by Harper Bliss
Kristin was baffled by the eloquence of the man. Shouldn’t forty years of alcohol abuse have left him more of a wreck? Hands shaking and eyes leaking tears inadvertently. The occasional coherent sentence making it through a barrage of nonsense. He really was Sheryl’s father all right.
“Will you… will you please tell her how sorry I am for everything? And that I don’t expect anything from her. I’ve already gotten more than I dreamed I would by having this chat with you.” Trevor’s face contorted into a grimace. He shifted in his seat and reached for his glass of water. “I’m already more at peace.”
“I’ll do my best.” Kristin guessed he must be in pain, the way he angled his body to one side and his eyes narrowed. “I’d better go now.” She rose, and when Trevor started pushing himself out of his chair, she lifted her hand. “Don’t get up, I’ll see myself out.” She held out her hand, and he put his shakily in hers. Kristin cast him one last glance, and it seemed that, during their ten-minute conversation, he had aged twenty years.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I told Martha about my father,” Sheryl mumbled.
Kristin’s eyes went wide. Sheryl had stumbled in, nearly knocking over the porcelain statue—a Park family heirloom—on the cabinet where she kept her keys. Kristin had immediately known it would not be a good night to tell Sheryl that she’d met her father. Even if she did, Sheryl probably wouldn’t remember in the morning.
“You did?” She tried to keep her voice level, even tried to inject some encouragement into her tone, even though it was hard. Seeing Sheryl like that made her feel so completely powerless.
“We went for a drink.” Sheryl scrunched her lips together. “I know I’ve had a few too many.” She leaned lopsidedly against the cabinet. “You can blame Martha for that. And Trevor. You can blame him as well.”
Kristin supposed she should at least be glad Sheryl had opened up to someone, though she would have preferred it to be her. The conversation Sheryl had had with Martha had probably been more informative than the emotional one they needed to have between them. She tried to look on the bright side. Sheryl must be in a talkative mood.
“I’m not blaming anyone.” Kristin walked over to Sheryl, the way she had done so many times lately, and took her by the hand, leading her to the sofa. “Let’s sit for a bit.”
“I’m so, so tired.” Sheryl leaned half her body weight onto Kristin.
“I’ll make some coffee.” Kristin deposited Sheryl in her preferred spot and went into the kitchen. She was of half a mind to call Martha and ask her how she could have left Sheryl, who was her friend, in such a state. She appeared much more out of it than usual. Sheryl definitely drank in public, but she was smart enough—Kristin heard Trevor’s words echo in her head: smart as a whip, that girl—to never let herself go too much until she got home. Until after Kristin had gone to bed even. As though drinking to such excess was a purely personal affair.
When Kristin brought the coffee over—decaf for herself—Sheryl sat slumped, her chin tucked into her chest, hands hanging loosely by her side, eyes closed. She probably was too far gone to have any kind of conversation with. Everything would have to be postponed to tomorrow again, the way it had been for almost a week now.
Kristin doubted Sheryl would make it into work tomorrow. Maybe they could finally talk then.
Kristin sipped from the scalding hot coffee while she listened to Sheryl’s breathing. She put down her cup, took off Sheryl’s shoes, negotiated her out of her jacket, and pushed her down until she looked like she was in a somewhat comfortable position. Kristin propped a cushion beneath her neck and draped the blanket she’d been watching television under, while waiting for Sheryl to come home, over her.
She bent down, kissed her on the cheek, braving the toxic smell of alcohol on her breath, and said, “I love you.”
Sheryl just kept on snoring.
Kristin looked at Sheryl for a few minutes before finding her phone and texting Martha: What state was Sheryl in when she left?
She erased the message before she could press send. None of this was Martha’s fault.
Sheryl woke with the familiar torrent of shame and disgust racing through her. Her body felt like she’d taken a severe beating the night before. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. A cup of steaming coffee stood right in her line of sight. She glanced upward a bit more and looked into Kristin’s face.
