldn’t imagine how he would have paid for it from jail.

  “The house was torn down, but I didn’t lose the property. The rent from Lisa covered the bank payments until I got out of prison.”

  “You owned the house they lived in?”

  “Yes, both houses. A lot of bad memories there, but they’re gone now. They were termite-infested, and both had water and flood damage beyond repair. But the land’s still there, and it’s good land.”

  It’s strange when you learn something wasn’t as it seemed when you were a child.

  “So you spoke with my mom about the property?” I clarified.

  “Yes, she agreed to sign a quit-claim deed so that I could gift it to you.”

  I jerked my head back. “Me? Why in the world would I want that property?”

  “Remember when you were about four or five and I taught you how to swim in the water hole, back when it was fuller? You used to get on my back like a little monkey and I would swim around . . .” He looked to the ceiling, trying to blink away tears. “You’d shout, ‘Again, Daddy, again!’ and I’d dive back under the water just for a second and then come back up.” By that point, I was getting choked up again too. “I remember the feeling of your little arms wrapped around my neck and your fluttering giggle each time we’d come to the surface for a breath. I think about that all the time. I remember those moments.”

  “I remember now too,” I whispered. He called it our little slice of heaven then.

  “It’s yours. The property is yours to do with what you want. It’s just a place, and it can be beautiful. I made it ugly because I was a mean drunk, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I also have a little nest egg I’ve been saving for you since I opened the shop.”

  I was stunned and speechless. Why is he doing this? “You don’t have to buy me back.”

  He reached for one of my hands. “Listen, Emiline, remember what I said about daddies protecting their little girls?”

  “I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  “You’re not, but I’ll always be your dad. I screwed up so many things. This is the only way I can try to repair some of the damage.”

  I had never thought of my father as an emotional, empathetic, or even articulate man, but he was showing sides to me I’d never seen. My mind was racing. I knew I had to accept what he was offering me, even though I had no clue what to do with the land.

  As I stared past him, trying to visualize what I would do, he said, “Sell it. I don’t care what you do with it. But it’s yours.”

  “Okay.”

  “So you’ll accept it?”

  “On one condition.”

  “I’m all ears,” he said.

  “I want my mother’s address.” I was determined to confront her, and I wanted to know if she had abandoned any other poor kids out there.

  “Emiline . . .” His voice took on a warning tone. “She’s not going to change. I’m afraid you’re gonna be real disappointed.”

  “There’s something I need to do. I need to see her. Please.”

  I knew he understood. I didn’t have to spell it out for him. “I will. I’ll give you her address. You’re stronger than I was, Emiline. Promise me that no matter what she says or does, you know in your heart that you are good and smart and beautiful. She has her own demons, and if she rejects you, it’ll have nothing to do with who you are.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “We can’t go backward. There are too many regrets. Please just move forward with me?”

  I took his hand across the table. “I will.”

  After lunch, we walked back to the shop and he wrote her address down on a piece of paper.

  “She lives in Nashville.”

  “How far of a drive is that from here?” I asked.

  “’Bout six hours.” He handed me an envelope with cash in it. “There’s three thousand in there. You should deposit that as soon as you can. Actually, let’s go now. I’ll follow you in my car to the bank.”

  It does seem a little behind the curve to wait until your daughter is approaching thirty years old before you learn how to be a father, but I was in forgiveness mode. I had held on to the anger for too long. My father and I weren’t going to start palling around all of a sudden, but I certainly wasn’t going to harbor any ill will toward him when he had clearly spent the intervening years trying to change.

  After we deposited the money, I hugged him in the parking lot of the bank.

  “I’ll send the property deed as soon I get it,” he told me.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Thank Jason for me. He might not know it, but I think he’s the reason you’re here with me now, and I’m grateful.”

  I was surprised that my father was okay with all the dirty secrets being exposed in Jase’s book, but I realized that my father had learned something in his recovery that I still hadn’t totally grasped: the past would only fester and eat away at us if we tried to hold on to it too tightly.

  13. Which Path?

  Back at the Holiday Inn, as I planned my trip for Nashville, I found myself staring once again at Jase’s website. In four days, he would be at his Nashville signing.

  I was leaving tomorrow. I made the decision to bide my time while I was there.

  Even though I knew I was slowly waking up to my life, there were still things, questions that I didn’t have answers to.

  I dialed Jase and got him on the first ring.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” I said, and then felt my jaw freeze up. There was commotion in the background, like he was in a bar or restaurant.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine.” Before he could say anything, I quickly added, “I haven’t finished the book yet, but I wanted to talk to you. Are you busy?”

  I had been avoiding the book. Somewhere deep in my mind, I was afraid to finish it out of fear that it would act as some kind of predictor for how things would go. Based on where I had left off, I knew the ending couldn’t be anything but sad.

  “Just give me a sec. I’m gonna step outside.” I could hear shuffling. “Fuck, it’s freezing out here!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Philly.”

  “Oh,” I said, though I already knew. “It’s not really important, I can talk to you about it later.”

  “No, what’s up? Talk to me.”

  “Did you have a lot of girlfriends in college?” I blurted out.

  “That’s what you want to know . . . right now?”

  “I’m curious. I just want to know what your life was like while we were apart.”

  “I wouldn’t call them girlfriends, per se. Hey, why haven’t you finished the book?” I could hear his teeth chattering.

  I was not to be deterred. “Do you mean that you slept with a lot of girls?”

  “What’s ‘a lot’?” I could tell that he was getting a little annoyed by this line of questioning.

  “I’m not getting anywhere with these nonanswers,” I said.

  “Emiline, I didn’t have any girlfriends. I dated and slept with more women than I’d like to admit. But no, I didn’t really have serious girlfriends.”

  “So you never fell in love?”

&n
bsp; “No,” he said firmly.

  “Why?”

  “Because none of them were you.”

  Silence. I swallowed. I wanted to scream, I love you, at the top of my lungs.

  “Jase . . .”

  “I have to go back inside.”

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly.

  “Night, Em. Hope you got what you were looking for.”

  “I did. Night.”

  A part of me still wasn’t sure what Jase’s intentions were for us, but now I knew. None of them were me.

  After I hung up, I pulled All the Roads Between out of my backpack and ran my hand over the cover. I promised myself that I would finish it, but I needed to see my mom first.

  I MADE IT to Nashville late the next day. I found a hotel and then went to a nearby bookstore and bought a leather-bound journal like the one Jase had had when we were kids.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I drove the red jelly bean to my mother’s address. As I pulled up, I could see that it was a modest postwar house with an overgrown front yard. In the driveway, there was a mobile dog-grooming van with the words DIRTY DOGS painted in bright red across the side, along with a picture of a mud-covered schnauzer.

  I was less nervous to see her than I had been to see my dad because, the truth was, I hardly remembered her. She had been a part of my life for such a short time, her absence looming larger over my life than her presence. I wanted closure, but I knew, even if I got it, it wouldn’t be as cathartic as what I had experienced over a grilled cheese with my dad.

  The second I rang the doorbell, I heard a symphony of barks on the other side and the sounds of a pack of tiny lap dogs racing toward me.

  She swung open the door as she kicked and shooed the dogs away, her eyes not quite landing on me yet. Her hair was short, her dye job a cheap-looking shade of red from the drugstore. She seemed much smaller than I remembered, but then again, I was just a little kid the last time I had seen her. She was round, pudgy, a little unhealthy-looking, or maybe just worn-out. If her looks were any indication, life hadn’t been easy for her.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I forgive you,” I said instantly.

  She stared at me hard, and then a look of realization poured over her features. Her eyes looked far from sad, though—they looked scared. “What are you doing here?”