He leaned with his arms and legs crossed, slouching against the plaster as if what he was doing was completely acceptable. Take a deep breath, sir, the officers said, trying to seem impartial and polite as the paramedics lifted her immobilized body from the ground. Large streaks of blood were on the floor: Mom’s O type. It could have done well in a transfusion.
She was laid across the stretcher, one brown iris wide open, unaltered by his wrath. The other I couldn’t tell: maybe black, maybe blue, maybe somewhere in the middle. The eyeliner smearing the area wasn’t helping. I had tried to push him away. Instead, he pushed me aside like an insect. My head hurt: there was dent in the wall that would never be the same shade of beige. Maybe we would need to remodel. Maybe I could go over Paul’s and forget this ever happened. Maybe I could get him in the garage after he passed out. Start the car.
He started crying. The cup with his favorite drink, three shots of whiskey, two ice cubes and a half cup of coke was spilled on the ground, broken. Shards of glass spread everywhere. If Mom was coherent, she would say, wear slippers. Don’t step on the glass. One of her biggest fears was always the balls of my feet stabbed by glass and bleeding. But she was not coherent.
She lied to the officers. Said she slipped and hit her eye against the table. The cracks from the last time it happened made it slightly credible, but it’s clear they know. The tall, lean officer probably fresh out of school had a bewildered face. I could just imagine what he was thinking are we going to turn a blind eye? Is this what this job was about? To which the short, stout, 60-ish officer implied get used to it, kid. The world really is cold.
He was freezing. It was 82 outside. 85 in the house. His hands shook violently. His teeth chattered fast. The stretcher rolled out, and the officers finally left. We heard the sound of the sirens more distant with every second. To our neighbors, it probably meant the danger was over. It was going far, far away, and now they were rescued and safe. But to me, that siren was hope. Leaving.
She always said don’t talk to him after nine. Clearly, he didn’t want me to now. His eyes were glued to the ground, his hands as numb and shaky as his teeth. I wondered: 30 years ago, did he think he was capable of this? 15 years ago, when he fell in love with her, did he think he’d fall like this? The tears were coming down, only faster this time. He used to only cry before we could see her in the psych ward. Her physical suffering was his internal pain. It was no different now, only I respected him then.
He was going to deal with this the only way he knew how. My little sister, Alex, was supposed to be asleep, but I turned my head to see her bare feet, disheveled hair, and wide-eyed face. She noticed my gaze, and rushed back to her room. She was quiet enough so Dad didn’t notice her. Out of the corner of my eye, he picked up another glass, this one with the same circular and rectangular patterns as its shattered comrade. Tears still flowing, he grabbed the handle.
“It was just a one-time thing,” Mom said.
I was listening to her through the other landline phone in the house – my palm covering the speaker to avoid my hushed breathing being heard by either her or Aunt Lizzie. Lizzie wasn’t actually related to us, but she was Mom’s best friend, lawyer, and source of her emotional stability. They’d been best friends through college and since.
Dad had barely come home for the past three months. He stayed in the office for as long as he could – until nine on most days – then only came home to sleep. With all the handles emptied into the drain and recycled, I could hear the TV in his room on until 3 a.m. on some days before he was finally able to call it a night. If I were him, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep either.
Ever since being discharged from the ER, Mom took to sleeping with Alex. She spent the days cleaning the kitchen, yard, doing laundry, or helping me and Alex excessively with homework. The other day, she and I spent hours going over how to find the slope of a straight line on a graph. I get it, I kept telling her. At night, she read old novels. Rarely did she ever break this routine.
“Trisha, even if he only hit you once, he was blaming you for breaking apart the family for months when it wasn’t your fault.”
“But it is my fault. Instead of dealing with Dad passing like an adult would, I just cried and moped about it. I even got laid off and he had to work overtime hours,” she said, almost weeping on her end of the line. “I can’t just leave him…I can’t support myself on my own right now.”
“Give yourself a chance. You don’t need him.”
“Sign here, Trisha.”
Like the three pages before, her elegant signature graced the dotted line at the bottom of the page, her capitalized T’s the same beauty and consistency as each of the last. She showed the blank face of ambivalence as the ball-point pen finally left the page, half happy at the new life she, Alex, and I could have, but slightly sad at the distant past she was now leaving behind.
“Thank you, Liz. You got us the best possible outcome.”
“It’s what you deserve.”