“I called your office,” Kristin said. “Told them you were too ill to even pick up the phone yourself and let them know you wouldn’t be in today.”
“What time is it?” Sheryl swung her legs out too quickly and a dizzy spell overtook her.
“Nine.” Kristin didn’t look too pleased.
Sheryl tried to remember if she had said anything when she’d come home last night that would have put Kristin in this mood. Then she concluded that it probably wasn’t so much about last night, but all the previous nights combined.
“Whether you want to or not, today you and I are going to talk.” Kristin used the tone of voice she reserved for very special, solemn occasions. The one that didn’t tolerate any backtalk.
Sheryl could only nod. She needed a shower and a triple dose of Ibuprofen. She made do with the coffee for now.
“This has to stop, Sheryl. I barely recognize you.” The earlier solemn note in Kristin’s voice had made way for raw concern.
“I know.” Sheryl’s voice sounded as though she had smoked an entire sleeve of cigarettes the night before. “I’m sorry.”
“I went to see your father yesterday,” Kristin said, her voice loud and clear.
Sheryl had heard what she’d said perfectly, but had trouble absorbing the statement. “You did what?”
“I called him and went to his house.” She studied her nails, then looked back up at Sheryl.
“Behind my back?” Sheryl’s pounding headache made way for panic. Kristin must have gone through her desk drawers to find the number. She must have found the bottle of vodka. Why hadn’t she stashed it somewhere more original? Behind a couple of books on the shelf.
“You’re falling apart, babe.” Nothing but worry in Kristin’s voice. “I felt I—I needed to do something, even if that included going behind your back.”
“You went through my stuff.” Sheryl tried to push herself out of the sofa, but her legs didn’t cooperate. Kristin was clever, cornering her upon waking.
“For which I apologize, but I’d seen you put away the piece of paper with his number on it. I knew where to look.”
Perhaps Kristin hadn’t found the bottle. Sheryl didn’t know why establishing this fact was so important to her, but it was. Having Kristin happen upon a hidden bottle like that would be too humiliating, too much hard evidence of what was going on—evidence of Sheryl’s failure and how she was dealing with her past.
“You should have talked to me first.” Sheryl made circular motions with her fingers around her temples.
“I know, but you made that impossible. You shut down completely after he came here.” Kristin rose from her seat and sat next to her. “I didn’t do it to hurt you, on the contrary. But I couldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer, watching you destroy yourself.”
A phone started ringing close by, its shrill sound making Sheryl jump. They both looked around.
“It’s yours,” Kristin said. She reached over to the other end of the sofa and fished it out of Sheryl’s jacket pocket.
“I don’t want to talk to anyone.” Sheryl waved it off.
“It’s Martha.” Kristin handed her the phone.
“I’ll talk to her later.” Sheryl dismissed the call. She tried to remember what she had told Martha last night. Had she broken down in The Flying Pig? And how on earth had she gotten home?
“I have a bone to pick with her,” Kristin said. “The state you were in last night.” There was an edge to Kristin’s tone.
They both took a breath, Sheryl’s long and deep and shuddering.
“It was hard.
Seeing him. Him talking to me,” she said. “At first, it felt like just a man sitting across from me, but he isn’t just some old codger. He’s my father. A man who was supposed to love me and make me feel safe, but failed me so spectacularly. And I don’t know what to do with that.”
Kristin shuffled a little closer. Sheryl wished she wouldn’t. She needed space. To breathe and to think. To finally deal with the sudden enormity of all the things she had never dealt with.
“I know.” Kristin slung an arm around her shoulders. “I know it’s hard, but not talking to me and… and hiding in your office all night long isn’t going to make things better.”
“I don’t know whether I love or hate him,” Sheryl blurted out.
“Probably a bit of both.” Kristin squeezed her shoulder tighter. “But what have you truly got to lose by getting in touch with him?” Kristin asked. “That you haven’t lost already?”
