Where We Left Off

by J. Alex Blane

  “My dad passed away when I was nine.” He smiled, thinking briefly before he continued. “He was the most caring, compassionate, hardworking man I ever knew. When we were kids he would come into our room right before we went to bed with a handful of candy he’d picked up on the way home. Regardless of how late it was, he would sit with the both of us and tell us the craziest stories about new buildings he was developing and his crazy clients. Jackson would always drift off to sleep but I’d be wide awake, hanging on his every word. He always made me feel like I was his favorite, even though Jackson was the oldest. And I honestly think I was…his favorite.” Mason’s smile lined with the stillness of his expression. “When I was seven we found out he had cancer. Shortly after that, the stories grew fewer and fewer until they stopped all together. He hadn’t been back to work in over a year. Because my dad was the boss we didn’t struggle financially, but emotionally we were all a mess. My mom had to be in church praying what felt like every night for him to get better, believing that God would heal him. I believed God would heal him…I hoped he would.” His voice trailed off in sorrow. “But he didn’t; God didn’t show up at all.”

  Mason remembered everything about that day as he rubbed his hands across his arms. It had been cold. Like the cold after a freezing rain had chilled the air and the winds still carried specs of raindrops that hit your skin like tiny little needles.

  “I remember how grey the sky was,” he said. “I was bundled in a wool jacket with my gloves and hat on, my scarf around my neck just like he’d shown me. He hadn’t been home for months. They kept him in the hospital then, though no one ever told me why; mom just said it would be better for him. I walked in, passed the nurse at the first station who never really noticed me anyway, and headed to his room. He was smaller a lot smaller. But I never really saw him that way, you know, frail and as fragile as he actually was. My dad was a big man, strong; his shoulders were big enough to carry my mom, me, and Jackson on them. I went into his room excited to tell him about my day and pulled up the chair next to the door beside his bed. I said ‘hey daddy’, but he didn’t say anything. I hadn’t noticed the long beep in the background, or that he wasn’t moving. I went on to tell him about my day and what happened at school when a nurse rushed in, followed by another, and another.

  “Mason…I’m so sorry.”

  He chuckled, as if to conceal his feelings. “Life happens, right?” he responded.

  There were a few seconds of silence before he continued.

  “A little over two years after he passed away, Mr. Kevin started showing up. He was practicing to become an ordained minister, and he and my mother had become close friends at church. As the months passed he came around more often and would take Jackson and me out to games and do things with us that a father would do. He was great in the beginning. He was what my mother needed and everything I thought I would have missed, not having my dad around. Kevin and my mother dated for almost two years before he proposed to her. I remember the night she came home and told us – we were so happy for her. They got married in June, only a few days before Jackson went off to college. What was strange was that they came straight home after the wedding. They weren’t leaving for the honeymoon until the morning. Kevin had set it up that way. They walked in the house and Mom was exhausted. Everyone was, except me of course; I was full of energy. As soon as I went in the house I ran into the living room and turned on the television. Jackson had actually stayed out late that night and mom had gone upstairs to get out of her dress and lay down. But Kevin, he stood at the bottom of the steps until the bedroom door closed and then he came into the living room. I’ll never forget that feeling when he sat down beside me. Something wasn’t right… I just didn’t feel right. He slid his hand over mine to take the remote, but it felt strange and I froze. He changed the channel as I sat still with his hand resting on my leg, inching up close and closer with every movement. I didn’t know what to do or think. He looked at me like nothing was wrong and being so close to me like that was normal. ‘Relax, Son,’ he told me, ‘you seem tense.’”

  Sydney hoped with everything in her that he wasn’t about to say what she thought, although the picture he was painting slowly became clearer. Tears built up in his eyes, threatening at any moment to fall onto his cheeks, but he wouldn’t let them. Mason wouldn’t let himself feel anything more than he already had. Not knowing what else to do, she reached across and pulled his hand towards her and just held onto it.

  “The first time,” he continued, “was a Sunday night, two weeks after the wedding. He was already ordained and preaching in his father’s church by then.”

  Please, God, please, Sydney pleaded to herself as Mason continued.

  “We had just gotten home from church. He walked into my room while I was changing, sat on my bed, and asked me what I learned in service. He told me to come and sit next to him, so I did; I didn’t have any reason not to, not yet anyway. Besides, he was like a father to me by then, right? Before I sat down I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my waist because I was only in my underwear.

  “He looked at me and did this little chuckle and asked me, ‘Why do you cover up so much? Only people who are ashamed of their bodies do that. You’re a man; you should feel comfortable without covering up as much. And you should feel secure enough around other men to do it as well.’

  “I sat on the bed and he told me to take my towel off, so I did. He convinced me that there was nothing wrong with walking around in my underwear. Then he asked me the most random question.” Mason paused. “‘Do you love me?’ he said. I told him of course. Then he asked me, ‘How much do you love me?’ I didn’t know how to respond or what to say, so I said a lot. He started telling me about how God loved his children and how his love was beyond words, but that he always showed us how much he loved us through his actions. He looked at me said, ‘Son, show me how much you love me.’ I gave him a hug. He laughed and said, ‘You don’t love me at all,’ trying to make a joke out of it. Then he asked, ‘How do show your mom you love her?’ and I told him I hug and kiss my mom. He looked at me with a stare that I can’t even describe and said ‘Well?’”

