Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, page 2
part #3 of Enter the Between Series
“I don’t know what it is about this place, but I feel so—”
“It’s okay,” Veronica said. “I get it. Like you want to take a deep breath and slow down for a while.”
I rubbed my eyes and yawned, as I’d done so many times as a child, when my adoptive father was still alive, when he tucked me in at night, when I’d felt safe and protected. I stood and headed for a door on the opposite side of the kitchen. It led into a hallway which I followed to another door as if guided by an invisible hand.
I entered the sunporch I’d observed from outdoors, and there, grouped around a braided rug and glass-topped table, stood a white wicker settee with a matching ottoman and chair cushioned in brown and white checkered fabric. I sank into the chair, dragged a quilt from the arm of the settee, and draped it over me. My last memory before falling asleep was lifting my feet onto the ottoman and releasing a heavy sigh.
❂❂❂
When I woke, the porch had turned dark and chilly. A soft coooo OOOOO-woo-woo-woo caught my attention, but I dismissed it in my sudden concern for Veronica. I’d left her alone in this humongous house. Where was she? What was she doing? I refolded the quilt over the arm of the settee and hurried back into the house in search of my sister.
I found her in the front parlor, nearly camouflaged by the velvet-flocked wallpaper, brocade valances, and silk-damask-upholstered furniture. She had turned on a lamp, started a fire in the hearth, and now sat in a plush armchair staring at the flames. “Sorry for conking out on you,” I said, welcoming the warmth and scent of burning wood.
Veronica’s stark expression indicated that our peaceful sojourn was over. I’d become sidetracked by the receptiveness of the house, its gift of serenity, its unspoken promise that all would be well.
“I put your suitcases in the turret room on the third floor,” she said, still staring at the play of the flames, as if under the thrall of a living thing. “Seemed to suit you the best.”
“Thanks.” I sank onto the overstuffed couch next to my sister, aware of the message her limp posture and jerky hand movements conveyed. Soon I’d be meeting my birth father for the first time. Part of me, the part that empathized with Veronica and protected my heart, wished we could put it off forever. The other part of me, the needy, greedy part, the part that ached to love and be loved, was all revved up to hurry. Just thinking about my father’s close proximity made me want to cry in frustration. What are we waiting for?
Veronica had warned me that Bob was an alcoholic and destroyed the people he loved. Yet... Maybe I could help him. Maybe he could help me. Besides, Veronica and I had little choice in the matter, not with our birth mother coaching us from the grave. She’d shattered our sense of what was real and unreal and turned our worlds upside down, before relaying that our father held a secret important to us both.
“Dad’s renting a bungalow near here,” Veronica said. “Tomorrow, I’ll take you there.” She closed her eyes and added, “Might as well get it over with.”
My heart contracted as if I knew how Veronica felt, which I didn’t.
She dragged her gaze from the fire, her eyes red and puffy. “The thought of seeing him again fills me with such despair, I find it hard to conjure up any hope.”
For a few moments, I listened to the pop and crackle of the burning logs, trying to think of something comforting to say.
Veronica saved me the trouble by asking, “Are you okay with clam chowder out of a can tonight? I wasn’t in the mood to fix anything from scratch.”
“I’ll slice the ciabatta bread and make us a green salad and some tea,” I said. “Want to join me? Bet Anne has a bottle of wine stored somewhere.”
Veronica stood with painstaking slowness, as though her bones had turned to mush and left her with no means of support. “It’ll take more than a bottle of wine to help us now.”
Chapter Two
THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN one of the happiest days of my life. After all, I was meeting Bob, my birth father, for the first time. I’d worn a fitted navy jacket over a crisp white blouse, along with my best pair of sandblasted jeans. I’d applied makeup, washed and styled my hair, and then in final preparation—warnings be darned—I’d put Bob on a pedestal, along with Gerardo, my adoptive father. And why not? Antonia still loved him, didn’t she? Even from the grave.
