Shoe Strings

and Ty
were better off without me.   I know
it was hard on them, Kerri Ann juggling all the responsibility herself, meeting
me halfway every other weekend.   But
have you ever asked her if it was better?   If she was happier after I left than when we were together?”
    “A man doesn’t walk out on his family.”   Jesse could feel the anger in Cal’s
voice, see him shaking with it.   “Your mother would have been so ashamed of you.”
    “She knew I was unhappy and not just because we’d been
watching her slip away for months.   She told me to figure out what I needed to be happy.   She told me I owed it to my family and
to her.”
    “Don’t you dare use your mother as an excuse for your behavior.   She didn’t ask you to leave your family
so you could find yourself.”
    “I left so I could find my way back to them, Dad.   Can’t you see that?”
    “We needed you here,” Cal shouted.   “Your mother was gone and then you just
up and left.”
    “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, but I lost her too and I
couldn’t stay here after she died and go back to pretending everything was
fine.   I tried; for a long time I
tried to be what you wanted me to be—for Mom, for Kerri Ann.   It wouldn’t have worked between us; even
if I’d stayed, we’d still be divorced.   That wasn’t all my doing.”
    “This is priceless, Jesse.   Just priceless.   First you blame your mother and now
Kerri Ann.   Who’s next?   Ty?   Did he ask you to leave too?   Did he want you to go find yourself so you could come back and be a
better dad?”
    How had one little walk in the moonlight unleashed eight
years of resentment?   “I swear to
God, you’re just pissed because I had to give up the scholarship offers.   Your dream of me playing college ball
died and you can’t forgive me for that, can you?”
    “You had your whole life ahead of you.” Cal’s hands waving
wildly in the air.   “You had a
future; your mother and I had dreams for you and in an instant,” he snapped his
fingers, “they were gone.   Then you
follow it up with a three-year absence.”
    “Would you have been more pleased if I’d talked her into an
abortion?”
    “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
    “The only thing I know is that I worked my ass off to live
up to your standards, to be the kind of husband and father you were, and it was
never enough.   I was never good
enough and the trying all but put me under.”   He walked to the rail and studied the
night sky, the same sky he’d shared tender kisses under with Angelita not long
ago.   How had things turned so ugly
so fast?   “I never intended to stay
away forever and I’ve been working on making it up to Ty and Kerri Ann every
day since I’ve been back.”   He
turned around to face his dad again.   “They don’t hold it against me, dangle it in front of me every time
something goes wrong. Why do you?”
    “I’ve never said a word to you about it, not until now.”
    “Just because you didn’t say it, doesn’t mean I didn’t know
how you felt.”   Jesse ran his hands
through his hair.   He felt tired,
right down to the bone.   “I’ll get
Ty and get out of your hair.”
    “Jesse,” Cal said as he opened the screen door.
    Jesse stopped, but didn’t turn.
    “I’ve never been sorry about Ty.   You can’t believe that.”
    “I don’t.”   The
banging of the screen door at his back signaled more than one door closing in
his life.

 

 
    Chapter 14
    Kerri Ann absently wiped a spot off the bar.   She pulled herself out of the motion
when the surface started to squeak.   “I think it’s clean,” Emilio said as he passed by on his way to refill
his tea glass.  
    “Oh…yes.”   She
looked down at the glistening surface.   “I guess it is.”  
    “Miss?”   A woman
Kerri Ann recognized from the new health food store down the road sat alone at
a table near the jukebox.   “Can I
get a menu over here?”
    “Of course.”   Kerri Ann looked around the restaurant.   How long had she been standing
there?   The big group by the window
had left and the table had been bussed.   Had she done it?   She walked
around the bar and delivered the menu to the woman, took her drink order, and
then stood in front of the soda fountain at a loss for what to pour.   Did she say Coke or Dr. Pepper?  
    Damn it.   She
filled the glass with Coke and cursed Bryce for the hundredth time that
day.   This was all his fault.