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“I’m always going to be willing to listen whenever you need to talk,” I said with a comforting smile, at least I hoped it was.
I could see the hurt already going through his eyes, and he had yet to even say anything. I hated that he was having to do this, but at the same time I understood that he needed to. And not just for me or so that we can grow a deeper connection. Something that was this painful to speak on even after all these years, it couldn’t be healthy to keep locked up inside of you. I’m not saying talking to me was magically going to make it better, but maybe it would help him to at least start to heal from it. I didn’t feel all that great talking to Charlie about what happened to me; however, there was a sense of relief and lightness in doing so. I think it had to do with the fact that someone else also knew what you were going through even if they couldn’t relate to it, they could help you carry it.
“On the outside we were a normal looking family. I was an only child, so it was just us. We didn’t have much, but we weren’t poor either. Working middle class, but we would have had more in savings if my father hadn’t drunk most of it away. He worked in construction. He had grown up on my grandfather’s farm, and he never wanted to be a farmer, but construction was apparently different to him. He worked long hours when he had work. When winter hit, the work slowed down, and things got rough at the house.”
“You’re not from Texas?”
“No, I ended up here through various team trades. I am originally from Chicago.”
“I’ve actually never been to Chicago. Was it nice?”
“It’s a great city. I don’t miss the winter. I keep thinking that I will take Zoey up there at some point to show her but can’t seem to bring myself to book the plane.”
“Did your parents grow up down here?” I asked, trying to maybe help ease the conversation into a less painful area.
“My father did. My mother was from Chicago. Neither of them had any siblings. My father moved away as soon as he turned eighteen. He always blamed my grandfather for his sheltered life. He was more of a wild spirit, and he didn't like being trapped on a farm. They didn’t get along from his teenage years and beyond. I didn’t get to see my grandfather really at all for the first ten years of my life. He came by twice, and it ended in this massive fight between them.”
“You said you lived with your grandfather from the age of ten. I am assuming something happened to your parents.” I didn’t know what to expect. His father was a drunk so there was a chance that he was in prison. His mother also could have left his father due to the drinking or the lack of money.
“Yeah,” he said with a great deal of pain, and it made me regret saying anything. “My father was never violent, not even when he got drunk. He would throw things and yell, but it never went beyond that. He mostly sat in front of the TV and watched some sports game or a movie and ignored my mom and me. I don’t really know what happened that night to make him snap.”
I was getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, and every fiber in my being was screaming at me to tell him to stop. To tell him that he didn’t need to continue and relive whatever nightmare he was about to walk into. I didn’t though. I continued to sit here in silence and just allowed him to tell his story as slow or as fast as he wanted, because it was his story, and he had every right to share it.
“I was in my room just working on some homework. My father had been fine all night. He came home from work and seemed to be in a good mood. He even asked how my day was and he never did that. He had started drinking pretty hard. He said he was celebrating when my mother commented that he might want to slow down a bit. Apparently, the company he worked for scored this massive commercial project, and he was going to be working the job for the next two years with double the pay. We were all so excited about it and what it meant for us.”
“Apparently?” I quietly asked.
“We never got confirmation from the company, and the lawyers could never find proof that the company ever secured a commercial job. They were residential so it would have been a huge jump for them. While I was in my room I heard them arguing. My father got a call, and he was fired. He was pissed and beyond drunk. I could hear things breaking, but I figured he was just throwing things around like he normally did. It never even occurred to me that he could hurt her. He always said how much he loved her.”
He let out a shaky breath, and I knew what he was going to say. I couldn’t believe he had gone through something so violent like this. It made sense now why he didn’t like talking about or why he had the photo albums buried away. Even looking at their photos was too difficult. I suspected if it wasn’t for Zoey he would have burnt them long ago. I reached over and placed my hand on top of his. He turned his hand so our fingers could intertwine as he continued.
“When I heard her scream, I came downstairs to see what was going on. He was screaming at the top of his lungs how everything was her fault as he hit her. She was on the ground. The coffee table had shattered from the force he pushed her down onto it. I ran over to try and stop him. He punched me and knocked me down for a second, but I got back up and grabbed his arm to stop him from hitting her. He flung me off his arm, and it sent me back into the wall. I banged my head against it and then everything went black.”
“You were knocked out,” I supplied.
“Yeah, got a concussion from it. By the time I regained consciousness he was gone. My mom was lying where I had seen her, but she was covered in blood. Her face was almost unrecognizable. Her eyes were closed, and I tried to wake her up, but she wouldn't. I managed to call 9-1-1, and when the police arrived, they took me out immediately and got me over to the paramedics. My mom never came out.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Three words that didn’t sound like enough. I had heard people tell me that plenty of times, especially in the beginning. They were sorry I had seen someone being killed. They were sorry that I had to hide away. They were sorry that I couldn’t go back to my old life. They were sorry they couldn’t protect me. They were nice to hear at first, but over time, they lost all sense of their meaning. I didn’t want them to be sorry. I just wanted someone to fix it. Only there was no fixing it. I couldn’t fix that he had witnessed his mother being killed by his father, even if he only saw the beginning. It would never change that he would have to continue to carry that with him for the rest of his life.
“It’s okay, it happened a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that it still hurts,” I countered. “What happened to your father?”
“He was found at a bar a few blocks away covered in her blood. He was convicted of murder. He was killed in a yard fight about three years into his life sentence. You know what I remember most though? It was the look on my grandfather’s face when I woke up in the hospital. I don’t know what I was expecting, but he looked and felt so guilty. As if he was the one who killed my mom and put me in the hospital. He blamed himself until the day he died for what his son had done. He didn’t even claim my father’s body when he got the call that he had been killed. He’s buried in some plot in a city cemetery with all the other John Does and unclaimed remains.”
“It wasn’t his fault though.”
“Nope, but he never felt that way. I think that’s why he was so amazing with me. I think he was afraid of making the same mistakes, at least mistakes in his mind, with me that he made with my father. He was an amazing man who made sure I knew how much he loved me. I wouldn’t be who I am if it hadn’t been for him,” he said with a loving smile, and I knew his grandfather’s memory was both painful from the loss, but also one that filled him with warmth.
“I wish I could have met him. He sounds like a man that everyone needs to meet.”
“He would have liked you. He loved a woman that was strong and didn’t take any crap from a man. But he also would have loved that you are good with your hands. He would have had you out in that barn teaching you how to fix the tractor.”
I couldn’t help the small chuckle, “I would have loved that. I bet the farm was beautiful.”
“It was. I’ll um … I’ll show you some photos,” he said with a kind smile, and I knew we had finally made a switch in our relationship. We were connecting on more than a physical level, and I was surprisingly enjoying it. Maybe we could work out after all.