“I just don’t think he deserves it,” Sheryl said. She spoke in a tone that Kristin had seldom heard, a hangover mixed with extreme emotions underlying her words. Just like she’d seen Trevor age in front of her eyes during the timespan of a short conversation, Sheryl seemed to have grown smaller, her hair a little grayer, her wrinkles deeper. “Why should he deserve to die with my forgiveness?”
“He doesn’t, but it’s not really about that.” Kristin tried to feel her way through this conversation. She didn’t so much try to say the right things, but avoid the wrong ones. Sheryl was slowly opening up. All her defenses were down. Perhaps it was cruel to pounce on her as soon as she’d opened her eyes, but Kristin couldn’t watch her in agony one day longer. Sheryl wasn’t going to help herself, so it was up to Kristin to step in. Knowing that she was doing the right thing, didn’t make it easier, though. “This is about you.” Kristin paused. She’d been up most of the night while Sheryl slept it off, thinking about how to deliver the next phrase. The one it all came down to. The one that could, quite possibly, send Sheryl into a frenzied anger that she wouldn’t snap out of any time soon. “About what this has been doing to you. The drinking, babe.”
Sheryl didn’t say anything. She pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes. When she removed them, she turned her face away from Kristin. “That’s why, apart from it being such a shock, it was so hard to see him. I saw all my own faults reflected back at me.” A sniffle escaped her.
Kristin moved her hand to Sheryl’s neck and gently massaged her. The feel of her fingers on Sheryl’s skin reminded her of how little they had touched each other of late.
“In a way, I’ve become him. The very worst part of him.” Sheryl turned to face Kristin. Her eyes were red-rimmed and full of tears. “The exact thing I never wanted to be.”
“You haven’t,” Kristin said. “You’re an entirely different person.”
Sheryl shook her head. “Am I?” Her voice shot up. “I used to sit in a chair watching him the way you sat watching me this morning. Waiting for him to wake up, after I’d gone through his pockets to find some money so I could buy myself some breakfast. More often than not, there wasn’t any left and he sent me to the ATM when he woke up.”
“You are not like your father, babe,” Kristin insisted. “He was an alcoholic for thirty-five years. I would never let you become that.”
“Because I have you and he had no one.” Sheryl shrugged violently. “Well, he had me, but I was powerless.”
“The situation is so very different.” Kristin tried to look Sheryl in the eye, but it was impossible to hold her gaze, which kept skittering away.
“Maybe you’re right,” Sheryl said. “Maybe I have no choice but to go and see him.” She let out a long breath. “I’d best not wait too long if I want to have my say before he kicks the bucket.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sheryl had let Kristin set up the meeting, and she was letting her drive to her father’s place as well. It had happened fast, not only because Trevor had claimed he didn’t have long, but also because, if given too much time, Sheryl might have backed out. She didn’t want more hours to ruminate on it. To balance the pros and cons. To analyze the data the way she did after conducting a research survey. Her feelings were not data and her sad past had been analyzed to death already.
When they pulled up to the curb and Kristin parked the car, the doubts she’d been having since she’d given Kristin permission to call her father intensified. But she knew it was just nerves. Because now she was meeting her father on her own terms. There was no surprise effect to subdue the buried emotions that were bound to surface.
It seemed like ages since she’d woken up on the sofa and Kristin had told her about calling him, even though it had only been that same morning. But Sheryl knew that having a night in between, and her nights these days were either sleepless or severely drunk, would have her back out. She’d spent the day fighting the urge to drink and crying on Kristin’s shoulder. And now there she sat, ready to get out of the car and ring his doorbell, and she was already so spent.
Trevor looked different than when he’d shown up at The Pink Bean. Older. His skin a harsh yellow. Sheryl couldn’t help but wonder if he’d fallen off the wagon. She breathed in deeply—the smell of a house where too much alcohol was consumed would never leave her—but didn’t detect the faintest whiff of that particular acrid odor she used to come home to from school.
Her father looked like the very definition of a man whose days were numbered. He walked through the house slowly, his movements measured and minute, and Kristin soon took on the task of fetching water from the kitchen and pouring them each a glass, leaving Sheryl alone with her father in the lounge for a few uncomfortable minutes.
