Back In the Day

Damian

Ten seconds after Angel leaves the family room, I am inclined to go after her, but my mom stops me.

“I’m so sorry if I overstepped. Do you think she’s okay? I’ll apologize, but I want to give her a moment.”

When Angel answered my mother’s innocent question, her entire body tensed. I could tell she didn’t want to dive into it, but in true Angel fashion, she did. Her response left me with more questions, though, and I can’t ask her about them here because she’ll feel obligated to answer. I don’t want her to think I resent her for her honesty, but I don’t want her thinking I take advantage of it either, probing for answers she isn’t ready to share.

I spend a few minutes explaining the abbreviated version of Angel’s promise to herself and why the death of her parents impacted her so much. My mom’s reaction was much the same as mine, concluding that it wasn’t Angel’s fault.

After our hushed conversation, I enter the kitchen to find Lily and Angel giggling together at the counter while Josh stands against the opposite counter with his arms and ankles crossed and a wild grin on his face.

“Our girls have bonded over tacos, little brother.” Josh waves me into the kitchen.

As soon as he says tacos, I think back to Angel’s expression as she devoured the food truck fares we ate on the night of our first date. A memory that will be imprinted in my mind forever. Her eating tacos surrounded by the people I love seems like a fantasy. A weird one, but still.

Lily and Angel become fast friends, and after a sincere apology from my mother, Angel brushes off the earlier discomfort, telling Mom she has nothing to be sorry for. After hearing about Angel’s pact with herself, my mom beams over Angel’s willingness to overlook her detour down an unfortunate line of questioning.

Over dinner, everyone buzzes around in a flurry of activity, filling their plates, then rushing back to the kitchen to refill with a new combination someone else gushed over. Angel seems to be the resident expert, but Lily could give her a run for her money.

When it’s time for us to leave, everyone looks gutted that I’m tearing Angel away from them. They never get this upset when I leave, but I won’t take offence. She is pretty incredible to be around. With strict instructions to bring her back for another visit soon, we say our goodbyes and walk back to my car.

It’s hard to gauge Angel’s reaction to meeting my family. From my perspective, everything went well. The only reason I don’t want to know is because she’s sitting in the passenger seat, not saying a word, and it’s making me question every one of the 240 minutes we spent in the Miller house.

As I pull onto Highway 400, headed toward home, Angel breaks the silence after twenty painful minutes. “Will you tell me about what happened with your dad?”

I blow out a long breath and focus on the road ahead. Literally and figuratively. “Yeah. I’ve wanted to explain for a long time, but it never felt like the right time.” I pause for a second. “Will you tell me about your aunt?”

I can’t see her expression, but I can almost sense the tension in the vehicle.

“There is never a right time to bring up things that hurt. You just have to get it out, so I’ll explain what I can.”

“Okay, I’ll go first. Rip off the Band-Aid.” With the radio playing an unrecognizable top-forty pop ballad in the background, I dive into the time of my life that shaped not only me, but my mom and brother as well. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘it was fine until it wasn’t’?”

“Not that I recall, but I get the gist.”

“That was my childhood. Everything was fine until one day it wasn’t. From my perspective, my parents got along well; they were happy. My father wasn’t home a lot—he was a venture capitalist, travelling the world to invest in start-up businesses or takeover failing ones. But when he was home, he was present. Taught me how to play catch, ride a bike, that kind of stuff.” I grind my teeth after saying that because it almost sounds like I’m defending him. Like he had a single lapse in judgement that changed the course of all our lives. “Anyway, one day he came home from a work trip and told my mom he wanted a divorce. No questions of clarification. No chance to try counselling or effort to make things work. He just left.”

“Wow. I gathered they had a messy divorce or something.”

“No. There was no mess. He didn’t want our family. He wanted his job and said he was leaving to pursue his career goals.” Saying those words out loud makes me feel even more pathetic than they did when I was a kid. All the nights I cried in my room because I wasn’t enough for my dad to love me. Instead of healing over time, I grew more resentful. “He emailed me the other day.”

“Really? Out of the blue? What did he say?”

The image of his name popping up in my inbox renews my irritation. “I have no idea. I deleted it before I read it. He’s had two decades to try. There’s nothing he could say now to fix it.”

“I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, it’s his loss. You turned out pretty great without him.”

