The silence that surrounds me is deafening. No one wants to be the first to speak. So, I make the decision for them, “Hux, you’ve never lied to me. Whenever I’ve brought it up in the past you’ve changed the subject, and I respected you enough to let it go. But not anymore. I can’t, it’s festering inside of me and I need you to be truthful with me.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, then nods, “Okay. You deserve to know. Just,” he pauses, “Before I tell you, I need you to know that we didn’t keep it from you to hurt you, but to protect you.” His eyes search mine, pleading with me to believe him, and I do.
“Dad and I never got along. Not since the day my mother walked out and left him alone with me, the child she couldn’t stand to look at anymore because she couldn’t make herself love me, as much as she tried.” He stops speaking abruptly, dropping his head so I can’t see his eyes anymore.
My sister-in-law, El, takes his hand resting on top of the table then begins to speak for him, “Your dad didn’t take it well, and not knowing what else to do, he turned his anger and pain on Hux,” El pauses, looks to my brother and waits for something, after a moment he shakes his head at her, and looks back at me.
My throat is so thick I can’t swallow, pain radiates through my body. I don’t want him to say what I know he’s about to say. But I have to hear it.
Hux’s eyes shine with unshed tears, I don’t know if they are tears of sadness, hurt, or regret. But it doesn’t matter, he’s in pain, and I’m making him relive something he clearly tried to get past for my sake, “Hux, you don’t have to,” I say on a choked sob.
But he shakes his head, a sad smile tugging the corner of his mouth up, “Yes, I do. You deserve to know. And I’m sorry I kept it from you. We really thought it was best if we all just tried to pretend like it never happened. You were the second Chance we all needed. Even though he and I were never really able to heal completely, seeing the way he was with you went a long way toward helping me forgive him.”
I nod, tears filling my eyes, “My name?” I always thought my name was odd, but considering my brother’s name is Huxley I didn’t really put much thought into it. I just figured my parents like unusual names.
Hux nods, “He became an alcoholic when my mum developed post-natal depression. He couldn’t handle it, and he blamed me. If she’d never had me, he never would have lost her,” he shrugs, “His anger was justified. It was the outlet he used that wasn’t.”
Carter tenses even more beside me, and I glance at him from the corner of my eye. Something about what Hux had just said got to him. But I can’t dwell on it for longer than a moment, as Hux begins speaking again.
“Words were his weapon of choice until I was about seventeen. That was the first time he hit me intentionally, and it was also the last. I left not long after, and I severed all ties with everyone from here,” he glances at his wife, tears gleam in her eyes. “I didn’t come back for five years.”
My forehead wrinkles as I frown, “Where did you go?”
Hux lifts one shoulder in a shrug, and scratches at his temple, “As far away as I could. Then fate, in the form of my friend Bianca, intervened and brought me back to El. That’s also when Dad sort me out, he wasn’t the same man I had grown up with. He was different, sober for one, and he wasn’t alone,” Hux’s eyes meet my mother’s, and he smiles sadly at her. “Viv had given him a second chance at life, allowed him to rewrite his story, and then you came along, and gave us all a second chance at something better.”
My heart pounds in my chest, as for the first time since the funeral, I watch tears spill down my mother’s cheeks. I reach out to her, and she accepts my gesture, wrapping her fingers with mine and squeezing them tight.
I have to close my eyes as it all begins to slowly sink in. My gentle, loving father had once been an abusive alcoholic. My caring, generous, affectionate Papa, was a monster filled with hate and violence.
How?
How can he have been two completely different people?
I can’t picture him that way. I can’t even imagine it. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I feel like we’re sitting here talking about two separate people, and definitely not my Papa.
Silence fills the dining room, and I realise I’ve been holding my breath when Carter wraps an arm around my shoulders, whispering, “Breathe, baby,” in my ear.
A deep whoosh of air leaves my lungs, and with it, everything I thought I knew about the man whom I measured every other against.
My mum squeezes my hand again, bringing her eyes to mine as she tries to lift her lips in a smile. I can’t even do that much. She squeezes tighter, “He loved you both fiercely. And he did everything in his power to make sure he never made the same mistakes again,” she swallows as a new wave of emotion washes over her features, “He may not have been the father your brother deserved, but that man died the day you were born.”
I nod at her, it’s all I can do. I have no more words. I need no more explanations.
But my mum isn’t finished, “There’s more, it’s not just about your father, it’s about me too.”
My eyes shoot to hers, fear spreading through me, I can’t take anymore, not today. I shake my head, “No, I don’t want to know.”
A tear spills down her cheek, “No more secrets, sweetheart,” she tells me, and I don’t have a choice as she continues to speak. “I was an alcoholic before I met your father. My actions hurt the people. And I can never make amends the way your father did,” her eyes flash to Hux, and she says, “The way he tried to do.”
She releases a deep breath, and closes her eyes, lowering her head she says, “Only your father knew my secret, and he kept it all these years. You see, when I was in my late twenties I came out the wrong side of a bad relationship with so many internal scars that I really should have sought counselling. But I chose to bury my pain in a bottle,” she chokes on her words and my heart clenches.
“My friends urged me to seek help, but I refused. A year and many, many bad decisions later I made the biggest mistake of all. I got behind the wheel of my car with more alcohol than anything else flowing through my veins and decided I was going to kill myself,” her breath hitches as she fights back tears. “I was going to drive into a tree, that was my plan. But it didn’t work out that way.” She falls silent, and I watch as silent tears spill from her eyes, dripping from her lowered chin as she breathes deeply, trying to keep it together.
I don’t know how much time passes when she begins to speak again, “I almost killed an entire family. Two children and their parents ended up in hospital with life threatening injuries because of my actions. The father had to have both his legs amputated at the knee. And the wife and children sustained terrible injuries as well.”
I’m struggling to breathe, I’m consumed with heartache. Heartache for the pain and guilt my mother has silently lived with all these years. Heartache for the family whose lives were irrevocably altered that day. Heartache for my brother, who never felt the love of his mother, and suffered at the hands of his father.
The harsh scrape of chair legs against the tiles is the only sound in the house as Hux pushes to his feet, rounds the table and pulls my mother into his arms. She accepts the comfort he offers her, then after a moment taps his arm for him to release her.
My mother scrubs her face with her palms, “I haven’t had a drink since that day. But it was no easy feat, especially in the beginning. It was years later that I met Henry, and he was a mess. I saw my own pain in him, and when he began to take an interest in me, I told him the only way I would consider taking our friendship to the next level was if he attended AA with me. He started going the next week, and that’s who those people at the funeral were, they were our support network when we needed it most. And the man who delivered your father’s eulogy was his sponsor, and friend, Graham.”
I just sit here, motionless. It’s too much. It’s all too much.