Aunt Lizzie and Mom stayed in their warm embrace until the red hand of the clock made its full loop. Mom was the first to break the hug, her dimples and her teeth showing naturally for the first time in ages, eyes watering and hands still arms-length at Lizzie’s shoulders. It was the same mutual agreement I’d seen between them in the past. Lizzie adjusted Mom’s hair for what seemed like one final time, like when they flat ironed together for old time’s sake whenever she came by.
“Tyler, you do well in school and run well on the track or I’ll personally come and cook every meal of the day for you.”
As she came to embrace me, my body quivered at the thought. Aunt Lizzie was, without a doubt, the worst cook I’ve ever encountered. For some reason, she thought everyone liked their steak well-done. Mom had told her she’s a shitty cook, and Lizzie knew it, but that never stopped her. I guess I had to admire her persistence, but I would have expected Lizzie to improve even incrementally.
“Tell Alex she better get on the honor roll, too.”
“You know that doesn’t actually matter right?”
“Shut up and mind your own business.”
She was also always really nice to us.
A senior on the track team, Troy, poured whiskey into my cup, mixing it with a cup of sprite. The combined color appeared to be coke, though I knew it didn’t taste like one.
I was still hesitant to drink. I told him about alcoholism running in my family and how I didn’t want to go down the same path. Then, he was really understanding. We won’t peer pressure you into doing anything you’re uncomfortable with, he said. But now he completely forgot those promises.
Two of the older girls, stumbling over themselves approached me and Troy with their shot glasses spilling everywhere. Before I knew it, a glass was in my hand as we toasted.
Well, whatever, I thought
Mom let me take the wheel for the 15 minute drive, criticizing me for going 5 miles per hour over the speed limit, turning on the blinkers too late, and yelling at me to keep my brights on even when other cars were passing. What did she think the blinded drivers flashing their lights were trying to tell us? Why couldn’t I just pass my road test the first time?
Finally, I pulled up to the curb and looked at the old, uncared for house. The grass rose up almost a foot: was he mowing it at all? In the window, images rapidly changing told me there was nothing good on. She had stopped yelling at me, but she was staring dead ahead with the same blank expression as if she became a different person.
“Can I just be sick this weekend?” I asked, slightly serious but mostly joking.
“Did you suddenly become Jesus when I didn’t notice?”
I could tell it worked; her smile returned.
“Mom, you don’t have to be a dick about it.”
“I’ll see you Sunday night. Get the hell out of the car. I don’t want to see your ugly face anymore.”
I turned the knob and walked in. He kept the door unlocked most of the time. Not many people came to visit anyways. Besides, nothing except the TV was useful to steal.
I made my way into the living room, observing what new parts of the house were falling apart. The skillet would take at least five minutes to wash; it burnt, dark brown pieces of burnt egg all over it. Lots of ripped up paper were in the recycling bin. His work shoes, running shoes, and everyday shoes weren’t organized at all: they weren’t even in pairs with each other. The staircase railing lost another one of its legs. The paint where my head hit the wall was noticeably whiter than its surroundings.
I walked into the living room. Dad’s legs were rested on the half-glass half-ceramic table, his hands and arms over his head with the remote by his side. He didn’t look over when I walked in.
“How’s everything going?” He asked.
“Alright,” I responded quickly.
“How’s Alex?”
“She just won this scholastic writing contest for her short story.”
“That’s great. She told me the other day. How’s the college decision looking?”
“Fine.”
If he were dissatisfied by my terse responses, he didn’t show it. He didn’t have the right to, anyways.
We watched a re-run of another Trojan War movie. The scene showed Hector’s death, Achilles defiling the dead body by dragging it by the feet with his chariot. Hector was, “a noble hero who didn’t want any of this,” Dad used to say. I wonder if that’s how he saw himself.
I noticed a folded letter next to an empty envelope on the table. His handwriting was indistinguishable and smaller than I remembered it, his signature a heavy departure from its nature on the divorce papers. I noticed his physical conditioning: he was skinner and more ripped. His beer belly was gone for years by now. His fat rolls were significantly less noticeable and his chest had grown more defined. His arms were shaking a little, with his hands under his thigh. It was 71 degrees in the house, but he could have just gotten back from a run.
“Been working out?”
“Yup,” he said as he looked over for the first time. “Seems like track is going well. I saw your race on the section website. You’re in the paper, you know?”
“You saw them? You read the article?”
