Letters You Will Never Read

Losing Trust

I had a conversation with my father three years after the divorce.

Somehow mom had convinced them that he was violent, that he hurt me. How would she even know? If it had happened I could have easily hid it from her (she did teach me the art of hiding anything with makeup, after all). Anyway, I never really got to see him, much less talk to him.

It was a short conversation, and kind of uncomfortable. It was in a small coffee shop that I saw him.

He asked me why I was out alone. It was school hours.

I said, "Dad?"

I hugged him, but he pushed me away. I saw a smile on his mouth, and a sinking grief in his grey-blue eyes. His eyes are almost the same color as yours, but I've always thought them more morose. Not just because they are older, but because they have been convicted. He bears a burden of guilt that you are somehow immune to.

Then we talked over coffee. He told me he had a job now, he worked at a hardware store that was far enough away that our paths probably would not cross again by coincidence. He asked me how things were holding up. I said they were fine, but he didn't believe me.

"You getting along with your mother?" He asked.

Of course I was. He knew that. We understood eachother almost how you and I understand eachother. He knew the resolve I had made. "Yes," I said.

But something was wrong. He wasn't entirely convinced.

"I stopped with the pranks," I said, after he brought that up. He smiled a little.

"I loved pulling pranks on others when I was younger," He said, shaking his head, "But it wasn't... mean-spirited."

I wanted to stop his line of thinking, but I couldn't imagine how. He was right, after all.

When I left the shop I felt empty. I had missed him, and he had obviously missed me, but our relationship was broken now. We haven't really got a chance to fix it. I don't think he's the kind of person whose trust can be won back.

I wonder if you are really any different.