Chapter Twenty-Four

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Ruby

There are a few dates that I will never forget - the birth of my daughter, the first time I met Jaxon, the day I graduated college - but there is one that will always be more important in my mind than any other. The third of March 2003 was the day I realized the world didn’t have rules.

I was twelve years old, only a few months from becoming a teenager, as happy as anyone at that age can be, and never for one moment thought something like this could happen. Mom and Dad brought bad news home every day, we saw it on the TV and witnessed it from afar, but it never got close enough to affect us for real. Not until that horrific day in spring, when the whole world was at war and I didn’t even understand why, the bitter winter days refused to end and Mom opened the wrong door at the wrong time and got six bullets in her chest and neck to pay for it.

There are already fresh flowers on her grave, which I place my next to, before crouching and picking weeds absent-mindedly from the edge of her gravestone.

For a long time I blamed her. I blamed Dad, I blamed the war with Iraq, I blamed my teachers, and the system, and every single person who tried to help me through it, but most of all I blamed my mother. I blamed her for being there, for joining the police force, for getting shot so many times not even a superhero could survive it, and then for disappearing without saying goodbye.

She’d given up by the time back-up got there, nothing but dead weight when they hauled her onto a paramedics trolley and covered her up, a memory in her daughter’s mind.

Dad was the one that told me. When he came to school and I was taken out of class, there was a moment where I thought he was going to surprise me with some incredible news about a lottery win, or a holiday in an exotic location, or a new pet. It was the first time I saw him cry, and as the tears rolled down his cheeks, and the words came out, I felt the thin protective walls of adolescence crumble down around me.

Mom was dead, not just injured or absent, but dead. I was twelve years old and she was my entire world.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been here. After she was buried, it took me five years to build up the courage to come and see her, and even then it was in an alcohol fueled rage, only to accuse her of deserting me. It took a much longer time for me to forgive her, to truly understand that it wasn’t her fault, that she was only doing her job and that she loved me and wouldn’t have chosen to leave me, despite Dad always telling me that, as often as he possibly could.

They gave me counselling, introduced me to other kids who’d lost their parents, even other kids whose parents were police officers killed in the line of duty, but it didn’t matter. Nothing helped me get over it, nothing filled the void that Mom left behind, and no matter how much they told me it would, it seemed like nothing would ever change.

I struggled through school in a half-blind, dream-like state, unable to concentrate, unable to sleep, unable to shake myself out of the reality I refused to accept. I tried everything I could to take my mind away from dealing with what I had to, which led to what Dad refers to as my ‘dark days’, not a single thought of concern for anyone else who might be affected, not able to deal with it and move on.

I guess twelve years old is pretty young to expect someone to cope with the unexpected death of their mother, especially someone as naturally introverted as me, even more so because of the strength of our relationship. Mom and I fought from time to time, but she was my idol, my inspiration and my hero. After she passed away, and Dad couldn’t take that role, mostly because I didn’t let him, partly because he just didn’t understand me, I couldn’t see the point anymore of staying in line.

I stopped going to school because I no longer had anyone to impress, I started fooling around, staying out late and not coming home, because I wanted to punish Dad for not being able to provide for me in the way that I needed, and I stole things to get attention. I was the victim, I was the one left without a mother, but what I didn’t realize at the time, was that I wasn’t alone.

Sometimes I wish I knew now what I did then. “I’m sorry, Mom”, I say, and then feel stupid for saying it out loud to a piece of stone stuck into earth, where Mom might be buried but isn’t really here.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and slap that fourteen year old version of me, grab me by the shoulders and shake hard and say, ‘don’t lose your father too.’

The trouble is, I did. I lost my connection with Dad, and I’ve never really got it back. I hated him after Mom died, and then he hated me because of how I was behaving, and then his loss got too much for him, and there was a period when his drinking became too much, and they gave him time off at work to sort it out and he couldn’t.

I remember the night like it were yesterday - Dad was drunk, and morose and falling even further apart, and I was almost as bad. I’d skipped school, gone to the mall to steal, shared a bottle of vodka with people I shouldn’t even have been hanging around with at all and when I got home, the pair of us were looking for a fight. It was the culmination of years of resentment, and it all come out in one huge explosion of anger.

I called him an asshole, a drunk, a wreck, a pathetic loser and he just sat there taking it all, his face redding, his teeth clenching, his eyes fixed on me. I screamed at him to leave his own house, to do us both a favor and fuck off into the middle of nowhere and I told him I wished for all the world it had been him not Mom.