He chuckled slightly, but throughout the conversation his hands never left the bottom of his thighs, not stopped shaking.
“Yeah. New personal best, I know you’re happy about it. You’re one of the frontrunners to win the section.”
“What do you know about what I’m happy about?”
I was actually ecstatic about it, but I just didn’t want him to be right.
“Runners, take three steps back. When I say ‘on your marks’, step up to the white line. If you hear two shots of the gun, we’re restarting the race. Got it?”
We nodded.
“Good luck, gentlemen.”
The voice of the announcer took over from across the track.
"And we’re about to begin the boys 800m. Two laps around the track. It’s 83 degrees right now. Senior Tyler Anderson is the favorite at #1 with a personal record of 1:53.6 for the event. The officials are ready, and we’re about to begin.”
Usually, in the hours leading up to the race, there were many things that stopped me from getting nervous about it: music, my teammates, a book. I usually stopped my race anxiety by distracting myself. There was nothing distracting me now. What if I dropped out? What if I didn’t win? What would Coach Davis say?
I cupped my hands around my mouth and nose and took deep breaths. They say that helps with the anxiety.
“Runners on your marks.”
We walked up to the line.
“Set”
“Go!”
I went out in my usual manner, in fourth place on the outside of lane one behind the runner in second. Although there was slightly more distance to run in that position, it gave me space to prevent being trapped in the crowd of runners. It was a fast pace. As we came around 300 meters on the home stretch, I heard the voice of the last person I wanted to see.
“Let’s go, Tyler! You have to go now!”
Great. Not only was Dad here to make sure I failed at the biggest stage of my life, but he was telling me how to run my race as if he knew what was best. However, that was actually what I was about to do.
“Move!” Coach shouted from the finish line.
I made my way to the front of the pack and took the lead. There was no running on the outside now. As we neared the finish line the first time, Coach Davis shouted the split: 56 seconds. Fast.
There was no holding back. I started to pick up the pace, which meant I worked harder to run the same pace, my legs burning like hell and my heart about to jump out of my chest. With 200 meters left in the race, two of my rivals were still around me. One was about to pass me.
I gave everything I had at this point. I blocked the guy off as he was trying to pass. All I wanted then was to be at the finish. The only consolation I had was that the two guys behind me felt exactly the same: their wheezing sounded like they were trying to breathe in space. But I had been through more. I was stronger than them. Now was my time to prove it.
With 100 meters left, my legs moved the fastest they did during the race. It was my final surge, and I looked back, against the advice of every running guru known to man, and saw a 5 meter gap growing between myself and the others. But now was not the time to let up. Now was the time to show Dad I could stand up for myself.
One of the other guys was starting to break away from the other and started closing the gap on me. With 30 meters remaining, he was only two meters away and gaining. Fast. I looked to my legs for one extra push.
I didn’t have it.
“It was still a personal record, Tyler.”
“Mom, I don’t want to talk about it.”
I walked away from the kitchen table and her obviously concerned face. How couldn’t I be emotionally mature enough to realize it was just one loss, one learning experience that in the grand scheme of things wouldn’t matter? I always envied those people who could just transcend, look at themselves from above, and focus on the “big picture”. Maybe I just wasn’t that mature.
As I got upstairs, Alex stopped sorting through the box of her old clothes in the hallway closet. Her big, doe-like eyes peered condescendingly into mine, as if flipping through pages of a children’s book.
“It was more than just losing, wasn’t it?”
“No. I lost. I let everyone down. I let myself down. It’s as simple as that, Alex.”
“You and I both know you don’t care about that.”
“How would you know what I care about?”
“I live with you. Dad was there.”
I walked past her and into my room, slamming the door. I needed to get my mind off everything. I opened the drawer then grabbed the handle of vodka hidden under all my folded clothes, inside a pair of basketball shorts. As long as I did my own laundry, Mom would never find out.
It wasn’t long after I arrived at the party that a shot glass found its way into my hand.
“To Tyler! To a great race!”
The small glasses clinked against each other with some thick drink staining the carpet. Each touched each other at the same time: a perfect synchrony. We took the shot, the first of the night.
I don’t remember much. I remember my friend Paul taking the cup away from my hand and emptying the contents into the sink. I remember the multiple games of beer pong. Paul drank all the beer in the cups to stop me from getting more drunk. Unfortunately, somehow reminiscent of my race, our teams matched on the final cup three times, and Paul and I lost all those games.
