Say It Sexy (32 page)

Gwen

Garrick had left for Carl Marsh’s late show a few hours ago. I stood at the foot of my bed, staring down at my cell phone—the same position I had held for the last five minutes. Before that, I had paced my room probably fifty times, having full length, elaborate conversations with myself in preparation for calling my father. Finally mustering all of the courage I could weld together, I picked up the device and dialed. Dad answered after the second ring. That was curious, being that it usually rang five or six times, especially when he wasn’t expecting my call.

“Dad,” I said quickly, my free hand fisted at my side as a cold sweat beaded across my forehead. “There is something I need to—”

“Gwen,” he interrupted. The gravelly, weary sound of his voice gave me paused. “Before you say anything, I’d like to invite you home for the weekend.”

Shock ascended from my toes to the top of my head. “Th-this weekend?” I stammered. Though, to be fair, the anger I had assumed would lace his voice wasn’t there. And it was more genuine surprise than fear of the reason or his rage that caused me to flounder.

“Yes. I know we need to talk. Your mother and I will pay for your ticket.”

“Mom will be there?” I said softly.

“Yes.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll understand, or try to, if you’d rather talk over the phone. But we have some things we want to say in person. And I hope you’ll come.”

A lump formed and lodged in my throat, swelling with each passing second. I could either decline and draw a line in wet cement that, once dried, could never be erased, or I could cross over, one more time. I took a deep breath, stared out of my hotel window above the cityscape draped with a starry tarp, and said, “I’ll be there.”

* * *

Twenty one hours later, we sat together in the parlor—Dad and Mom on the loveseat, and me in the arm chair. My father slumped, hunched forward, as though someone had let all the air out of his shoulders. The skin around his eyes hung lined and dark, as though he had not slept in days, if not weeks.

“Two days ago,” Dad began, “I read a follow-up article about an incident that had occurred years ago. It mentioned an actor whose sister was in a coma, because she had tried to run away from her living situation—from her father—and got in a car accident. It made me realize—as did you pushing me away in New Mexico—that in my burning quest to keep you close, I have only succeeded in pushing you away, and in so doing, I almost lost you too.”

Breathlessly, I watched Mom reach over and take Dad’s hand. She held it between hers, lending support I did not know she could show. “Your father felt so gutted and horrible when he returned from Albuquerque. I’ve never seen him so unhappy.”

“Unhappy?” I echoed, riddled with vexation. “I thought you were enraged.”

“I was,” he confessed. “At first with you. Then myself. I was also terrified.”

I balked. “Terrified? But you’re not scared of anything.”

“Ooohh, yes I am,” he breathed with a guilty nod. “Mostly of losing you.”

“He sat in your room for an entire day and he found the picture of Sean in your bedside drawer,” Mom added softly.

Dad shook his head somberly. “Looking back, there is no excuse for me losing my temper that night, or any of the other nights. I know I ruined your prom—something like a rite of passage, and one of the most important magical evenings in a teenager’s life. And there is no excuse for me exploding at you the way I do when you enjoy alcohol. But there is a reason. Several, in fact.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Surely, this had to be one of my dreams. Any moment, things would turn black and broken again.

“How do you see us, Gwen?” asked Mom.

“Honestly?” I questioned.

“Honestly.” She managed a strangled smile. I hadn’t heard my mother talk this much in one sitting in ages.

“I don’t think either of you are happy,” I blurted out. “I think you’re especially unhappy, Mom. I think you’re afraid. And Dad, I… I think you’re scary and, moreover, what’s scaring her. Before this year, I always saw you as the perfect couple. I measured my future by you. I love you both, but… It’s hard sometimes. You’re so rigid and… Mom, you haven’t talked to me like this in so long.”

A pained look came into my mother’s face, tears welling up in her eyes. “We’re terribly sorry, sweetie. We’ve raised you to believe that we’ve never made mistakes—never stepped outside the box—that we’ve always been perfect, and the cookie cutter family. And I think, to some degree, you’ve finally realized that’s not the case at all.” She squeezed Dad’s larger hand.

“Your mother and I have kept some very important things from you,” Dad told me wearily. “We did it partially to conceal our mistakes and partially to withhold what could have been influential over some of your decisions. We have talked it over and we feel that we have hidden our past from you long enough, and you need to know why I do what I do, and I am the way I am. Assumptions can make or break families, and we know now that we should have told you sooner.”

“I told you that I graduated college, honey,” Mom said. “That’s not true. In my sophomore year, I delved into the drug scene. And dropped out. I had a trust from my grandparents of fifty thousand dollars. And I spent it all within three years… on heroin.”

Cold with shock, I sat rooted to my chair.

“Meanwhile, as a member of the elite football team at my college, I was heavy into steroids and alcohol,” Dad added, grey with guilt.

Her lower lip trembling, struggling to maintain her small smile, Mom shook her head. “We didn’t meet on an island vacation, Gwen.”

Finally, Dad met my eyes, surrender dimming his own. “We met at a treatment facility for addiction in Hawaii.”

My mouth fell open.

“Your mother and I fell in love, married, and worked ourselves to the bone to turn our lives around. It was torture. Every day.”

Mom nodded, sniffling and dabbing her nose with a handkerchief. “I was never very strong, and I had several brutal slides backward. My therapist found that I had internal triggers. Certain clothing, or foods would flip a switch in my brain, and I’d crave the high. I couldn’t hold down a job for years.”

Something clicked and kicked on inside me—the first spark that would illuminate some deeply guarded secret.

“That’s why we live the way we do, honey. Your father is so strict because he lives in fear—of me and of you going down wrong paths that we can’t reverse.” She flashed a teary, fond smile at him. “But our love for each other has never wavered.”