Instead, the sight of my father peering from the doorway of a small rented bungalow—likely the size of his maid’s quarters back home—had me trembling. This man looked smaller, shabbier, more derelict than my mind had allowed. He squinted at Veronica and me, his jaw slack. We stood in silence, giving him—and ourselves—time to adjust. I, for one, was incapable of speaking, let alone coming up with anything appropriate to say.
Bob blinked and rubbed his eyes as though experiencing double vision due to too much alcohol. Had he forgotten that he’d fathered two daughters, that Veronica had a sister—me, his second born? Then it struck me. Maybe no one had told him my name. “Hello Father. I’m—”
“Sunwalker? Is that you?” He leaned forward, eyes narrowed for tighter focus. “Have you come to forgive me?”
His reaction should’ve pleased me, the contrition in his voice, the fact that he hadn’t forgotten me, but... I hadn’t considered forgiveness. In my fantasy, there had been no need to forgive. We’d be embracing by now, making up for lost time. And he smelled of alcohol. No, he reeked of it. Not only his breath, but his skin and clothes. Was he speaking from his heart? Or was booze doing the talking?
Bob turned to Veronica. She looked away. He would get no help from her. When he turned back to me, our gazes met and held. I’d longed for this moment, darn it. I’d longed to revel in our mutual love, father to daughter, blood to blood. But as I studied the thin, wasted man leaning against the doorframe of the bungalow with its orange tiled roof, soft beige walls, and tasteful green trim, I couldn’t reach deep enough within me to find the love and compassion I knew to be there.
“This is ridiculous,” Veronica said. And she was right. After all of her warnings, I’d allowed my reunion fantasy to blossom into a scene straight out of a romantic work of fiction. Instead, I stood, disconnected, dispassionate, looking into my father’s watery eyes, trying to reach the core of him, my Papa’s soul. For a moment, I allowed myself another fantasy: that he was overwhelmed with emotion at seeing me, his lost daughter, his little flower, his Sunwalker.
In reality, his eyes revealed nothing.
“I wanted you both,” he said, darting a look at Veronica, who stood, shoulders hunched, as if she were bleeding inside, “but Antonia cried. So, I only took Veronica and left you. I tried to forget you, but...”
He wiped his brow, hand trembling, jaw working up and down. At one time, he may have meant the words tumbling forth now, but to my ear, they sounded hollow, as if they’d been thought, spoken, or dreamed so many times, they’d lost all meaning. Maybe for him I’d been as much of a fantasy as he’d been for me. And maybe he, too, found the object of his fantasy lacking.
“Okay, that’s it,” Veronica said. “Quit gawking at Marjorie and invite us in, or we’re leaving. I have better things to do.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, but made no move to step away from the door.
My father and I stood frozen; he stuck in a hell of his own making, I mired in the past, a past that was darkening my world. The present seemed unreal, little more than a blur, and the future promised more of the same.
He smiled and opened his arms. “Home at last!”
I didn’t step into his embrace, didn’t feel the connection, the sympathy, the concern. “Not home,” I said.
My reaction—or lack thereof—didn’t seem to bother him. He dropped his arms, shrugged, and backed into the house, motioning for me to follow. “You’re even more beautiful than your mother was.”
Dear God. How could Antonia have loved this man?
The bungalow had no foyer, so I stepped directly into the small living room. Veronica followed, closing the door behind her. The space was dark and shadowy, the only light, fuzzy and unnatural, coming from a portable television perched on a rickety end table that looked like it had been through a lot over the years.. He’d been watching the news. The familiar drone of an anchorman shared all that was wrong with the world. It had only been twelve days since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center by al-Qaeda and it was still a big story.
“The world’s going to hell,” Veronica said, glaring at the television as she’d glared at our father only moments before.
Shame burrowed through me. How could I expect peoples and nations to love and understand one another in the great in-between that binds instead of separates, when I couldn’t even love and understand my own father? With all my education and so-called knowledge, I couldn’t apply it to understanding in my life. It was far easier to demonize than to empathize.
