Beside me, Gladys sucked in a breath.
As my AA sponsor, she’d heard my story more than once.
During the first two years of my sobriety, when the urge to drink and gamble had still been strong, I’d confessed to her every one of my hideous mistakes during our nightly phone calls, choosing to hide nothing. Yet even though she knew every sordid detail by heart, it didn’t stop my words from tormenting her whenever she heard me speak them.
It was just another strike against me.
“Because of my actions, my boy disappeared from my life for over six years, not long after he graduated high school. I only recently gotten him back, and I’ve spent each moment since busting my ass to rebuild every bridge I nearly burned with him, and trust me when I say there have been a lot of fires to put out.”
“You said you’re an abuser,” another woman mumbled. “What did you mean?”
A ball of lead settled in my stomach.
I would have rather faced down a hundred man firing squad than answer her question. But falling silent wasn’t an option. My past was dark, the crimes I’d committed atrocious, but I made no excuse for the damage I’d inflicted.
It didn’t matter how many demons resided in my fucked-up head, haunting my every thought. The pain I’d meted out, the tears I’d caused to fall, and the nightmares I’d created were all on me.
I took full responsibility.
For everything.
But it still wasn’t enough.
Determined to keep others from following in my footsteps, I’d planned to spend the rest of my life making amends for the damage I’d done.
My past actions had sealed my fate long ago, that was a fact, but there was still hope for others. And by saving them from the lonely hell in which I lived, where scorching shame seared my flesh, and an invisible weight never stopped trying to drown me in an ocean of regret, the agony ripping me apart would abate.
But only for a minute.
It didn’t matter how many people I helped, the bile-inducing memories of what I’d done always returned. And rightfully so. As much as I wanted to forget, I didn’t deserve a reprieve. Never had, never would.
Yet I still didn’t stop searching to find a moment’s worth of peace from the anguish that swelled and crashed in my chest, like furious waves battering the sandy shore.
It was that craving for brief calm, along with my determination to save another even when I couldn’t save myself, that I agreed to help Gladys with the parenting class she ran in partnership with Child Protective Services.
The truth was, I didn’t know a single thing about being a good parent, but I knew a whole lot about being a bad one. Because of that, I wouldn’t stand by and watch others make the same mistakes I had.
Refusing to cower from the sins I’d never be able to erase, I placed my hands on each side of the podium and leaned forward, looking the woman who’d spoken seconds before straight in the eyes. “I meant that I was a sorry drunk who abused my only son.”
Her face fell, but I didn’t stop.
“I spent his entire childhood staring into the bottom of a whiskey bottle at whatever bar I found my way into each night.” I was such a piece of shit. If I could have gone back and beaten my own ass, I would’ve done it a thousand times over. “After last call, when I was three sheets to the wind and unable to form a single coherent thought, I’d go home.”
The words tasted like acid as they rolled off my tongue. “And it was there, in the place that was supposed to be my son’s haven, that I let my delusion and self-hatred goad me into hurting him.”
Because when I looked at him…
I saw myself.
Faced with the horrid shit I’d done, a familiar soul-crushing agony ballooned behind my clavicle, crushing my heart and suffocating my starving lungs.
I couldn’t breathe.
My chest remained frozen, refusing to rise.
But I still fought to speak.
“My childhood was rough. Filled with abuse and never-ending pain, it was hell. The shit I endured and survived warped my mind and twisted me up inside.” That was putting it lightly. “But none of that is an excuse.”
And it wasn’t.
Not even close.
“And that’s exactly why I’m here today.” I paused and sent up a silent prayer that I could make them understand before it was too late. “I don’t care what walls you’ve built, or what bullshit excuses have embedded themselves in your heart, listen when I say this…”
Fighting to tamp down the anger ready to blow the top of my head off, I paused, clenching my hands so tight my blunt fingernails bit into my calloused palms, nearly tearing my skin.
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through or how much pain you’re in, there is no reason, not fucking one, that you should ever abuse your child, whether it be with your hands or your words.”
Voice rising with each syllable I spoke, the tenuous hold I had on the tsunami-like emotions churning inside me neared the breaking point.
“My son, my beautiful son”—a tear slid down my cheek—“will forever bear scars I gave him because I was weak and let my demons win instead of fighting to become the father he needed me to be.”
The father he deserved for me to be.
“James,” Gladys started. “Maybe—”
“Do not be me,” I snapped, cutting her off. “And do not let your children become my son by forcing them to carry the evidence of your pain on their bodies, minds, and souls. Unlike you and I, they are innocent.”
Close to combusting with rage, I slammed my fisted hand down onto the podium, nearly splintering the aged wood in two.
“Go to rehab, go to AA, go to
