The Truth

The weight holding my feet in place was lifted. Then I was running. I threw myself into my mom’s arms.

“I’m so sorry I couldn”t be here sooner,” I apologized as I wrapped my arms around her.

Without hesitation, she enveloped me in a tight hug. The tears began to swell in my eyes when I heard her voice.

“You”re here now. That”s all that matters,” she consoled.

We pulled apart after a few seconds, and I noticed she was crying too.

Glancing towards the church, I asked, “Is there anyone…” I didn”t need to finish. She already knew the question.

“No,” she shook her head somberly.

I put my hand on her back as we walked closer to the stairs she had been sitting on before I arrived. My mom flattened her skirt and then took a seat on the top step.

“Is that a new dress?”

“Yeah, kinda,” I answered noncommittally. My mom wore a knee-length black skirt and a black long-sleeve blouse with a pair of strappy black sandals that had a half-inch heel. “Did you try calling anyone? Maybe they thought the funeral was on a different day?”

“They knew,” she sighed. “They all knew and just decided not to come.”

Why? “Why would they not show up?”

“Autumn, there”s something you didn”t know about your dad.” Oh great, more family secrets. “Your father didn”t die from a heart attack. He had heart failure,” my mom explained.

I couldn”t fully process her words. “You knew he was dying and didn”t tell me?” I accused, trying to mask the look of hurt on my face.

“No! No, of course not! I just found out. He left letters, or more like short notes, for each of us,” she confessed in a whisper. Her eyes drifted downward as she continued. “There was a history of heart disease on your father’s side. Your father hated going to the doctor. He claimed they were full of shit and only existed to steal money. Eventually, he fainted while out at a bar, and they called an ambulance. That’s when the doctors told him he had heart failure. It didn’t matter, though, because he refused surgery. He said it was because he didn’t trust their judgment, but I think it was really because of money. No one even knew about his condition until he sent the letters. He refused to open up or ask anyone for help.”

He had to have noticed symptoms before he fainted and instead of asking his family for help, he bottled it all up and kept living as though nothing was wrong. Are you kidding me? How narcissistic did you have to be to refuse to swallow your pride and ask for help paying medical bills? Or how dumb did you have to be to look death in the face and not even try to fight? But wait…did he want to die?

“Did he do this on purpose? Was his whole goal just to die?”

“No,” she shook her head. “He sought help from one person—a pastor. He thought God could cure him of any ailments. So, in a way, he did try to fight death, but it just didn’t work. You know, since we’re at his funeral,” my mom mumbled.

My father was a very old-school, traditional Christian. Church every Sunday, no “ifs,” “ands,” or “buts.” I just think he skipped over the chapter of the Bible that said you should treat people with kindness. Growing up in a house full of such strong beliefs pushed me away from the church because it taught me to fear God and others more powerful than myself. I didn’t want to sit still, be quiet, and look pretty when I had so much more to offer than that.

“So, he wasn’t depressed?”

“Not that anyone knew of. Tyler, your father”s boss at the casino, said that he would rant about how the other employees should divorce their wives and become real men. He even prepaid for trips and made reservations.” My mom laughed dryly. “He actually booked an escort once a week for the next three months.” That was the kind of man my father was. He only cared about himself. Apparently, it was better to die alone than surrounded by family. “When it was closer to the end, he mailed letters to everyone—his whole family—basically saying he was dying, but he had no regrets and that leaving was the best decision he ever made because, in the end, it made him feel more alive than any of us ever did.”

He wasn”t sorry for leaving us. He never missed us. He only ever loved himself. Or maybe he hated himself, and that’s why he never took the steps to even try and stay alive. Still, I wondered if, deep down, he hated that he ended up dying alone. No known history of depression, but depression wasn’t something that you could see. As much as I wanted to believe that it was an imbalance of chemicals in his brain that forced him to leave, I knew the harsh reality that it probably wasn’t likely.

“Wait, where”s my letter?” I asked as the feeling of heaviness grew in my stomach. Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, my mom pulled out a small, folded piece of paper crinkled around the edges. She held the letter in her lap as I looked down at it helplessly. I couldn”t bring myself to reach for it because I didn”t know if I wanted to see what he had written. “How come I never got it sooner? You said he sent them in the mail.” I put my head in my hands.

“He never knew your address after you moved out, so he sent both letters to me. I only saw them the day before flying out here, and I couldn”t bear to tell you about this over the phone,” she admitted, looking ashamed. “His letters…they aren”t heartfelt or loving; they are callous and cold.” That didn”t surprise me. He was never the type of person to take responsibility for his actions. Nothing was ever his fault. “I called everyone—his parents, your sister, his brother, his ex—once they all received the notes, they decided that he wasn”t worth showing up for.”

“I don”t blame them,” I mumbled.

Then, my mother said something I never would”ve expected.

“I don”t either.”

“But you were so mad on the phone when I said the same thing. If you understand that feeling, why did you get so upset?”

“Because funerals aren”t for the dead; they are for the living,” she answered, squeezing the note in her palms. “You”re so strong, Autumn, but even I can see that your father has hurt you.”

If she could see I was in pain, then who else noticed but never called me out on it?

“I’m fine,” I dismissed her.