I remember the toilet, drinking water like everyone around me kept telling me to do, my index finger farther down my throat than can ever be natural for a human being. They had my phone, trying to guess my passcode as apparently the numbers I spewed out were too slurred and incoherent. After locking it multiple times, they guessed correctly: 0153. My 800 time.
I remember Dad’s car pulling up to the house, Paul and another friend helping pull me into the car, Dad telling my anxious friends to relax, I’m not going to call the cops.
What happened after I will never forget.
The irony of that situation was just unbearable. He wrinkled his nose excessively, making it obvious that I reeked of a combination of vodka and vomit. Besides the seat I was smearing, the car was as clean as his newfound sobriety.
It seemed to be a competition between who would be the first to strike, who would say the first words. The present was my disadvantage; the past was his. Would it have been the disappointment of a father in his son not learning from his own mistake? I could have blasted him on the hypocrisy.
For minutes, his gray eyes showed only blank determination at the road only lit by the dim color of his headlights. The yellow divider on the left was awfully close, even from the right side. The world was spinning and I clutched the door handle. I could feel the rotation of the Earth, and I could swear it was spinning much faster than it actually was.
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
That was it? There was no scolding or disappointment in his voice. It was his “bigger person” moment of redemption, but I couldn’t take it.
“Stop trying to be my friend. I’ll never forgive you.”
It was as if I hit a switch. It happened like I’d seen it that day Mom was on the stretcher and the many cold days I visited: his right hand began shaking vigorously as if it were being pulled back and forth by a vibrating spring. His polo shirt became soaking wet. The blank stare of withdrawal disappeared in favor of his teeth clenching and face straining. His right hand couldn’t grip the wheel any longer and he withdrew it under his thigh
“Dad, what’s going on?” In the distance, a dark sedan gradually rolled towards us, its lights rapidly growing bigger and brighter. That moment, it looked like its brights were on, but I was later told they weren’t.
Now, his left hand began tremoring like his right. His right hand left his thigh and attempted to turn on the hazard light, but couldn’t move any higher than the emergency brake. After 10 seconds of trying, both his hands were shaking with the same speed. His left couldn’t turn the wheel anymore, and now we were in between both lanes.
The last thing I remember was the sedan’s headlights blinding us.
When I opened my eyes, I was blinded by light again. Above me was the open blue of the sky and perhaps the sun as if this was one of those picturesque meadows in the movies. After a few seconds, however, I started to recognize the unnatural grooves and curves in the artificial blue. The light became limited to two small fluorescent spheres separated by only four feet of the ceiling.
My hand felt thick. I looked over to see white bandages covering my wrist, an IV penetrating my vein under them. Connected to it was a pole with a monitor that kept showing a pulse of 55 and 56, hovering in between. My left hand was unencumbered, but it looked like I had a rash and felt like boulders rested on it.
On my right, I saw Mom’s head tilted to her shoulder on her left side, a book half opened on her lap. The areas around her eyes were smeared, but not by a black eye or eyeliner this time, just fatigue. She needed this nap.
But what happened when we crashed? Why was Dad shaking so much?
On the counter to the right, there was an envelope with the same handwriting Dad had, only smaller. I recognized it as the same one I saw that day at his house.
To Tyler
Although my right arm felt really heavy, I was gradually able to lift it to the counter. It was positioned so I could reach it easily when I woke up, and the envelope was already ripped open from the side. Between my index and middle fingers, I was able to slide the two-paged tri-folded letter from the covering of the envelope.
As you know, I’ve been going to AA meetings the past two years. This is Step 9. That incident was a wake-up call not only that I wasn’t okay, but that I was an immediate safety threat to you, Alex and your mom. There isn’t a day that I don’t think about her emotionless face and undistinguishable eye on that stretcher. I remember the sheer disappointment in your eyes while you sat against the wall. The fact that I did that proved that I didn’t deserve to live with any of you anymore.
I’ve been sober since. The thought of how I hurt you guys turns me away from the bottle every time it’s in my reach. I haven’t said this because it was too soon, because you would hate me for it. But now that you’re probably going away for college and turning a new leaf on life, and I might not get a chance to say this later, so here it is: I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for the nights I wouldn’t talk to you about school or anything else on your mind because I just wanted to fall asleep after a few glasses of wine. I’m sorry for not being able to drive you to any of your friends’ houses because I was too hammered to drive. I’m sorry about skipping out on movie night all those years, pretending like you didn’t exist. I’m sorry for pushing you against the wall.
