Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 15 ~ Ten Feet Tall, part 2

Russ pulled up to his brother’s house on Monday, then sat in his car for several minutes.

I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to be here.  The thought kept playing itself over in his mind.  Then; What are you afraid of?

He had to go in there.  There was no question, at this point.  It wasn’t just about him and his dad anymore.  The decision he’d made to never see or speak to his father again seemed unrealistic when his family was involved; he was no longer just a son.  He was a father.  He knew he had to take matters into his own hands, deliver his message in person.  He knew this.

He got out of the car, finally, pushing open the door and wondering why it felt so heavy.  Like he was underwater and had to fight against the pressure.  He went around to a back door, the one he usually used when going over to Jake’s house.  It opened before he even reached it, and it was Jake, not the maid, who was waiting for him.

“How’s it going?” he said, but Russ ignored the general greeting.  He just couldn’t do inane pleasantry right now.

“Where is he?” he asked instead.

Jake moved aside as Russ walked past him into the house.  “The living room,” he answered, taking the cue to be blunt.

They went through the house, but Jake stopped just outside the room.  Without a word Russ left him, and went in.

There was an old man sitting in a chair, reading the newspaper.  He lowered it when Russ walked in, and they stared at each other.  All Russ found himself able to think was, He’s so old.

“Rusty,” the old man said, and pulled himself to his feet, grunting and creaking like old people did.  “It’s good to see you.”

Russ didn’t say anything.  He couldn’t say the same.  He couldn’t remember what he wanted to say.  He planned it, rehearsed it, obsessed about it.  For years.  So many years.  Of course after thirty years he’d be old, and feeble, and bent over.  He was in his seventies.  It was no surprise.  At least, it shouldn’t be.

He’d expected to feel like a kid again, looking at his father, but it didn’t work out that way.  He was looking at a stranger, someone he didn’t know.

“I don’t even know you.”  He found his voice.

The old man bowed his head, looking at the floor.  Russ stared at his bald spot, the wisps of white hair from around his ears combed over, ridiculously.  His father had a combover.  How stupid.  And shouldn’t he be completely bald, anyway?  Didn’t cancer patients go bald?  His mind spun hopelessly.

“I wanted to see you before now,” Markson said.  “I’ve tried to get in contact with you before.  For years.  I’m sorry it had to come down to—”

“You waited eight years to contact me,” Russ cut him short.  “That was eight years too late.  We were already strangers by then.”

His father looked back up at him.  “I always wondered if you got that letter.”

“I got it.  I burned it.”

The old man nodded thoughtfully.  “Will you sit down?”

Russ shook his head.  “I’ll stand.”  It seemed less like a confrontation and more like a heart to heart if he sat.

“I need to sit,” Markson said, lowering himself back down into the chair with a sigh.  Then, even though Russ didn’t ask, he explained; “It started in my prostate.  I knew something was wrong, but me and doctors . . . we don’t mix.  Jake finally forced me into going in and getting checked out.  By then it had spread.  It’s in my bones now.  They wanted me to go through treatment, even though there was only a slight chance it would work.  But—” he shrugged “—I didn’t see the point.”

Russ grimaced.  “You didn’t even want to try.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  You always give up.”

Markson looked at him, something like sadness clouding his eyes.  Or maybe he was just tired.  Dying must be exhausting.  “I’m almost eighty,” he said, by way of defense.  “I’m not strong enough for the treatment.  It would just make my last days even worse.”

Russ clenched his jaw and wouldn’t be softened.  “So you’re going to repay Jake’s forgiveness — his letting you back into his life, into his son’s life — by deserting him again.  Just because you didn’t want to go to the doctor when you had the chance.”

Markson sighed heavily, then said, “This isn’t what you came about.  What do you want to say to me?”

Russ shook his head and turned away, walking toward a window.  He crossed his arms and looked out.  “I don’t have anything to say to you.  The person I’ve wanted to talk to is my father . . . you’re just some old man.  You can’t turn back time, so what’s the point?”

“I’m still the same person, Rusty.”

“Not to me.  You’re just a shadow.”

There was a long pause.  Then, “So you’re angry at me for growing old.”

Russ turned around with a bitter laugh.  He spoke to the back of his father’s head.  “I’m angry at my father for deserting me.  He left and you can never fix that or undo it.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“So what the fuck do you want?”

Another long pause.  “I couldn’t stay, Rusty.  It wasn’t working.  I tried for a long time.  I had to leave.”

