I really felt pretty bad for him and wished I could help him, because when my mom left he just felt he’d lost everything, and of course because of what was going on with Laura, that was certainly a feeling I could relate to. I felt it was really my job to sort of incentify him, if you get what I mean, and sort of get him psyched again about his life and back on his feet and everything. A couple times I even made suggestions to him about a few dad-son experiences, like we should go out to the movies or maybe go to the zoo, which I hadn’t been to since I was a little kid. But he was never up for anything and just went on watching TV.
I guess the truth is, I felt it was my fault that my dad had just sort of given up on everything, and I really wanted to do something about it, even though they always tell you not to think you’re the one responsible for your parents’ problems, which, however, is something you might not exactly be able to believe if you were me living in my house in the weeks after my mom left.
I know I haven’t said too much about why my mom left. And I don’t really think it’s good to just sort of come right out with it, because it was very personal and hurt my dad a lot, and her, too, and they feel very uncomfortable around each other now—I guess you can see that.
But the big reason she left—the one I think I can tell you about—was really because of me.
My mom, I will admit, was sort of always riding my dad about various mistakes he’d made with my upbringing. At least, this is the stuff she always brought up when she was really angry, and also that my dad did not actually care about the family in any way that seemed real, even if he felt he cared, because my life—what with me not being too good in school, and not really having a lot of friends, and not having done a lot of extracurricular stuff like a lot of kids do at their parents’ behest to sort of investigate their potential, if you know what I mean—well, my mom sort of blamed my dad for everything and always said I had a lot of problems fitting in because my dad hadn’t, you know, sort of provided me with much of an example.
His argument was that just earning a living and paying the bills was hard enough. But she’d get him there, too. Because the truth is, my dad had never really found himself when it came to all of that. He tried a lot of things, like selling real estate and opening a couple businesses, but nothing ever really clicked for him, and even though I always had new socks and something to eat, it wasn’t like we had a lot of expendable income, if you get what I mean. But my mom would sort of go to work on him for that every once in a while, for his not ever, you know, having amounted to anything, although I will say she forgave him for it, as really any girl should if she knows her husband or boyfriend really, really loves her and just can’t otherwise make much sense out of what he should do with his life. And she’d yell about what her dad had said—my grandpa, I mean, who died a few months after I was born—about how he felt she could have done better than with my dad, because my grandpa, he always said my dad wasn’t good enough for her, and that she deserved a better life than he could give her, even though he did get her out of Greenway Terrace. He’d been in the army, Grandpa, and was pretty tough-minded, so I’ve heard. I won’t say my mom agreed with what Grandpa said, because she went ahead and married my dad and they had me and everything, but the truth is, she’d bring it all up every once in a while, when my dad had made her mad, just to sort of remind him of what she’d sacrificed so as to be with him.
But those weren’t the problems that made her leave.
I never found out the real reason.
All I know is that finally there was this big thing that my dad did to me, or rather didn’t do, that really ticked my mom off, and which she left him for. And I never could find out what the big thing was—it had always stayed a mystery to me. And even though I spent plenty of time listening through the floor, I never learned what it was. All I know is that my mom would get, like, super emotional about it, and cry and scream and even throw things.
I was already about a third of the way down the hall, and I stopped for a second to rest my arms. Holding up the tablecloth hurt like hell after a while, especially my shoulders. So what I did was sort of very slowly move my elbows down to my waist, sort of bending them in, so I could just stand there and rest a few seconds. The window on the front door was bright with sunlight. I saw the square of it like it was practically burning through the tablecloth right in front of my face, but all around me everywhere else there was just the white shape of the walls and ceiling all blended together and sort of formless, and the whole house was so quiet and still I could hear cars outside a block away.
Of course, I guess my mom was always right—I mean about how I have problems fitting in.
Actually, I think I have just one problem, but it’s such a big one that it sort of includes