He did his best to calm me down but I was livid. I was falling apart and I didn’t need him doing the same. I grabbed his bottle of scotch with every intention to destroy it, and he caught me as I went, his hand quick to my arm to jerk me away. I tried again and we fought, his arms around mine to control me, mine thrashing out, my legs kicking and stomping to attempt to force him away.

With his senses dulled he thrust me across the room much harder than he intended to, and I tripped and fell onto my back, spraining my arm.

“Don’t talk to me like that in my own house”, Dad said towering over me.

I got myself to me feet, shaken, but not ready to stop, gathered all of my courage and spat at him in the face. It was a moment that made my heart skip a beat, and as soon as I'd done it, I knew I’d overstepped the mark. I wasn’t even half-way through an apology, before Dad’s hand came out like lightning and struck me across the face. I was the first time he’d hit me, and the last time I’d let him. After that, nothing was the same between us, despite the number of times he attempted to set things right. The following year I moved out, went to college, and never looked back.

I sigh, sit back, pull my knees to my chest and rest my head on my kneecaps. Remembering it hurts, but it’s unavoidable today. Today is the day that everything comes back, live and in technicolor.

“I wish you’d been there”, I say quietly. “It would have been so different.”

I wipe tears away from my eyes and try to focus on the good times that Mom and I had, the happy childhood both of my parents gave me, the day trips out, the movie nights, the cook-ins and board games and Christmases and times I’d wake them up at six o’clock in the morning like Jessica does to Jaxon and me, and the time Dad was genuinely happy, when his smile would make the rest of us smile too, and life was perfect and it would always stay that way.

I’m so lost amongst a collage of childhood memories, that when I feel someone’s hand on my shoulder, I nearly jump right out of my skin.

“Jesus-”, I shout in fright, my body shuddering. “Dad?”

“Hey, honey”, he says calmly.

“What are you doing creeping up on me like that?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you, I’m sorry. Are you okay?” I take a deep breath, and nod. “You mind if I sit down there with you?” he says.

“Sure”, I say, shuffling over to make room.

“I didn’t know if you’d be down here or not”, Dad says, placing the flowers he’s brought alongside the other two bouquets. “There aren’t many of us who still come here.”

“I wanted to”, I begin. “It’s been a really long time.”

“Yeah well, she’s not going anywhere now”, Dad says.

“Dad”, I complain. “That’s a little disrespectful.”

He ignores me. “You’re mother would have been proud of you, you know”, he says instead. “She always wanted to be a writer herself.”

“Mom, a writer?” I knew she liked to draw, but I never knew she was interested in writing. Dad nods. “Well you don’t get it from me, do you?” he says. “I’ll have to dig her stories out for you. She wrote detective stories, they were awful, but she really enjoyed it.”

I laugh. “I hope you didn’t tell her that”, I say.

Dad shakes his head. “I told your mother exactly what she wanted to hear. They really were dreadful though. Too much sex, not enough intrigue, she wrote pages and pages, a lot more, obviously, before you were born.”

“I had no idea.”

“They’re in boxes in the basement with all of her other stuff I haven’t had the balls to go through and throw out. I really need to sort through it, especially now I’ve got the time, but I just can’t face it.”

I loop my arm in his and rest my head on his shoulder. A moment later I realize he’s crying. I can help you”, I offer. “We can go through the stuff together, with Jessica too, I think she’d like that.”

“Thank you”, Dad says, wiping a tear away from his cheek, before laughing it off. “I don’t cry the entire year, and then I come down here and open up like a leaky faucet.”

I hold him tightly and we sit for a while in thoughtful silence, the day pleasant enough to allow us to do so.

“You know”, Dad says after a while, “it’s really good to have you home.” Just hearing him say it makes me feel guilty for being away so long. “And Jaxon”, he adds. “As your father, I just want to say, you’ve got my approval one hundred percent.”

I laugh again. “You like him, huh?”

“Makes that James Tate you used to date in high school look like a paper cut out.”

“That was high school, Dad”, I remind him, “everyone was a paper cut out.”

“You know what he’s doing now?”

“I don’t know what anyone’s doing now”, I say. “I wasn’t all that focussed on making the right kind of friends.”

Dad leans into me conspiratorially. “He’s a scientologist”, he says gravely.

“That’s not a profession, Dad”, I point out.

“I told you he was no good.”

“You did tell me that”, I say. “About a million times.”

“That didn’t stop you dating him, though, did it?” Dad says.

“It didn’t stop me doing a lot of things. He did have a cool car, you’ve got to give him that”, I argue.

Dad shrugs. “He did have a cool car.”

“Do you think she really would have been proud of me”, I say, “I mean, really?”