“Don”t do that,” she demanded firmly. “Don”t try to brave it out. This, right here, today, is the time and place to release all the emotions you have kept inside for so many years. Anger, sadness, pity…and somewhere deep down, maybe even love.”

“That”s why you wanted me to come,” I said as more of a statement than a question. “You wanted me to have closure.” My mom nodded at my words. “I just don”t understand why he did any of this. Why did he turn into this person?” I looked to her for guidance.

My mom chuckled dryly. “He never turned into anything. He was always that way, albeit maybe to a lesser degree.” Breathing in deeply, my mother asked, “Have you heard the story about how I met your father?”

It was my turn to laugh. “I take it, it was nothing like the show How I Met Your Mother?”

“Not at all,” she smiled at my comment. “I was in college at the time, a Physical Therapy. The first time I saw your dad, he was bagging items in a grocery store. I was twenty-two, and he was twenty-eight. Michael always kept his head down and his headphones in, barely acknowledging anyone. I thought he was mysterious and quiet. He was a puzzle I needed to solve. From that day on, I only shopped at that grocery store. The lane he was working in was the one I always chose. Eventually, we started talking, and he asked me out on a date. He was a very traditional man. He would pick me up, order for me, and pay for the food. I didn”t mind at the time. My view of him changed when he saw me talking to one of my classmates and felt so emasculated to the point that he had to run over and punch him straight in the jaw. He broke it.” I didn’t know my father had an anger streak. It wasn’t surprising, though. “That’s when I started to realize his flaws and all the small things I had never noticed before.” She moved on to reference specific instances. “If we ate at my apartment, I would always have to be the one who cooked. When his grandma passed, he never shed a single tear. The way he would only say ‘you too’ after I told him I loved him.” I put my hand on top of hers and laid my head down on her shoulder as she continued. “I convinced myself that I could change him, but I was wrong. By the time I realized I couldn”t, it was already too late because I was pregnant. So, of course, he proposed. Me, being the naive person I was, thought this meant he would change for sure, but once I was again, I was wrong.”

This is my fault. I caused all of this.

“I’m the reason you felt like you had to stay. I’m the one who broke our family.” I bit my lip to keep from sobbing, even though the tears were already falling.

“No, baby.” My mom pushed me off her shoulder and cupped my face in her hands. “We were broken long before you came into our lives. This was nobody”s fault except his.”

Looking into her eyes, I asked, “Did something happen when he was a kid? I just don”t understand…how could he do this?”

Removing her grasp on my cheeks, my mom looked out towards the road in deep thought. “I don”t think we will ever really know. He never opened up to me, and his parents swear he had a normal life.”

Resting my head on her shoulder once more, I began to contemplate her words. Sometimes, their didn’t need to be a reason as to why people went crazy and became monsters. In the real world, not everything could be wrapped up and tied in a beautiful bow. That was the ugly truth. There was no previous trauma. There were no mitigating circumstances. There was no history of mental illness. My dad was just a horrible person. But that also meant none of what happened was my fault.

“Actually, I’m not even surprised that he was just a shit person. Should’ve known.”

“To be fair, he always warned me that he wasn’t the type of man I should go for.”

“Wow, way to listen to the one thing that came out of his mouth that wasn”t total bullshit.”

Expecting to be met with a smack in the face, I was surprised when my mother laughed instead.

“Well, I still don”t regret a single second of it because I ended up with you.”

I smiled up at her as the sudden realization hit me like a truck. She was right. We had each other. For so long, I felt like my family was broken. I thought I was missing something when, in reality, I had everything I truly needed. We had each other, and that was enough. My mother was enough.

“Mom,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being there when he wasn”t. For never letting me down. For being both parents.” The tears in my eyes began to swell…but this time, I didn’t fight them. “You are enough. You will always be enough.”

My mother smiled slightly as her eyes watered, gleaming with something that seemed so familiar but long forgotten about.

Love.

For my whole life, I was convinced that love didn”t exist when my mom had been proving me wrong over and over again. I was just too blind to see it. Love didn”t have to come from a spouse for it to mean something.

“I love you, Autumn.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

She pulled me close and engulfed me in a warm hug. I squeezed her back. As if my ears had been switched off mute, the sounds from nearby came to life. The constant rustling of the leaves filled my ears, along with her steady breathing. I smiled to myself as I gripped the back of my mom”s blouse. Sniffing, she wiped the tears from her face and released me. She took a deep breath and held out her hand. Opening her fingers, she revealed the note that had been clutched between them.

“This is yours. I haven”t read it,” she announced. As I reached for the note in her hands, I stopped short of the way, hesitating slightly. My mom then continued, “I don”t know if this will help you or hurt you, but you have the right to decide if you want to read it.”

I needed to know what it said. I just didn”t know if I could handle it. For once in my life, I stopped thinking and let my body take control. Propelling my arm forward before I even knew what I was doing, I snatched the note from my mom”s hand. My mom put her hand gently on my shoulder and stood up from the now, ever presently uncomfortable concrete stairs.

“Thank you.”

Looking down at me with a gleam of light still in her eyes, she said, “I”ll give you some space. I’ll be inside when you”re ready.”

With that, she pivoted in the direction of the main entrance and opened the doors to head inside the church.