When You Went Away

by Michael Baron

  I guess I did much more of this than Mick could handle. A few days ago, he sat me down, gripped me by the shoulders, and told me that it was time to “snap out of it.” I burst into tears and told him that I couldn’t snap out of it. And he told me that if that was the case then we couldn’t be together anymore. Things had gotten too real for him and he didn’t sign on for that. I’m paraphrasing, but I’m sure you get the point.

  He told me he planned to leave the tour after the next show. I told him that I would leave instead. The whole Riverrider thing meant much more to him than it did to me and I didn’t want to bring everyone else down. I left three days ago. I’m out here now on my own.

  This is probably better. I need the time to myself – I mean completely by myself. I’ve sort of gone from one artificial setting to another and if I’m gonna make sense of my life and everything that’s happened, I need to do it entirely on my own. Maybe then I’ll finally figure a lot of things out.

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that you can look up the latest stop on the River tour and comb the area for me. I waited to write you until I was nowhere near Atlanta for exactly this reason. I know you, Dad. I know you’re going to take this personally. You always did. I’m sure you think you can help me, but you can’t. I’ve lost two gigantically important people in my life. I’m sure I haven’t even begun to come to terms with what it means to lose Mick.

  Sorry I didn’t write for all this time. I didn’t know what to say. I’ll drop you a note every now and then to let you know that I’m okay.

  And I will be okay. Eventually.

  Hearts,

  T

  During one of our frequent discussions about Mick when he first started dating Tanya,Maureen reminded me that their breakup was inevitable. She tried to get me to remember that at seventeen, people never stayed together for any length of time. She asked me what I would do when that happened. I’m sure she assumed that this would help me visualize how much I was overreacting to everything.What I said was, “I’ll party all night. It’ll be like we won the lottery.” She shook her head and walked away from me.

  But now that the inevitable finally came – and much later than Maureen imagined – I didn’t want to party. In fact, a new sense of desperation and frustration struck me. Because in splitting from Mick, Tanya had also severed that thinnest of all possible lines that connected the two of us.While before I didn’t know that she was still with the Riverriders, I knew now that she was not. This meant that I once again had absolutely no idea where she was, who she was with, and what she was doing. And even more compelling, I knew that she was somewhere, a few days from Atlanta in the throes of unmanageable grief over her mother and unknowable upset over the loss of her boyfriend. Was she curled up on the side of the road? Had she thrown herself into the arms of another?Was she even more vulnerable to deceit and exploitation than she was at other times since she was gone?

  Tanya was right. I wanted to run out right this second to track her down. But because she believed that I couldn’t help her, because she insisted that I not help her, doing this was several levels beyond futile.

  I stood up from the desk and once I did, I couldn’t get myself to stop moving. I tried to sit back and think, but I couldn’t stay in one place. I tried cleaning, taking a shower, playing the piano – all proved useless. My daughter could at this very moment be heaving with sadness and I wasn’t there to put an arm around her. Because she actually thought it was better to go through this alone than to go through it with me.

  How did I cause her to feel this way? How did I ever send the message that I wouldn’t be there for her, that I wouldn’t set aside everything to help her get through this? I’d given so much away. I let so much distance build up between us. And now, when I really believed I could help her, when I had learned things that could benefit her, she ran away from me yet again.

  I called Codie first because she knew Tanya. We talked for a while, but I did little more than vent. Codie was no more capable of suggesting a useful strategy than anyone else would have been at that point, and I really wasn’t capable of having anyone mollify me anyway. After I hung up, I called Ally. She volunteered to come over, but I demurred. I was much too agitated and I not only didn’t want her to see me in that state, but I didn’t want to think about how I appeared to anyone else at that very moment. Like Tanya, I believed this was something I had to handle on my own.

  I eventually returned to the library. I read the message on the computer again, trying to glean some different meaning from it. When she said she thought she’d be better eventually, did this also mean that she thought she’d be able to reach out to me again sometime? Was there something for me to hold onto when she said that she would write to apprise me of her progress? I was ready to grasp at anything.

  My eyes fell on Tanya’s journal, still open to the page I wrote the night before, some rambling trifle about the difference between work and a job. I had written it to a different Tanya: a Tanya I imagined who was farther along in the grieving process and who was open to fatherly advice – a Tanya who would be interested in reading what I had to say to her. And I wasn’t ready to let this Tanya go. She simply had come to mean too much to me.

  With the image of her back in my home – or at least reachable to the point where I could send this journal to her – I picked up the pen and wrote.

  I wonder about the scar tissue that builds up between people. I was never first in your heart and I never really had a huge problem with that. You adored your mother and I could hardly fault you for feeling this way, since I adored her as well. And the two of you spent a tremendous amount of time together in your early years. The time I could offer you was a trifle in comparison. Sometimes I would get jealous at being on the outside looking in, but you took such joy in each other – especially those first few years after you started talking – that this couldn’t help but warm me. You were, after all, the two most important people in my life.