“Your mother was always proud of you”, Dad says. “She was unable not to love you that woman. Whatever you did, however badly, she was proud of you. I saw some of your early attempts at drawings she used to hang all over the fridge, they were awful.” I push him lightly on the shoulder for that comment. “Not to mention the low level achievements of yours she used to boast about to friends and family members. Your first words, your swimming medals, when you learned to ride your bike after the hundredth attempt.” I laugh again. “She was your biggest fan”, Dad says, putting his arm around me and hugging me into him. “We both were. It’s just a shame she only got to see such a small part of your life.”

“She might not have been so proud of me afterward”, I say.

“It was a difficult time for us all”, Dad says. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. We all did things that we’re not proud of. She would have loved you all the same.”

I stew on that for a while, desperate to believe it. “I remember when she used to give me rides home from school in the police car”, I say.

“Not just you”, Dad says. “You and a bunch of other kids. You looked like the youngest street gang in the States, rounded up once and for all.”

“She was pretty cool”, I say.

“She was”, Dad agrees. “She was the coolest girl I ever met. The most generous, the sexiest, because, believe me, not only does your talent not come from me, neither do your looks, the most loving. We were together for about five years before we decided to have you, and those were some of the best years of my life.”

“Until I came along”, I joke.

“You ruined everything”, Dad says sarcastically. “Crying all the time, refusing to sleep.”

“Not much has changed.”

“At least you’re toilet trained now.”

“Was I that bad?” I ask.

“I guess no worse than any other”, Dad says. “We didn’t get any other chances to compare. You turned out alright, that’s the main thing.”

I sigh. “I’m not sure about that”, I say.

Dad rolls his eyes. “You’ve got to stop being down on yourself”, he says. “You think your mother would have stood for that?”

“I don’t know”, I say, genuinely not sure any more.

“Of course she wouldn’t have done. She would have said, ‘what have you got?’” He counts it off on his fingers. “Me, for a start, and I may be getting old but I’m not going anywhere yet. Forty years in the force and I will enjoy my retirement, you mark my words, and more seriously, Jessica, Jaxon, your health, your entire life in front of you, already a fantastic resume of work, experience of travel and living in another country, so yes, stop moping around and beating yourself up about things that have happened in the past and move on, which doesn’t for one second mean forget about them, it just means forgive, understand, and let things settle where they need to be. I have.”

I take a deep breath. “Is this the part where we hug?” I say cynically.

Dad laughs. “You know that’s one thing you definitely don’t get from your mother.”

“What’s that?”

“Your dry sense of humor. That’s definitely an Anderson trait.”

“Come on”, I say, “we should get back home before you start telling me you love me.”

I pull myself to my feet and hold out my hand to pull Dad up. Standing, I take a good look at him. He’s old, and I think it’s the first time I realize it. Grey hair, receding in places, more wrinkles around his eyes than I remember seeing before, a slight stoop as though his back is slightly out of joint.

“Dad?” I say.

“What?”

I don’t know how to say it, so instead I lean in, and kiss him on his cheek. “Nothing”, I say. “You already know. Thank you for putting up with me and being there for me.”

The smile that spreads across his face is the most genuine I’ve seen since before Mom died and I can feel myself welling up again. Dad takes my hand in his and squeezes it tightly. “We’ll make it”, he says. “Just you wait and see.”

“I know”, I say, the tears coming thick and fast now. “I know we will. Thank you for believing in me.”

I say goodbye to Mom, which weirdly makes me feel less stupid for Dad being there with me, squeeze Dad supportively on the shoulder, and then turn away and make my way towards the car. Fifteen minutes later, after Dad has had some time alone with Mum he joins me, and we sit in the car for a moment of reflexive silence, tears drying on our cheeks.

“You remember the mix tapes Mom used to play?” Dad asks.

“I remember music we used to listen to on road trips”, I say. “Bob Marley, The Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival.”

Dad nods and leans over to pop open the glove box. Inside are a stack of CDs. “I copied all the old tapes across”, he says proudly. “It took me ages. Choose one.”

I pull the stack out and start looking through them. They are labelled in the following way: Summer ‘96 - Canada, Spring ‘98 - New York, Summer 2000 - Maine.

“She made one for every holiday we took.”

I choose the holiday I remember the most, Summer 2002 - Rhode Island and hand it over. Dad carefully places the CD into the machine, starts the engine, winds the windows down and puts the volume up as high as it will go, and to the inimitable voice of Leonard Cohen singing Hallelujah blaring out of the car, and us inside it, laughing, crying and singing along, transported for a moment back to the summer before Mom died, so that when I close my eyes I can almost feel her here alongside us, we slowly, majestically, make our way back home.