Her words bring a smile to my face. “That is a consolation. I care about what you think. What he thinks doesn’t matter anymore, but that’s what prompted this visit.” I pause a second before continuing. “When he first left, I got into so much trouble. For years I acted out, lashed out, misbehaved… Really, I was lucky mom didn’t ship me off to military school.”

Angel chuckles, but that was a genuine concern for a while. It still didn’t make me smarten up.

“After a few years, when Josh was about to graduate high school, he made me make him a promise. He said he’d pay for my university so I could get a job and prove to my dad that I didn’t need him. Prove that it was possible to have a successful career without throwing away the people you claim to love.”

“He paid for your schooling?”

I nod. “He did. Him and Lily were high school sweethearts, but school was never his thing, so rather than go off to college for something he didn’t care about, he started working in construction. I can’t even fathom the amount of physical labour he had to do to pay my tuition. But it was his willingness to sacrifice for me that set me straight. I saw how hard he worked and how dedicated he was to improving my life. Even though Josh’s sacrifice was a huge motivator for me, proving to my dad that I didn’t need him kind of took over by the time I graduated. I wanted to be just like him and nothing like him at the same time. I wanted the success he had, but refused to become one of those people whose bank account becomes their greatest accomplishment.”

“And what do you want now?”

“Now?” I glance at her for a split second, trying to keep my eyes on the road. “I just want to be happy. Instead of being motivated by anger, I want to do things for the right reasons.”

“I can relate, you know? The things that shaped me were different, but I can understand how defining moments in your past shaped who you became.”

From the corner of my eye, I see her turn to face out the window as we pass the King City rest stop, indicating we’re about halfway home.

“My aunt was what you’d call a rolling stone. She was never the type to settle down in a job or a relationship. She’d be out partying at all hours and burned through a lot of the life insurance money my parents left Dina and me. I already felt awful over my parents’ deaths, and she made it clear on a daily basis how much she hated me for ruining her life, which piled on more guilt.

“By the time Dina turned seventeen, I had full control over the house, so I decided to sell it and buy my condo. Dina lived there with me until she turned nineteen, then we used the rest of the money to buy her place. My aunt was furious, but she’d already blown everything else, so I was afraid if I didn’t take control, Dina and I would have nothing.”

“Wow. That was really selfish of her. Do you ever speak to her now?”

“Never. Not since the day we sold the house. It’s just been me and Dina.”

I glance over when there’s an opening in traffic, but Angel is still staring out the window. “Have you ever talked to Dina about her feelings on everything? I know you blame yourself, but has she ever said she blames you? You were just a kid, too.”

“Not yet. It’s something I need to do. Either way, at least I’ll know and give her an opportunity to heal, you know?”

“Yeah. Sometimes hashing it out is the best remedy.” Those words are meant to apply to Angel’s situation, but they strike a chord with me just as much.

“Maybe it’s time for both of us to be happy. To stop trying to prove something to people we can’t prove things to.”

My hand moves of its own accord, wanting to touch her. To be connected to her. I grab her hand over the centre console, rubbing my thumb along the soft skin of hers. “That sounds like a good plan.”

She smiles as I glance at her again. “Easier said than done, but it’s something we can both work on.”

“Does that mean you’ll give up on your promise?”

She shows no hesitation before answering. “No. For all the times it has landed me in hot water, it was always situations when the other person just didn’t want to hear the truth. That’s not on me. But, in truth”—she laughs—“being honest is just the right thing to do. I’m not going to change that.”

Her straightforwardness was one of the many things that attracted me to her. It certainly lit the spark that has grown into a fiery inferno over the past few months. Her insistence on being frank and blunt may send some people running, but she’s right; that’s not the truth’s fault. I find it refreshing and it simplifies things when I know I can turn to her with a question and get a straight answer.

“Good. You should never have to compromise what’s important to you for other people.”

She weaves her fingers in between mine and gives my hand a gentle squeeze. “Sounds like we both have complicated pasts. But here, with you, the future doesn’t seem so unknown.” She tries to pull her hand away, but I latch onto her before she can. “Is that crazy?”

The reality that Angel sees me in her future does something to me. Call it butterflies or a stampeding heart rate; I don’t know how to describe it. What I do know is that this woman has made a permanent imprint on my brain—my heart—and no job opportunity in the world could make me give that up. “If it is, then I’m crazy too.”