I understand if you can’t forgive me, but I can’t go down without making amends. If you’ve noticed, I’ve been having uncontrollable tremors that worsen by the day. My handwriting has gotten significantly smaller. I’ve been on the treadmill and elliptical a lot to treat it like Dr. Martin said to do. I’m sure you’ve suspected by now: I have Parkinson’s Disease.
I’ve been taking L-DOPA to treat it, and it’s helped a little, but it’s been noticeably getting worse. I can’t hide the tremors anymore. I feel like I’m choking even when I try to drink water. I’m on leave from work, and don’t anticipate being able to go back again. Pretty soon, I won’t be able to drive anymore.
It’s not my place to tell you what’s right or what’s wrong. But I feel like someone needs to tell you this, someone more distant, because it needs to be said. I know you’ve been drinking. Several Friday nights, Alex called me about Paul driving you home and their efforts getting you into bed without your mom waking up, asking how often to check on you and what to give you. She even told me about the time you drove home from a party and didn’t remember in the morning when she asked. You lose your keys every Friday night for a reason.
I‘m proud that you’re a high achiever and I’m sure everyone else is too. But I just don’t want you turning into, well, me. You’re too good of a person and you’ve went through way too much to be making the same mistakes I did. Your problem is the same as mine.
When you need help, you’re not weak for asking. It doesn’t make you a pussy; it makes you strong. The way you’re taking now, the path I took that broke our family apart, is not the rational way to deal with it. Alex likes to write short stories that are reflective of what happened with me. She shows them to me. I don’t usually like it, but it’s true and I need to be reminded of how low I stooped.
Alex said you don’t talk to her or your mom anymore after the divorce. Just know that no matter what happens, they’ll be the support system you need when no one else is there.
Again, Tyler, I’m sorry. There’s no excusing anything I did. I’m in stage three of the disease right now. Pretty soon, I won’t be able to function on my own.
Please, for the love of God, think about the life I led, the sad person I became. You don’t need to be drunk to have fun at parties – they need a designated driver anyways. When you start trying to quit, your life is going to suck. That fulfillment you get from drinking – it’ll be gone – you’ll need something else to cope with it. I put an AA card with this letter to get you started. It’ll be tough.
Saying sorry doesn’t have much use for me if you don’t forgive me. Even if you still hate me, forgiving means quitting.
I believe in you,
Dad
I looked up from the letter to see Mom awoken, staring me dead in the eye. Her eyes were concentrated on me, but not truly looking at my figure, pensive about how she could intervene to help her sad alcoholic of a child that’s turned into his father. A few years before, she would have been furious if alcohol ever touched my lips. I couldn’t imagine what she’d do now.
“You read the letter?” I asked. Why did I ask when I knew the answer?
“Yeah.”
I had the lecture coming, the sore disappointment of a mother seeing her son turn into everything she feared. She slowly sat up from her chair and stood in that same position for several seconds. Her mouth never moved once in the silence, her petrifying and watery eyes peering deep into mine. Although she was standing and I was on my back, I felt like we were on the same level.
As she took two steps forward, she sighed. “Tyler, your dad died in the accident,” she said slowly.
Before I knew it, her arms cradled the back of my head while my face rained into her chest.
The gates were like a quarantine that barred the living away. They were the great divide between two entities that couldn’t be more separate and could in no possible way be rejoined. For a time each day, they were opened, despite the snow flooding the ground and the crisp, dry air hurting my throat.
As I walked in, I sucked my upper lip. It’s a habit I’d been developing a lot recently, and they became dry enough that it started bleeding. I licked the profuse blood and relished the bitter iron taste. I used the same bloody saliva to seal the envelope.
I can’t believe it took me this long to realize that even though I didn’t respect him, I still loved him.
It took five minutes of walking through the cemetery before I found his gravestone at the very back, mostly available portion of the cemetery. The cylindrical top had a heavy layer of snow that rose almost two feet, that seemed like it would topple over any second. With my heavy jacket and gloves, I spread it off.
I placed the envelope on top of the gravestone, the freezing white precipitate almost smearing my name immediately. It would be buried within ten minutes, but I had faith that someway, somehow, it would reach him.
“I’ve been going to AA meetings the last year and a half. I don’t know how you did it, because it’s not easy. Now, I’m on Step 9…”
man running in forestPhoto by 