  Mason’s voice faltered, “So I hugged him… and I kissed him, that night. The next Sunday night, and what felt like every night after that, each time made me show him more and more how much I loved him. I hated even seeing his shadow grazing my doorway wearing that deathly black suit and that white collar around his neck.” Mason laughed. “Either God was in the business of making life a practical joke, or he downright wanted me to live a life of pain. He took my father from me when I trusted him most to help, and then in return he sent me a replacement that took everything else I had in me.”

  Mason’s voice took an aggressive tone, as did his breathing as it all settled into his facial expression.

  Sydney reached for his hand. “Mason, I am so –”

  “No!” he cut her off and pulled his hand away from her. “Jackson was the only one I ever told about this.” He stared at her furiously. “Why did you need to know this?”

  “Mason, I didn’t…” she began to explain.

  He brushed her off completely, angry that her one question had cut so deep. He stood up from the floor where he had been sitting beside her, snatched his suit jacket from the arm of the sofa, and walked towards the door.

  “What are you doing?” She asked, seeing he was about to leave. “Mason, stop!” she yelled.

  He reached for the doorknob but never grabbed it. The longer he stayed there the more of an emotional wreck he became. He wanted to run away from it, just like he had when he went off to college. Run and never look back. The door was right there, right in front of him, but he couldn’t move. There was nothing else to run from now. There was nothing else to protect, to hide. He hadn’t meant to tell her as much as he had. She knew, and that alone forced him to see it for what it really was. He dropped his hands, shaking and trembling as the suit jacket he was holding fell to the floor. His breathing
grew heavy and frantic and his heart raced uncontrollably.

  He tried to speak, but his words weren’t coming together. “I…trus-ted…and I p-ray-ed,” he stammered, barely holding onto the short gasp of him trying to catch his breath.

  Sydney had never seen fear like that until her eyes met his stare. Mason looked as though he had been trapped inside of himself and was just now letting that part of him that had been hurting for so long see and feel for the first time. It was like all of it was happening to him right then as he stood in front of her. His eyes moved from one side of the room to the other, slowly losing their grip on familiarity. Sydney ran up to him and wrapped her arms completely around him, holding him as tightly as she could. His head fell into her chest and his tears poured like rain on a barren desert. They eased to the floor of the foyer, but she never let him go. He was like a child in her arms.

  Chapter 31

  The silence woke her at almost six in the morning. There was no beeping alarm or ringing phone; no reminder that night had come and gone other than the fact that she was awake and could hear the short breaths of Mason beside her, finally sound asleep. Sydney doubted he’d even remember dozing off, let alone climbing into bed. Last night had been rough on the both of them, but mostly him. Up until that point he’d never shed a single tear over what had happened. In all that time, he never stopped and asked why… why him? Instead, he’d built a wall where those thoughts existed and pretended nothing ever happened. He lived his life as such, thinking nothing would ever break through. Built brick by brick, bonded with anger and deceit, his hatred defended that wall. With that hatred he promised himself he would never let himself become that vulnerable again, to anyone or any feeling. Vulnerability was what had cracked him, though; it was what made him see for the first time what had really happened to him. Sydney had never seen so many emotions come out of one person, but she’d never seen that much hurt either. His face was still stained with dry tears as he slept. He would probably hate himself in the morning when he awoke, but at least he was finally able to sleep.

  Sydney got out of bed just as the daylight began to peek into the room. Her feet pressed lightly into the floor so as not to wake him as she tiptoed out of the room and quietly pulled the door closed behind her. She didn’t feel like breakfast, or anything to eat really. Her appetite wasn’t as usual, but that was no surprise. It was extremely difficult for her to stomach all that she had heard, let alone keep food down at the memory of it. She made a cup of coffee instead of her usual hot chocolate and sat on the padded wicker chair on the terrace just outside the glass doors. It was still pretty early, so the first rays of the sun hadn’t fully broken through the clouds. A light breeze blew the few strands of her hair that hadn’t been tied back across her face. Her mind raced as the wind blew. She caught herself as a rush of emotions swelled her face almost to tears. He was molested, she kept telling herself, growing angry. She was angry at the fact that no one knew about it. No one was there to stop it. She was even angrier that it happened at the hand of a man who was supposed to be the leader of a church, and his mother’s husband. Her nose scrunched and her lips tightened. She was disgusted, shaking her head without even realizing she was doing it. Then, Mason, she thought. She felt horrible for him, absolutely horrified at the notion that all this time he’d been silent about something so damaging. There was no wonder he never talked about his life after his father died. The more her mind grasped thoughts that stemmed from his words, the more she began to see things far more clearly. Where she once didn’t understand his reluctance to go certain places, or even his initial approach with her, she finally understood.