She had never guessed that, when the time came for this moment, she would need Kristin by her side so desperately.
“Do you live here alone?” Sheryl asked, looking around the room.
Her father shook his head. “I have two flatmates. I asked them to give us some privacy,” he whispered.
Sheryl had to strain to hear. Of course Trevor had aged, lost the paunch she’d always remembered him carrying around the waist, and looked like a ghost of the man he used to be, but what had changed most dramatically was his voice. If he had ever bothered to call her, Sheryl wouldn’t have recognized him by hearing it alone.
Kristin emerged from the kitchen, and Sheryl had rarely been gladder to see her. Her father could quite possibly be the only person in this world she didn’t know how to talk to.
“I’m glad you came,” Trevor said after they’d all sat down.
“You don’t look too well,” Kristin said. “Should we take you to a doctor later?” There was genuine worry in her voice.
Trevor shook his head. “There’s nothing left that a doctor could do for me.”
“When you said you didn’t have long.” Sheryl managed to keep all emotion from her voice. “What time frame are we talking about? Weeks? Months?”
“Weeks,” Trevor whispered. “If not days, what with the way I’m feeling today.”
Sheryl refrained from rolling her eyes. No matter what else he had lost, Trevor was still in full possession of his dramatic streak. Though, truth be told, he did look like death was about to knock on his door.
“We won’t keep you long,” Sheryl said. It came out much crueler than she had intended.
“Is there anything we can do?” Kristin asked. Sheryl guessed she was saying it partly to make up for Sheryl’s snide remark and partly because she just couldn’t help being a Good Samaritan.
“That’s very kind of you.” Trevor blinked slowly. “Being here is more than enough.”
The elemental rage Sheryl felt at seeing him, at having to talk to him, warred with the pity she couldn’t help but feel for him—and for herself. It also made her realize that, over the years, she’d had ample opportunity to get in touch. To check in and see if her father had changed. Perhaps she had always known that if the time was right for him, he would find her.
“I’m sorry for not being ther
e,” he started to say. “I’m sorry for not being able to control my—”
Sheryl held up her hand. This might very well be the last time she saw her father. Hearing him apologize wasn’t going to make a fundamental difference in her life. He had looked her up. She knew he was sorry. Of course he was. Sheryl wasn’t the kind of person who needed it spelled out for her. Most of all, she wanted to get out of that darkened room where dust motes hung in the thin shaft of light that was allowed in. This house with her father’s presence in it was oppressing, was sucking any joy right out of her—and she already had so little left.
“I don’t want your apologies.” That harsh tone again. She corrected herself. “I just want to know why. Why Mom did it and why… you didn’t step up for me.”
Trevor nodded thoughtfully. He looked like he was weighing his words—perhaps he had only a limited amount left, like days in his life.
“I—” Trevor started, but Sheryl wouldn’t let him. The sound of his powerless voice suddenly irked her, as though it represented his entire existence in her life. He’d been powerless to be her father after her mother’s death and now it was all there—the memories, the sadness, the questions Sheryl couldn’t help but ask herself—in his useless, breathless voice.
“The note she left me was so brief,” Sheryl said. “It didn’t give any explanation.” Sheryl hadn’t allowed herself to think of her mother’s good-bye note for a long time. She kept it in a plastic folder in a drawer at work. Having it at home always seemed too much somehow. “It just said that hopefully one day, when I was older, I would understand.”
It wasn’t understanding Sheryl lacked. She had scoured the university library for any book she could find on clinical depression, and had them order any new one even remotely related to the subject. When it came to cold hard facts, she knew why her mother had taken her own life. What she couldn’t wrap her head around was why, if things had gotten so bad that a mother was willing to leave her daughter behind, to have her fend for herself in a world she herself was so desperate and determined to leave, her father hadn’t done anything about it. Had her admitted. Dragged her to counseling. Cut the noose from around her fucking neck before she choked to death.