“You didn’t try.”

“I stayed with your mother for seventeen years.  That’s no short amount of time.”

Russ clenched his jaw.  “This isn’t about Mom.”

“I had to leave,” Markson repeated.  “It doesn’t mean I didn’t love you.”

“Then why the fuck didn’t you take me with you?” Russ burst, anger burning through him.  He rounded the chair to look his father in the eye.

“I wasn’t up for raising a kid — I was drifting around aimlessly.  That’s no way for a kid to grow up.”

“And the alternative was so much better!”  Russ snorted.  “You knew she didn’t want me.  You knew you were leaving me all alone.  So don’t give me that bull.  You just didn’t care.  You didn’t want the responsibility.”

His father nodded slowly.  “I’ve done things I regret.  Not being able to be there for you is one of them.”

“Not being able?  You make it sound like you had no choice.”

“I didn’t.  I needed to go.  I couldn’t stay.”

“Alright.  Alright, fine,” Russ said, his voice grim.  “Then you should have stayed gone.  No letters.  No phone calls to our agent.  No showing up thirty years later and trying to worm your way back into my life.  You have no right.”

Markson braced his hands on the arms of his chair, looking up.  There were black circles around his eyes.  “I’ll be gone for good soon enough.”

“Of course.”  Russ clenched and unclenched his fists at his side.  “That’s what you do.”

“I can’t help dying.  You may think that I can, but you’re wrong.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you just because you’re dying, is that it?” Russ said harshly.

His father just looked back at him without blinking.

“I came over to tell you to stay away from my children,” continued Russ.  “They don’t need to get to know you just to watch you die.”

“I wanted to know you all before now,” Markson dared to argue.  “I’ve been in touch with Jake and his family for years.  This isn’t just about me being near the end.  It’s just more urgent now.  I didn’t have time to hope you’d relent.”

“You don’t get to be Grandpa.  Okay?  Not now, not ever.  It takes a father to be a grandfather, and you were never that.”

“I tried.”

“Not hard enough.  Not by a long shot.  And you know how I know?”  Russ paused only briefly, not long enough for his father to get in a reply.  “Because you turned right around and did the exact same thing to Jake.  You proved that you didn’t regret anything you’d done and were ready to do it again.”

“Jake’s forgiven me,” Markson said quietly.

Russ looked him in the eye and said, his voice slow and measured, “I will never forgive you.”

It hurt to say, as if he were driving a stake into himself with the words, but at the same time, he felt grim satisfaction from it.  It was punishment.  It was supposed to hurt.

Markson just sat there; small, old, decaying, staring at what used to be his son, once upon a time when he was a father.  But that time was long gone.  They both knew it.  There was no getting it back.

Russ turned and left without another word.  He couldn’t stand looking at the old man anymore.  Markson said nothing to stop him.

Jake was leaning against the wall just outside the door.  He looked at Russ with reproach in his eyes, but Russ just kept on walking.

He got in his car and started the engine, feeling numb.  He drove back home, dry eyed.  He supposed he should feel pity for his father, who’d squandered his life wandering away from the people who wanted to loved him but he couldn’t be satisfied with.  He was a Key who didn’t even know it, who didn’t even know what he was looking for.  Now it was over for him and he’d never find it.  Maybe Russ did pity him.  But it was pity mingled with contempt.  You could only blame so much on Keylike restlessness.  His father had made conscious decisions to leave his families behind.  He’d only ever thought about own needs and inability to satisfy himself.

Maybe forgiving him made Jake a better person.  Russ didn’t care.  He could lie and say all the things his was supposed to — maybe follow Kyla’s lead and write an insincere letter — but why?  Why pretend?

Liseli was waiting for him when he got home.  The kids were all still at school.  She took one look at him and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.  She didn’t even ask how it went.  Maybe he was just that obvious.

He didn’t cry.  He just said, quietly, into her hair, “I wish I could forgive him.”

She nodded.

He’d forgiven Liseli for many hurtful things she’d said and done — he was positive he could forgive her anything.  Anything at all.  So why couldn’t he forgive his father?  But maybe it wasn’t the same.  Liseli was the woman he loved, his wife, he was supposed to take care of her.  That’s how it worked.  Forgiveness was just part of it — that’s one of the things you do for the the people who depend on you.  Who love you.  Who need you.

His father didn’t need him.  He never had.

Russ was sure of it.