Camryn Quinn is finally getting what she wants...sort of. Moving into a dorm and away from her not so supportive father is a good first step, but like everything with him-it comes with strings. She must attend the college of his choosing for at leas...
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The next stop on my confrontation tour is my father. I feel like Hiliary Duff in "A Cinderella Story" using the strength built in one face off to help me through the next. Although if my life were that movie, I would know how everything works out. Considering I just left my would be prince charming crying and broken, I don't think I can conjure that ending up right now. And I don't need to, as I stand outside my father's hotel room. I have more work to put in.
He answers after the first knock looking like a bag of shit in a black polo. He has dark circles under his eyes that he's attempted to hide underneath a baseball cap. If he does in fact have an ounce of regret in his body, he doesn't speak it. Instead he says nothing at all as moves to the side to let me into his room. Following me inside, he takes a seat on the edge of the bed.
I walk across the room and peer out the window. The view from here sucks. The room overlooks a large park across the street, but the midwestern weather has left a grayish cast over the scenery. The leaves have all begun to change and fall, and will soon be nothing more than piles blowing in the wind. Much like my life, a cold breeze came through and sucked all the life out of me, leaving me bare. I was left to rack up my leaves all on my own. Deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth, I remind myself.
"You know, when you and Cal were about eight and Carter was ten you used to beg me and your mother to put a tent in the backyard? You swore up and down it was just to play during the day. You three insisted that our house had been voted the headquarters for whatever club you had created that week." He pauses. I can't help but feel like he's waiting for me to turn around and face him but I don't. "After about three months we finally gave in. I remember calling your mom one night from the road. She said you played in that stupid tent all day long, so long she had to bribe the three of you with ice cream sundaes to get you inside for a bath." A small laugh escapes his lips as if he's reliving the memory the way I am right now. I wonder if he knows she willingly gave us ice cream sundaes for dinner that night. She never had to bribe us. We would have done anything just because she asked. She just knew my father wouldn't agree.
"I finally got home around one in the morning and like always came to kiss you all goodnight." It's a part of the memory I can't seem to conjure into my mind. Our history leaves me incapable of thinking that it ever actually happened. My dad continues,"But when I walked in, the house was empty. None of you were in your rooms. Do you know where I found you?" He asks. I don't turn around. I'm still not ready to face him, so I shake my head no from where I stand.
"I was standing at the sink, had the phone in my hand ready to dial 911. I looked out the window and saw a light on in that tent. I walked out and found all four of you huddled together in your sleeping bags sound asleep. The sign on the door had changed since the last time I saw it. This time it said 'C3 Only' and underneath you had added + mommy."
"So much for a central headquarters," I shrug. I had forgotten all about our tent, and the fact that at one point it was C3 + Mommy. C3 stood for the three C's–Carter, Callan, and Carmyn. My mom had given the nickname to her three kids because we were a package deal. For the longest time you wouldn't find one of us without the other two somewhere nearby. I was almost as certain that our club would always be around as I was that the sun would come up each day. We were lucky to have the type of mom that would go on any adventure we suggested with no further questions. Anyone who ever complained about their mom had it all wrong. But one day my sun did stop rising. I was left in darkness that only intensified the longer I had to live without the light. My father continued to produce artificial light from somewhere, pretending that it was just as good.
"Your mother loved you three more than anything. You were the greatest thing to ever happen to her," My father finishes.
I swipe at the tears threatening to fall from my eyes before giving them the chance to do so. I want to ask him to tell me more, but I don't push it. He never talks about her and I won't let him start now, not like this.
"That story is about four years too late," I scoff.
"I don't know what to say to you, Camryn."
"That's always been the problem, right? You just never knew the right thing to say. Well, did you ever consider that I didn't need to hear the right thing, I just needed to hear something?"
I finally turn to face my father. He's still sitting on the edge of the bed, but now his eyes are shimmering with tears of his own. He rests his hands on his knees and leans forward, taking his gaze to the ground in front of him.
"I loved your mother more than life itself. I–I lost a little piece of myself too, you know? We were a team... and I didn't always know how to make up for her half when she died."
"That's the problem? That you loved her? I still love her, I will always love her. But you didn't even grieve her, you moved on. That isn't healthy. You let her memory become an old antique that got shoved into the back of the closet and never gets brought out. You made us feel like we couldn't bring her out, either. Instead it became a prop you used to push us away when we needed you the most. For years, I've resented you for pushing me away, for allowing me to feel so low and alone. You didn't hear me when I was screaming right at you. And when you did finally hear me, you threw money at the problem to make it go away. Like always, you choose the easy fix. Well dad, that's not an option. It may be for you, but it's not for me."
"Camryn, I can't do this. I've dealt with it in my own way. We can't live in the past. I think it would do you good to take my advice." My father is now standing with his hands on his hips. He shifts his weight between his feet. His actions don't mimic the lies coming from his mouth.
"I'm the one you forced into counseling and treatment. I didn't then, but now I see the purpose and I'm so much better because of it. I learned how to appreciate the time I had with mom in a healthy way. I still miss her every single day. God, I miss her so much...But I acknowledge that. I've also acknowledged that I didn't ask to have depression and that it came from the difficult changes in my life. Those changes didn't have to be so hard if you would have just looked at me and understood that I had lost a parent and needed my other one to support me... I'm not asking you to go through the same exact experience as me, it doesn't work like that. I just need you to concede for once, and admit that you don't know how to love me. Then you have to either be okay with that fact or be a fucking man and do something to fix it."
"You have to stop fighting your offense Camryn. A family is a team just as much as your mother and I were. Everything that I have done for you and your brothers is what I thought was best. You're not a parent you wouldn't understand," He says
"A team's best offense is its defense." I throw the reference back at him. "And right now, I have to choose my defense. I have to choose myself over this family. Someday, when you're actually ready to face the music—you and Cal both—I'll be there. I would love nothing more than to be there. But for now I can't. I can't let you continue to treat me like a possession."
I turn and walk out of the room. I feel liberated and broken at the same time. Unlike Taylor, I know I won't hear from my father. There is nothing a proud man hates more than someone pointing his flaws like a weapon right back at him. His flaws are something he won't deal with though. But like so much of my truth that I just shared with him, I've also owned up to the fact that it's not my job to help him work through those flaws.
It's something I learned right after The Incident. My first big breakthrough was to understand that I was putting my whole family's grief on my shoulders. I was trying to cope by begging for answers but received no response. I was trying to force them to feel what I was feeling when I was feeling it, and when they didn't I lashed out. When I was sixteen, I had no idea how to communicate what I needed. But Dr. Hartwell helped me realize that I could only heal myself. I had to learn how to advocate for myself first, before I could even begin to work with my family. That reminder is always there, I just didn't want to listen to it. Grief isn't linear. We don't all show it in the same pattern and it doesn't hit us in the same waves.
My father's way of coping is to ignore and focus on the things he can control. I'm a lot like my father in that regard. Even with the strides I've made, I still compartmentalize things. I move and organize things until they look pretty and can remain unbothered until I'm ready to deal with them. But both of our wrongs don't make a right. Even though we share those qualities doesn't mean that our healing will follow the same path. And although I've found my path to being okay, my father hasn't. Until he does, I don't think we will ever change this pattern between us.
