Summer Rain

XXXIV ~ Weights and Measures

{When I Was Your Man - Bruno Mars}

...Although it hurts, I'll be the first to say that I was wrong, oh I know I'm probably much too late, to try and apologise for my mistakes...

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July 16th

             The night air passed by me as an awkward bystander, interrupting the silence that had befallen Dad and me. Had those words really just come out of his mouth? What web was he trying to weave by brushing off the years of growing resentment between us with a simple sentence?  A sentence so obscure, so decadently selfish that it left me dumbstruck and unable to understand quite what it meant. 

    "What kind of bullshit is that?" I kept my voice at a low pitch, aware of the cabins not too far from us. Unlike him and my Mother, whose voices rose to levels so high it was a genuine war cry.  I actually cared if the neighbours got any sleep. Dad's eyes widened in disbelief at my outburst but knew that this was not the moment to scold me on my colourful language. He composed himself, his shaky, adrenaline-fueled hands tightened and relaxed as he stood before me, my ears waiting for a response.

    "You may not understand what I say, but I'm not lying to you. Not about something as important as what has happened to our family." It was like the man I remembered from days when he pushed me on a swing-set and cooked me pancakes was hiding behind the mask that had become his personality. The suit and the job and the success had sheathed the warmth of his character that had always been the reason why I loved him so much. Seeing him change into someone unrecognisable only made us drift from one another. 

    "It seems like another one your excuses to save you from really answering me. How am I meant to believe a word you say anymore?" The tightness in my voice came from me, restricting the emotion which was dying to burst out of me like a wild entity, yet I kept it in its cage. 

    "I haven't always been this way, you said so yourself!" He pleaded, not angrily but emotionally, hoping I could somehow understand what it was he was incoherently trying to explain to me. 

                 So much had been said. Too many scars had been left to heal. There were memories that I cherished so dearly with him, and there were memories that I wish I could have forgotten, praying that picky amnesia could steal the painful memories that stabbed me in the lung at night when I used to wake in a panic-stricken paralysis. 

    "Then what happened to you? What happened to us?" I whispered, knowing if I spoke any louder, I wouldn't be able to hold the shaking in my voice steady, and I would break. His eyes appraised me as they had for years, but they held no sign of judgement or unease. He watched me, as I rigidly stood before him, stubbornly asking him to answer me. I tugged on his memories and the facts of the past that had led to this moment, like a magician pulling on an endless handkerchief. 

His sigh was heavy, and he began to speak.

----

        "I remember your first piano recital. I know you probably think I don't, that it was just a night I would have rather been elsewhere, but I remember it clearly. It was the day everything changed. I'd been working for a firm for a few years, and we lived in that small house near the city, with the jungle gym out back, so I could get to work every morning. The house was so small, you and your brother had to share a room because your Mom had to make room for Cady a few years before. It was cramped, and our family was growing. I was trying to make everything work out for us. 

    "I wanted it all: the wife, the kids, the house, the life. I wanted to be the guy that everyone else was envious of. It was just finding the opportunity to be that guy that I was waiting for.