IV

An Excerpt from We, Adults: “Nevers”

When I was seventeen, my father was arrested. He’d discovered my mother’s infidelities. He’d been informed of his cancer. His drinking had steadily crept its way to his ten o’clock break at Sears. Things weren’t great for him, I understood this, even then. This was the only night I remember him raising his voice. He yelled, or maybe they were closer to screams. He punched the wall. He smashed the TV.

I watched from the doorway of the dining room.

I was obviously scared, but more sad because everybody was going to leave him and he was crying and snot dripped across his lips and because it was pathetic. His life was pathetic. He was pathetic. Everything he’d ever done was for naught, a futile exercise in trying to build some semblance of the Greatest Generation’s American Dream, only in the wrong era of post-Vietnam. And he’d failed. And when the TV crashed down, and with it my father, his head pressed against our vinyl siding, I think he fully accepted this failure.

The cops came.

He didn’t fight.

They put him in handcuffs right there in our kitchen. My mother wasn’t saying anything, just smoking cigarette after cigarette, her hairsprayed bangs having flattened hours before. The two officers ushered my father out of our house. I’ll never forget how gentle the Black cop was as he cradled my father’s head, guiding it underneath the squad car’s roof.

***

I’ve never raised my voice at a woman.

I’ve never broken something out of anger. I’ve never called a woman a cunt to her face and I’ve never allowed my drinking to interfere with my life. I’ve strived hard to accumulate the luxuries of the upper-middle class—a full-ride to Northwestern, fully funded graduate school at Michigan, adjunct work until tenure track, paid for my house in full with my saved book advances. I am a willing participant in the daily rituals of life. I tell my son I love him at least twice a day.

In these ways, I accomplished the one goal I set out to: I am not my father.

But Jacob has seen me being ushered away by policemen. I saw his face pressed to the Svendsons’ kitchen window. The Christmas tree lights gave him a halo, or maybe that’s simply how I remember it.

We’ve gone over the misunderstanding on several different occasions. He understands I didn’t do anything wrong. He understands Mommy was confused and scared, that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, like how sometimes he runs from his room to watch Saturday morning cartoons when it’s only Friday.

But I wonder.

I wonder what role this memory will have throughout his life. I wonder if he’ll remember me shaking my head, me spitting, me putting my hands up like I meant no harm and was leaving. I wonder if later in his life, he’ll reverse blame, somehow spin the situation into me being in the wrong. If he’ll connect the dots between motivations. And maybe he’ll make a list of nevers—I’ll never be arrested in front of my children; I’ll never marry; I’ll never procreate.

In this way, I am my father, as he was his own. We go through life promising to do better, to be better, to love, to provide, to cherish, to exercise gratitude, to guide. But more specifically, we hold on to a set of rules of nevers. And if we’re lucky, we succeed in not repeating the same sins. My father, unlike his own, never hit my mother or me. I’m sure there were times when that was all he wanted to do. I’m sure he fought against a thousand grainy memories of his father’s bony knuckles tattooing his back. I’m sure my father breathed, drank, rubbed the nubs of his missing fingers, and told himself he wasn’t that man. But in accomplishing this feat, he unearthed a whole other mess of faults I would internalize as neglect. He isolated himself in alcohol and television. He became a ghost. He became a threat I subconsciously rebelled against in hopes of having his attention turned my way.

And really, had I not fucked everything up so badly with Elliot, I wouldn’t have felt the need to make things so right with Jacob. But I did. So showing up in Minnesota, surprising my wife at her thirtieth birthday party, and seeing my son for the first time in close to two months, I wanted to make him happy. Driving back to the Marriott with my son in his seat in the middle back of the rented Taurus, I thought about the hotel pool being rather pathetic. It couldn’t have spanned more than fifty feet and the florescent lights made the whole thing feel sterile without actually being clean. I thought about Wisconsin Dells only being a three-hour drive east. Jacob would fall asleep in a matter of minutes. I had a full tank of gas, wouldn’t even have to stop. I’d carry my sleeping child into an indoor water resort of a hotel and I’d cover him in blankets and he’d wake up, excited at the thought of the crappy Marriott pool, only to be informed of the sixty-plus slides waiting for us both.

So that’s what I did.

I arrived at the Kalahari Water Park Resort close to midnight. I was able to carry Jacob inside without him so much as exercising his startle reflex. I set him down in a queen bed and turned on the TV. I watched a rerun of Seinfeld. But really I watched my child. He seemed both bigger and frailer since I’d seen him last. His fists were clenched as he slept. This was new. I wondered if it was a result of anxiety and if it was irreversible damage or if he was simply having a bad dream. I thought about calling Elliot and letting her know there’d been a slight audible, nothing serious, would still have him home by dinner. This didn’t need to happen. I thought about Elliot yelling at me over the phone and then Jacob sensing some emotional change in the room and waking, crying, the surprise being ruined. I thought about the boy Elliot was with. If she was fucking him. If he was better. If she realized it was all so cliché, both of us needing to fight against our accumulated years through the flesh of the youth.