The man who had sired me, stepped toward me, bringing his face close to mine, but all I could acknowledge was his red, cracked skin and the alcohol on his breath. “My sweet angel,” he said. “Give your papa a hug.”
I tried. Honestly, I did. I wanted desperately to show my love with a fond hug and a kiss. Instead, I backed off. Fathers weren’t supposed to talk to their twenty-nine-year-old daughters like this, were they? A simple, “I love you,” or, “I longed for this day,” would’ve sufficed.
Veronica made a choking sound as she pulled away from the door she’d been leaning against and came to my aid. “Give her a break, Dad. She didn’t even know you existed until six months ago.”
For a moment, Bob’s eyes dulled, as though he, too, sensed the weight of disappointment, but then as before, he shrugged; a quick recovery for a man who supposedly loved me.
I felt chilled in all the places where I should’ve felt warm, the voice of guilt a pulsing ache in my head. What’s wrong with you? This is your father. You may not get a second chance.
Nothing. An emptiness I could drown in.
“Dad wasn’t always like this,” Veronica said. “He was—”
“Oh, quit whining,” Bob said. “I’m doing just fine.” He waved his hand over the coffee table cluttered with crumpled take-out bags and half eaten entrees from a myriad of fast food restaurants, before pointing at an empty bottle of Fat Bastard chardonnay. “She wants me to quit drinking this stuff, but it’s good for the blood.” He toasted me with an imaginary glass, his smile defiant. “So, I’ll be damned if I’ll let her, or anyone else, take it from me.”
If by “anyone else” he meant me, I was in trouble. I kept silent, too upset to speak, which was probably for the best. I doubt he would’ve been impressed with my opinion.
Veronica clapped her hands and whistled as if cheering at a football game. “Good going, Dad. Stand up for what you believe in, no matter whom it hurts. Stay on the course to destruction. When your liver deteriorates, you can start whining about your painful death.”
My chest ached at the ferocity of Veronica’s words. They spewed forth like shrapnel, wounding indiscriminately, its intent to mar, incapacitate.
“Of course, you’ll expect your loving family to be at your beck and call during your time of need, right?” she said. “I mean, it’s the least we can do after all you’ve done for us.”
Sunlight couldn’t penetrate the curtains that barricaded the windows. And the meager glow cast by the television seemed to close in on me as if burying me alive. Deep-seated emotions were erupting here, and if Veronica didn’t let up soon, the damage would be irreversible.
My father’s reaction should’ve, but didn’t, surprise me. “Shut up, Veronica. You don’t know the half of it. I’ve had it tough. No one understands me, even your stepmother. She turns a cold shoulder when she should be listening.” He looked at his hands as if surprised they were shaking. “She’s having an affair, you know.”
“What goes around, comes around,” Veronica said under her breath. “Elizabeth would have my blessing, if that were true.”
“Don’t look so shocked,” Bob said as if he hadn’t heard her. “I can prove it.”
Veronica slapped her hand to her chest. “Give me a break. Nothing you say shocks me anymore. Even half sober, you make no sense. Too many dead brain cells.”
“Don’t talk to your father like that,” Bob said, sounding old and weary. He turned away from my twin and sank onto the deep-seated, then pushed aside the stale sandwich on the coffee table to retrieve his remote. He clasped the control in his hand like a dear old friend and turned up the volume of the television just in time for us to hear about a methane gas explosion that killed thirteen miners in Alabama.
We stared at the screen, pausing from our own sorry plight long enough to acknowledge the misfortune of others. What these families had lost in the blink of an eye and through no fault of their own, Veronica and I were squandering. And there wasn’t a darn thing I could do about it. At least not now. It was too soon. Too late.
Again, guilt spoke to me. He’s your birth father, the only one you’ll ever have.
Like father, like daughter came my silent response. Absorbed in pain and self-pity, we’d blundered our first and possibly most important meeting.
If only I had listened to Veronica. If only I had studied up on this terrible addiction before intruding on my father’s life and passing judgment.