  But there were also times when you actively relegated me to second-class status. I remember several occasions when your mother was busy and I was free but you insisted that only she could help you get dressed, peel you an orange, play Old Maid with you, etc. Sometimes I felt a little pinprick from these snubs, sometimes even a little more than that. It was never a huge deal, but I wonder if even pinpricks will leave a scar if inflicted often enough. After a point, I know I settled on my place in your life. I wonder if the scar tissue prevented me from trying harder to form a different connection with you.

  In the last couple of years before you left, this manifested itself in new ways. I always loved you and admired you. I defended your right to question authority and make sure that you got to air your (sometimes ill-informed) opinions. But I didn’t make as much of an attempt to explain myself to you when we disagreed. And to be honest, I didn’t take it as hard when you blew me off. You were less predictable (which in itself was very predictable) and though I never made a conscious decision about this, I became less willing to tolerate your inconsistency. Even when it came to Mick, I would get angry because of who he was or what he was doing to you, but I could step back from it. It never really got all the way through to me and because of that I never made the extraordinary effort that I should have made to help you see where I was coming from. And maybe get a better sense of what this guy meant to you and why you felt so compelled to stick with him.

  In one of our rare screaming matches, your mother called me on this and I tried to explain that things were different for her with you than they were for me. She could negotiate these difficulties with more grace because the two of you had built up a lifetime reserve of affection. I truly believe you could have set her hair on fire and five minutes later the two of you would have been in your room hugging and talking it through.

  This is on my mind now because I realize that this journal isn’t just a place to say things to you while you are out in the world, but also to say things to you that I wish I’d said while
you were around. You should know that I have never consciously withheld my love from you. I might have avoided entanglements and I might have walked away rolling my eyes on occasion, but I can’t recall a single situation where you needed me (or could use me) and I wasn’t there for you. And I know that I would be there for you now if you wanted me.

  You probably won’t recall it this way – in fact, you might not recall it at all – but one of my favorite memories of us together came when your mother and your aunt went away for a long weekend. You were nine and we hung out at the mall, went to the movies, and made ridiculously elaborate dinners together. All of that was fun, and I remember having a great time, but those things weren’t what put this memory in my top five. What did was what happened that Saturday when you came back from an afternoon with Carrie Nicholson (someone I never liked, by the way, but whom I let you form your own opinion about). You were unusually quiet during the car ride back from her house. When I asked you why, you told me it was nothing. You went off to be alone in your room for about a half hour and when you came out, your eyes were red. I asked what was wrong, and this time your face crumpled. You told me how Carrie made you feel awful about some social error you made at a party. We sat at the couch and talked it through. I explained that when people went out of their way to make someone feel awful it usually exposed a flaw in their personalities, not their target’s. You didn’t buy this right away, but we kept talking and after a while, you cataloged all the terrible things that Carrie did to other people. Eventually, we found ourselves laughing hysterically over the way Carrie’s voice cracked during her big solo in the class musical – after she pranced around the entire week telling everyone that she was the star of the show. In the end, you leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “Thanks, Dad.”

  I would have moved Kilimanjaro for you at that point. This was a fantasy moment for me, the kind of thing I envisioned between us within days after you were born. I always wanted to be a person you could rely on.

  But like all of these other moments in our lives, it didn’t last. Your mother came back and I assume the next time Carrie or Leslie or Carolyn did you wrong you went to her. And I told myself that it was a great thing that the two of you were so close and that I didn’t mind being a bench player. Even though I sorta did.

  I got the message about your breakup with Mick tonight. And even though I seriously didn’t like the guy (for reasons I don’t think you’ve even begun to understand), I realize that this was an incredibly sad event for you. I’m not going to lie and say that I know just what you’re going through because these feelings are absolutely and utterly personal. It’s not even particularly useful to experience them yourself because the next time it happens it’s going to feel completely different. That’s the upside and downside of relationships – each one is unique and comes with its own collection of highs and lows.

  The first time a girl broke my heart, I had the most maudlin possible reaction. I actually went to the record store to buy sappy breakup songs so I could play them in my room and sing them to myself. It was a totally over-the-top reaction, driven as much by my need to feel like the relationship was important as it was by any real sense of loss. The next time a girl broke up with me, my depression lasted all of about four hours because Vicki Krenski called that night and asked me to go to the movies with her. Of course, the time after that, I went into the mother of all funks and nearly split a band because of it.

  The best news I can give you here is that at some point the roller-coaster ride ends and you leave the amusement park altogether arm-in-arm with someone who really matters. That’s the way it was when your mother and I met.

