The Between Years

Marriage of Figaro for you (how could I forget?), but because I play the popular music that disgusts you. But I don’t cry anymore. If I can cling to one thing, it’s my strength.
    Sometimes I like to be flippant. I’ve asked you why you walked out on us, but you never answer. Silence was often your way of solving problems. Silence and violence. Lovely combination, wouldn’t you say?
    Other times, I’ve asked you if you’ve ever visited Mom’s grave. I don’t press the issue, because I know you won’t answer, and because I feel lucky to have escaped the usual whipping with my life. I won’t take risks when I’m right on the cusp of finding out.
    I don’t want you in my life, but what can I do? I’ve considered moving, but I know you’ll find me wherever I go. You’ll just welcome yourself in, make yourself at home, torture me, and find ingenious ways to cheat the cops.
    And yet I know that moving might be inevitable. The college has placed me on probation thanks to all the days I’ve called in sick. But what am I supposed to do? I can’t well show up for class looking the way I do after you’ve really gone off. You don’t spare my face like you used to. At least you wait until I’m home to torture me and no longer phone my office. What few words you say anymore you use to tell me that I’m much saucier than I was when I was young.
    But it’s time to take the gloves off. Oh, you might be bigger and stronger than me, but you can’t break my spirit. You’ve hit me for the last time, you’ve hurt me enough, and I’m determined to banish you from me life. It’s time I became completely independent, and free of you.
    ***
    Every time I think about leaving, I throw some books and knickknacks into boxes, stuff some clothes into a suitcase, and arrange to cancel the utilities. But I stop myself, because I know that you’ll follow me out this door, to a new house, to a new town, but I can’t go on like this.
    I’m not sure what you want from me. Maybe it’s the perfection that I’d been unable to achieve as a child, or I could simply be your whipping girl. Me, I think you’re after the tears that I never shed, and the remorse that I never felt. Don’t hold your breath.
    I clipped the obituary when I heard the news. I was twenty-two, young, but that meant nothing to me. The part of me that wanted a clear conscience pushed myself to attend the burial, but I couldn’t bring myself to face it. Josh wouldn’t go either, presumably for the same reasons, so I won’t beat myself up too much. Still, I can’t help but think that attending would have prevented my current situation. I’m not one to live with regrets, but that one I would do differently if I could turn back time.
    That’s supposed to be therapeutic for many, but I doubt it would have been for me. Speaking the words, recounting our history, and demanding you leave is the only way to end this, to banish you from my life. Words are the only way to exorcise the demon. So, I’ll say it once more, for the final time: Get back into the ground. Leave me alone, Dad. Stay the fuck out of my life.