Afternoon Run

twenty; ❝gone❞

Over the next few days, my mom spends her time in recovery from the damage he did. We both appreciate the pause on our busy lives, and I know that this experience will change the way we approach everything. Nothing will ever be the same, but some things will never be different.

My father will never change, but at least we will grow and improve from everything we went through.

"He's gone," I finally tell my mom when we enter the house after our own special run together.

She hadn't gotten an update about my father's location, and I had been holding onto the secret like my own life depended on it. It felt strange to interrupt our relaxing time with such a scary piece of news, but I know our mother-daughter home vacation will have to come to an end.

We can't escape reality.

No one can.

"Gone? What happened to him?"

"We obviously have a restraining order for the rest of time, but he was also charged with as—"

She takes a huge breath, and interrupts me, "You know what? I don't care. As long as he's gone and out of our lives forever."

Sometimes for her, the best answer is not having an answer. It lessens the burden of knowing.

Personally, I could never be like that. But, I still admire her for it.

"Just know that he won't be coming back anytime soon and trust me, he will regret it if he ever bothers to talk to us again," I proudly tell her.

  He may be able to break wooden chairs, but I doubt he could ever break the metal bars of a jail cell. His own decisions landed him there, and I will never feel any pity for it. In fact, I'll savor the time of guaranteed safety that I'll get now that he's there, away from us.

A small part of my mind wonders what Michael may be doing now, but I try it wave it all off. He's an adult, and if he cared, he should have come by now. . . Right?

I gather all of our gear and I settle it all in in, placing most of the items on the living room table. The house has not changed at all.

It might be my new biggest fear that everything will somehow go wrong when I'm not around or paying attention. Time is insane, and changes can occur in less than a second. It's still the same as before we left it, just one chair and one vase less.

"You're okay?" I ask her.

"Yes, yes," she responds. "I'm okay and if I'm not, I will be."

I've been constantly asking that ever since we came back home, and she always provides the same hopeful response. I just wish for that to be true.

"I'm so relieved he's gone because his acceptance doesn't matter. I already have so many people who actually care about me anyway."

It feels strange to say that statement, when a few days ago, his acceptance was all that I wanted. But, time changes everything. His actions affected the way I see him, and it made me come to my sense.

"Correct!"

My mom sits down on our worn out couch, and I bring a chair next to her so that she can rest her legs. She closes her eyes for a few seconds, and seems to be counting to ten in her mind.

When she's done, she opens her eyes and decides to reach for the remote control to turn on our TV. She seems fine, and I don't want to overwhelm her, but I have to tell her something important that's been bothering me.

It's okay to not be able to manage everything on your own, that's something I've come around to. Sometimes, you just need some help.

She seems to notice that something is on my mind, and she asks, "is everything okay?"