Something about you

Chapter 75.

{Caitlyn}

•March 23,1989•
(Thursday)

"Why?" He repeated.

"I want to know why you left my mother. Why you left me. I was only a baby. What could I have done so wrong that drove you away?"

"Joyce, it wasn't your fault. I just, I wasn't ready. I wasn't man enough. And I was still immature, I was yes a grown man, but I still had the mentality of a teenager. The thought of raising you, possibly in the wrong way, scared me. Your mother was perfect. In every way possible, in everything she did. To me, it seemed she simply didn't need me. So I left."

"I don't even want to think about what your mother told you about me." He shook his head.

"Well I think you'd want to know." I stated matter of factly.

"What do you mean?"

At this moment I was no longer filled with anger, or hate or regret or anything. I didn't want an argument because it would just stab my wound deeper. All those questions I had before were being erased as I thought about everything my mother ever told me.

I didn't want to be at war with this man, I didn't want the stress that came along with trying to avoid him.

I just wanted to be at peace.

"She never told me anything negative about you. She loved you so much, even after you left. Even I could see that. She always cared for you. She told me you had left and although she didn't know why you did it, she forgave you. She'd say if you ever came back, she would take you in with open arms. Did you know that?"

He shook his head no.

"I think that's called love. You were the love of her life. I believe she waited for you her whole life. She was never sad though. She was always happy. She said it was because God made a decision and she said one day she'd be happy again. And she was, with her boyfriend, they never got married, but he was always there. They ended it in a mutal agreement."

"But anyways, she always told me that you were a great man. And that even though you left me, you loved me and cared for me like you've never loved another. She said you loved me more than you loved her. She always told me all the positive things about you, and she always told me to never hate you or anything like that. She'd say that things always happen for a reason and she couldn't explain this one. That the only  person, other than God, who could explain it was you."

"She told me stories about the two of you, and it seemed everything was perfect."

I looked up at him to see him crying.

"I don't know exactly when, but I started to hate you. Because of all the pain you had brought to my mother. She was my world. My entire family because, like me, she had nobody. She never spoke about it but I knew she was hurt. And she was all that I had, so seeing her hurting, hurt me more than anything."

I stopped talking before I angered myself and said something I didn't mean.

"Joyce you have to believe all of that. Joyce I loved you more than life itself. And I still do. Look, I have no words right now, but please know that I love you, and I care for you. And I want to be here for you. I want to be the father I couldn't be for my own mistakes. Please forgive me. Give me another chance, to fix what I so wrongfully messed up."

I made my final decision. With the help of a voice in my head. My angel, who was in fact my mother.

"You know what she told me one day? When she was holding my hand, still fighting for her life in the hospital bed?"

My eyes filled with tears remembering her in such a fragile state.

"She said to me-

'Cait, you have to promise me one thing'.

"I asked her what it was but she wouldn't tell me. She said-

'You have to promise to do it, no matter what it is that I say, you'll do it.'

"I just wanted to see her smile so I agreed. I promised no matter what she would ask of me, I would do it. She then began to tell me about taking care of myself, following my dreams, being happy and finding love and all that, and you know what the last thing she made me promise? She said-

'If your father ever shows back up into your life, if he ever comes back, remember the love you and I have for him still, and how much we care. Even if you cannot use your own love to do so, do it out of the love I've had for him. And promise, you will forgive him.'

"She made me promise to forgive you, if you were to ever show back up into my life."

"So, because of that. Because of my mother, my promise, the emptiness I feel inside because the lack of my father, because of the love I've always had for you, I forgive you."