Veronica lurched for the television and turned it off. “Open a window, damn it. It smells like dirty socks in here.” Hurt, anger, and fear seemed to ooze from her every pore. “You’re as sick as your secrets,” she flung at our father, a clue to her capacity for hate. “You need therapy.”
Bob didn’t bother to look her way. The blank television screen commanded his full attention. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.”
“What are you ashamed of?” Veronica asked, her voice loud, a crescendo.
Bob turned to her, brows raised. “Me? Ashamed? Look who’s missing the brain cells.”
“Your pain and anger belong to you, not me,” she said, as if trying to convince herself.
He sneered. “You owe me.”
Veronica shrugged, then allowed her shoulders to droop as if blunting the impact of thrown stones. “You’re not good for me,” she said, her voice fading like someone experiencing the last moments before death.
They weren’t listening to each other anymore if they’d been listening at all. Man’s cruelty to man. The room and all it symbolized, its darkness, the malcontent circulating between its walls, the tales of destruction on the news, hit target. Bile rose in my throat, and I headed for the door, barely making it out in time.
❂❂❂
“That went well,” Veronica said when she joined me several minutes later.
I was sitting on the sidewalk, head between my knees. “I didn’t mean to judge him, only show him understanding and love.”
Veronica didn’t reply, but I sensed she knew how I felt.
“I meant to love him,” I said, raising my head and spitting into the grass, “even after what he’d done to our mother. And now this. God…” I swallowed and winced at the nasty taste in my mouth. “Love can turn to hate so easily, can’t it?”
Veronica nodded. “And hope to disappointment.”
“How long has he been this way?”
“Since I was a kid. At first, he only drank socially. He didn’t start first thing in the morning or have blackouts, and he didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.”
“But how long has he—”
“—been a drunk?” Veronica’s hollow laugh held no humor. “How long has he been hiding booze all over the house while claiming he could quit any time? How long has he been disappearing for hours, even days, then not remembering where he’d been? How long has he been lying and cheating and tearing Elizabeth and me apart? Let me see now... Eight years, ten.”
“He doesn’t seem to care if he destroys himself or others,” I said, rubbing my temples, which throbbed as if I, too, had over imbibed. “As though he has no feelings.”
“Quite the contrary, sister dear. It’s because he feels so strongly that he needs to numb the pain.”
“Do you think he feels guilty?” I asked, all too familiar with guilt’s persistent nagging.
“I’m sure of it,” Veronica said. “But instead of just punishing himself, he’s been taking it out on my stepmother and me, the ones he claims to love most.”
Before I could comment, Veronica went on, “He’s out of control, Marjorie. His main goal in life is to find and consume alcohol. And he’s got the money to do it. I’ve tried, but there’s nothing left to do, except stay away and take care of myself. If you have any ideas about stopping him, you’ll be disappointed...the way I’ve been over and over.”
It shocked me to see my sister come unhinged like this. As if our father was her kryptonite, robbing her of all strength. “But there must be something we can do.”
Veronica looked at me with empty eyes. “Sorry, but I’m disillusioned by the whole scenario.”
“Maybe if we work together,” I said, though I understood what she was saying, that the situation was near hopeless, beyond anything she or I could say or do.
“Neither of us has that kind of power, Sis. In fact, one of his favorite pastimes, besides drinking, is to blame others for his problems. Maybe he can make you fall for it. Maybe he can convince you that it’s your fault his life is a mess.”
“Sounds like you’ve been to therapy,” I said.
“I’m applying for the DEA, for God’s sake. They do a character evaluation for disqualifying traits and pathologies, plus I have to pass a polygraph test. And from what I’ve heard, it isn’t a pleasant experience. If a person is stressed out for any reason, it can skew the findings. Keeping our father out of my life has therefore become my number one priority.”
“What about your anger?”
She smiled, but her eyes looked vacant. “Maybe our retreat in Anne’s house will help in that department.”