  When they first met she had assumed that he was the way he was because he appeared to be a man of privilege: he was young, attractive, and owned a part of his family business. That wasn’t it at all, though. His smooth talking, persuasive ways, and arrogance were nothing more than smoke and mirrors; a front to keep him from letting it letting that happen to him again. It was a cover to keep him from getting hurt again, by anyone; a wall that kept Mason from the contradiction of what saying you love someone you care about could actually do. It sickened her to think that someone could be so evil to destroy such a beautiful person that someone could turn something as sweet and innocent as the words, meanings, and actions of ‘I love you’ into feelings of fear and hate. She felt horrible for Mason.

  Mason opened his eyes slowly, squinting in the brightness of the morning. For a brief moment he didn’t remember where he was. Slowly, the more he stared and looked around, the lamps on the nightstand, the blanket that covered him, and pattern of the carpet on the floor, started to look familiar again. His head was pounding and he could barely keep his eyes open or move fast enough to get out of the bed. He could still taste the bitterness of the alcohol in his mouth. Had it not been for that, and the tipped over glass beside the bottle on the nightstand, he wouldn’t have remembered having a single drink. He had, though, and much more than that. One drink led to two, two led to four, and four led to many, many more.

  He sat on the edge of the bed as his mind fluttered in and out of what he could remember of the previous night. Then, he remembered he’d told her; he’d told Sydney everything.

  Slapping himself on his already throbbing head, Oh my God, he thought. Looking around the room, he didn’t see her. In his blight of memories he did remember that she was next to him when he fell asleep. Hearing no sound other than the mild breeze that blew against the window he both feared and hoped that she was gone. Even though he didn’t want her to go, if she had, at least he wouldn’t have to deal with trying to act as if things were normal.

  He felt a cool gust of wind from the terrace door being opened as he stood in the hallway walking towards the kitchen. Sydney didn’t hear him wake up or come out of the room, but standing just beyond the corner of the wall, he could see her.

  Yawning himself awake, he leaned in the doorway and said, “Good morning.”

  She looked up at him over her right shoulder with a warm smile “I didn’t expect you up so early.”

  “I didn’t expect to be asleep so late.”

  She smiled.

  He still had on his black dress pants from the previous night, and his now wrinkled white shirt was partially unbuttoned.

  “Have you been up long?” he asked, still standing in the doorway.

  “Not too long, just a little while,” she responded, still staring off into the distance.

  She wasn’t as spunky as she usually was in the morning, or in general. Although she hadn’t said anything, he could tell something was on her mind. He wondered if things were going to be okay between them.

  “About last night,” he mumbled, “I don’t want you to think …or …you know…feel sorry for me, or anything.”

  “I don’t know what I feel, to be honest with you,” Sydney cut him off. “No one ever wants to be the one to hear stories like this so close to home, but what we fail to realize is close to home or not, it happens. It happens.” She paused. “I do feel sorry for you. But more than that I feel…angry!” she modestly chuckled. “But that anger isn’t mine to have; it’s yours and you are the only one who can change that.”

  Mason frowned in confusion from what she was saying. “That means what, exactly?”

  “It means the worst things in life could happen to us, and when they do happen to us the way we let it dictate the rest of our lives is our choice,” she began to explain.

  “Okay, but I’m still trying to get what you mean by I’m the only one that can change it.”

  She didn’t have the right words to say it, but Sydney was trying her best to make him see that he didn’t have to let what happened to him dictate who he was today. “I’m not going to say… what happened to you shouldn’t make you angry.”

  “But it sounds like that’s exactly what you are about to say.”

  “Mason, just listen ...please? You have every right to be angry –at him, even at God if you choose.”

&n
bsp; “But?”

  “But… what’s the point?”

  She shook her head, knowing what she was saying wasn’t coming out the way she meant. “I mean it happened,” she continued, “and I understand–”

  “You understand?” he cut her off. “That’s the problem: everyone understands, but no one gets it! You don’t know what it was like. No one knows what it felt like or what living with someone like him was like, but,” he sarcastically added, “it’s okay, because everyone understands.”

  “Mason, that’s not what I’m trying to say.”

  “Well you should hear yourself, because it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re saying.”

  “Look, all I’m saying is you can’t let things like this push you into a little box where you shut people out, afraid of letting them get too close.”

  “Oh my God, you are really doing this right now?”

  “Doing what?” Sydney asked.

  He disregarded her question. “So what exactly do you think I should do, then?”

  She pursed her lips, “Forgive your stepfather.”

  Mason shook his head in disbelief. “You have got to be kidding me!”

  Sydney tried her best to get him to see where she was coming from, hoping not to seem more offensive than she felt she was being perceived as being. “Mason, forgiving someone doesn’t mean you’re weak. Forgiving them means you’re strong enough to know that people make mistakes.”

  “So what you’re saying is I’m weak and what he did was make a mistake?! It was all, this whole thing, just a simple accident then, right?”

  “No,” she abruptly cut him off. “You’re confusing my words.”

  “I’m not confusing anything. Maybe you should just stop talking.”