“But I never see you holding hands, or expressing any affection to each other. Why?”

Mom adjusted her hold on Dad’s hand, weaving her arms around his bicep. He placed his hand on her elbow. “We told you that you’re an only child. That too is somewhat of a lie.” Her voice cracked.

“You’re our only living child,” Dad stated gravely.

“What?” I croaked, my hands clutching the armrests hard enough to whiten my knuckles.

“Before you were born, your mother suffered two miscarriages.”

Mom hung her head and nodded, a picture of anguish. “The doctor said it was a lingering result of the drug and alcohol abuse.”

“On both our parts,” Dad seemed to remind her, squeezing her arm. “She said that we had destroyed our bodies inside, and they were still rebuilding, too fragile to support another life form.”

“Your father went on to pursue the Mr. Universe competition to get stronger and prove to himself that he could be the best without steroids. He quickly got sponsors, and gained a following. And he did it. All by himself.” She smiled at him proudly.

“And I was able to stay close to home all the time, through every pageant, to be close to your mother.”

Inhaling, Mom found her smile again. “So, when you—our little miracle came—we were shocked, and thrilled. The doctors had said that a healthy baby wasn’t in our future. Your father named you Gwendolyn because it means blessed one. The light of our life.”

Throat dry and mind grasping wildly to understand, I asked her, “That’s good, isn’t it? Didn’t that, didn’t
I
, bring you closer?”

“You did. I became pregnant again six months after you were born. Rich and I…” Her voice trailed off and she averted her eyes, struggling under an unknown weight.

“We celebrated you, Gwendolyn. Too much. Too often.”

“I didn’t know that I was pregnant until…” Her nostrils flared as she battled a sob.

“We didn’t realize that we were back on the path to addiction until we lost the fourth baby,” her father said. “So, since then, we’ve almost stuffed ourselves into bodies that are more machine than human, more mechanical than emotional.”

“I didn’t know how to cope with the pain. And I blamed myself. I still do. I thought it meant that I was not fit to be a mother. All I thought about for months, if not years, was how badly I wanted to shoot up to escape the hurt. Your father saved me.”

“And your mother saved me with her love.”

“His dedication, power, rigor, and adherence to a strict routine and schedule kept me sane. I’m not unhappy, Gwen. I’m not unhappy at all. I’m just dealing with ghosts and grief every day.”

“I love your mother, Gwendolyn. And you. More than anything.”

Mom’s voice grew scratchier. “I’m so sorry I let you believe that I was afraid of your father when I was really only scared of myself. I love your father. I didn’t know how to talk to you because I never thought I deserved it. And I was always afraid I’d slip up and say something that would reveal who I used to be.”

“Who
we
used to be,” Dad muttered sadly.

“I’ve been sober for twenty one years. And it’s all thanks to him.”

Dad shook his head, reached out, and took my hand. “I’ve gone about this all wrong. I thought I could control the future, and you, with rules and lies and fear of failure. I haven’t been truthful to myself for decades. There is nothing I want more than to let loose for one night and step back in time, even to step back from the present and watch you blossom. But either of us relapsing is the second thing that scares me the most. The less I controlled you, the less I felt like I controlled myself. And the more you started to pull away, the worse it got.”

“Living with that fear has turned us both into people we don’t like. If addiction is genetic, then you're definitely predisposed. And that’s why your father got so angry every time you’d enjoy alcohol, or go out.”

I only became aware of the tears on my face when my mother sat forward and carefully swiped one away with her thumb. The two people sitting in front of me whose personas were years in the making had changed so much in a matter of moments. “Mom. Dad.” Awe struck, the spark of illumination turned into a blazing flame. “What kept you together was the fact that you were able to overcome your fear, your addictions, as a unit.” Not sex. Not money. Not fear of my father.

Dad held my eyes and my heart shattered, along with whatever disdain I had harbored for him, when I saw tears appear in his eyes. “I can’t ask for your forgiveness enough.”

“Neither can I, sweetie,” Mom confessed.

Lips in a trembling line, I shook my head vigorously. “You don’t need to. I already forgive you.”

My father swallowed a sob.

Guilt smacked into me. “I’m so sorry I’ve been such a handful lately. I didn’t know.” In hindsight, it made so much sense. And I felt like garbage for thinking so poorly of my father. Granted, he hadn’t made it easy for me to see the golden knight in him, but I hadn’t been looking very hard either.

“Sweetie, please don’t apologize. I love you so much.”

“We’re going to get through this together.” Mom smiled, looking between the two of us.

I looked at my empty hand. “How can I help?”

“By enjoying yourself, safely of course, and sticking to your craft. Your father and I are going to back to Hawaii—to the treatment center—to come up with alternate methods of living, and a whole new lifestyle. We’ve realized that it’s time to make some changes, and we need help forgiving ourselves. It’s a beautiful facility, dear. A lot like a dream vacation”

I smiled through my tears. “That’s wonderful. When do you leave?”

“Monday morning.”

“So soon?” I questioned, beset by a twinge of panic. My parents would be out of the country, and I would be the farthest away from them that I had ever been. And so soon after uncovering such an epic secret?

Dad laughed as best as he could. “I would have purchased the flight today had any seats been available. We don’t want to live this way anymore. And we don’t want to put you through it either.”

“Don’t worry, honey,” Mom reassured me, as though she could read my mind. “We’ll call from the island. When we get back, we would love to meet your new friends.”

I blinked rapidly, suddenly remembering. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Dad, do you remember that night at Nativo? When Garrick said he was falling in love with me?”

“I’ll never forget it,” he mumbled with a wry smirk. “Boy had balls.”

“Richard,” Mom chided him softly.