  I’m sorry Mick broke your heart. I’m sorry that as I write this you’re hurting. But I’m not sorry that things didn’t work out between you and Mick.

  I also learned tonight that you split with the Riverriders and that you’re off on your own. What’s most unnerving about both of these pieces of news is that they happened because you’re struggling with the death of your mother. I wish I could help you through this. I wish you’d let me. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as simple as making fun of Carrie’s singing voice, but I really think in this particular case that there is no possible way you can learn as much on your own as we could learn together.

  I’m not going to shrug this off, Tanya. I’m not going to shake my head and walk away. Whatever scar tissue there was has been lasered away by what we’ve both been through since October. If you ever, EVER need me, I’ll be waiting.

  I closed the journal and sat with my hand over it for several minutes. I could do nothing to will Tanya home. But if there was even a moment in the past few months when I thought I was okay if she didn’t come home, I knew now that would never be the case.

  I called up a map of the South on the computer and stared at it. She was there somewhere. Even as I realized how absurd it was, I thought about simply picking a location and beginning a search for her. I thought about hiring a private investigator or a team of them.

  I realized for the first time that, though they were a roving band of neo-hippies, the Riverriders at least represented a community of some sort, and I had convinced myself that this community offered her at least a modicum of safety and support. But now even that was gone.

  Tanya had disappeared again into the fabric of the landscape.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Home-Baked Goodness

  One of the constants in my life for a long time now was my lunches with Tate. Since he’d come back to Long Island, I don’t think we ever went more than three weeks without getting together some mid-week afternoon. The tone of these sessions was materially different from any time we spent as a foursome with our wives. It was more confessional and in most ways more candid. I always assumed that this happened because it was easier to talk this way when there were only two of us and because when we were together as couples it was more about entertainment and less about checking in on one another. But given what developed between Tate and Gail, I suppose it was entirely possible that he simply couldn’t be as open and accessible when she was around. It saddened me to think that he could have spent most of his home hours this way.

  When we had lunch that Friday, I planned to have a long conversation with him about Tanya. Since I received that last e-mail message from her, I couldn’t stop thinking about where she was and what she was doing. Never in my life did I feel more helpless.Over the years, Tate made me look at things from a new perspective and I was certainly open to this now, since all of my own perspectives on the subject were bleak. But a couple of minutes after we sat down together, I realized he had his own agenda.

  “I’ve found a new job,” he said.

  “Wow, I didn’t even know you were looking.”

  “The situation arose. I’m gonna be president and CEO of Highpoint Foods. You know; the Mr. Tasty people.”

  “Really?” I reached out to shake his hand. “That’s great. CEO, huh? It’s about time.”

  “Yeah, I crawled my way to the top,” he said with a smirk.

  I was genuinely pleased for him. I knew he needed a boost at this point nearly as much as I did. “I had no idea they were located anywhere around here. For some reason I always assumed they were out in the rest of the world someplace.”

  “They are. Their corporate offices are in Seattle.”

  This stopped me cold. “I don’t suppose Seattle is the name of a new neighborhood near the Hamptons.”

  “Washington, Gerry.”

  “You’re moving to Washington?”

  “In a couple of weeks. As you can imagine, once I gave notice my current employer didn’t see much reason for me to stick around.”

  “You’re moving all the way across the country? What about Zak and Sara?”

  “They’re staying here with Gail.”

  This made me angry instantly. “And you’ll send them postcards?”

  Tate put up his hands. “We worked it out, Gerry. It was actually the first civil con
versation Gail and I have had since I left the house. I’m gonna fly back here one weekend a month. And then they’re gonna come out to stay with me every July.”

  He presented this in such a matter-of-fact way. “So you’ll be like their rich uncle or something,” I said stiffly.

  “Give me a break, will ya, Gerry?”

  “You’re gonna be a freaking appendage in their lives. They’ll have a mother and an appendage.”

  I could see that Tate was a little surprised by my response. He shouldn’t have been. But now he leaned closer to me and his eyes flared. “I’m their father. You think they’re gonna forget that?”

  “I think you’re going to be making guest appearances as their father. Seattle? Why didn’t you just take a job in Singapore?”

  He reddened. “You know, this holier-than-thou thing can get old really fast.”

  I sat back in my chair to take the edge off this confrontation. The other choice would have been to take a swing at him. “Tate, do you really see yourself as someone who lives three thousand miles away from his kids?”

  “Dammit, Gerry,” he said, slapping his palms on the table. “I didn’t just do this without giving it any thought.” He turned away from me and for a moment, I thought he was going to get up and leave. He turned back and leaned forward. “I suck at being a single parent. Some of us are more adaptable than others. I can’t just jump into the breach. I love those kids; I really do. But all three of us have been completely out of control when we’re together.” He looked down at the table. “I think I’m actually hurting them by being around.”

  “That’s not possible. And you would work it out.”