I eventually crawled over to Jacob’s queen. I held my son. I tried to pry apart his hands, but they weren’t budging. I fell asleep with my shoes on.

***

Everything went as planned—Jacob confused, Jacob ecstatic, continental breakfast with as many doughnuts as we could muster, purchased swimsuits for twice their value at the gift shop, then the indoor water park, screams and shrieks and my son trying to act so brave as he shivered in line three stories above the pool, our backs rubbed raw from the ridges connecting each slide. We ate pizza for lunch in our room, took a short nap, and then hit the park for an afternoon session. And it is here that I struggle not to dip into melodrama, but I must run the risk. We were on the lazy river (admittedly, this one was for me, and Jacob was obediently humoring his old man). We approached a small waterfall to our left. I told Jacob he was going to get wet and he smiled and then we were under the waterfall and he screamed the androgynous scream of adolescence, his eyes wide in shock from the cold, him lunging away from the waterfall and out of his tube to my lap, his arms clasping around my neck, me returning with a bear hug. And then his whole body went limp. My immediate thought was something had broken inside of him, an aneurism or heart attack, because that was how lifeless his body became. But then I realized he was hugging me. His ear pressed against my chest. He lay like that for close to a minute. I’d never experienced a better feeling.

***

We didn’t take off from the Dells until five. I knew I’d be a little late, but I’d call from the road. I realized my phone was dead. I didn’t think much about it. No, instead I was lost inside my head with thoughts about making things right. Maybe that would be with Elliot, maybe it wouldn’t. But it had to be right for Jacob. Worst-case scenario, I could take a leave of absence from teaching and relocate to Minnesota. I could get away with this for at least a semester. I could watch Jacob during the day when Elliot was at work. Maybe I could take the weekends too. And maybe, just fucking maybe, there’d be a night when I dropped off Jacob, and Elliot’s Hitler father was already asleep, when she’d ask if I wanted a cup of coffee. We’d sit around the kitchen table. I’d be holding Jacob, who’d be fast asleep. I’d ask her about work. She’d make her usual witty and self-deprecating comments about being thirty and working at a geriatric clothing store. She’d ask how I liked Minnesota in January with its negative-thirty windchill. I’d tell her it was growing on me. There’d be silence. We’d look at our cups of Folgers. We’d be thinking of things to say. She’d be fighting the thought of things being easier if we were together. She’d be forcing herself to remember the sight of me committing adultery. I’d be trying to come up with a way to bridge the foot gap between our resting hands, for there to be some small intimate contact. Maybe the silence would stretch toward uncomfortable, and it’d be becoming clear that the cup of coffee was a moment of weakness on Elliot’s behalf. We’d both sense this. And there’d be no angle or strategy for me to play to extend the handoff of our child, only honesty, and I’d say it—Elliot, I just want you to know I am so fucking sorry for everything. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better husband when you were dealing with your postpartum depression. I’m sorry I withdrew under the bullshit rationale of being a strong father for Jacob. I’m sorry I didn’t make more of an effort to understand your pain. I’m sorry I left you alone with him all day. I’m sorry I went on building my life, one where you were a compartmentalized home furnishing. And I’m so fucking sorry for the other stuff. I can’t imagine what it was like for you to see that. I can say all the bullshit about it only being once and it not meaning anything, but I know that’s unfair, because it did mean something; it meant immense hurt for you and Jacob. And for this, I beg your forgiveness. No, I take that back, you don’t owe me that. I just want you to know that although our relationship was far from perfect, you were and are the only woman I’ve ever loved. There’s not a minute that goes by where I don’t think about how badly I’ve fucked up by hurting you.

Here Elliot would be crying. She’d make a motion with her hands that I would mistake as her beckoning me over, but really it’d be for our son. She’d take him in her arms and he’d stir and she’d kiss his hairline. She’d huff in the boy smell of his neck. She’d look at me. She’d say, I’m trying, Devon. I’m really fucking trying.

I’d nod. I’d stand. I’d tell her I knew she was, and I was grateful beyond words. I’d bend over and mimic the action she’d done to Jacob. I’d kiss the crown of her head. I’d know I wasn’t deserving of this second chance. I’d tell her to get some sleep.

***

I pulled into the Svendsons’ driveway at nine-eighteen. The front door swung open before I noticed the parked cop car. Elliot was at my back door yanking it open, ripping out a just-woken Jacob. His cries started instantly. Elliot was yelling at me and so was her father and her fucking boyfriend and there was a policeman standing between us and I understood she’d called 911 because she thought I had kidnapped my child and fat Mr. Svendson’s fingers were waving in my face and my son was wailing and Elliot kept yelling that I’d never fucking see Jacob again, and it was freezing cold, but all I could think about was the naivety of my stupid fucking fantasy. Elliot believed me capable of abduction. Elliot believed me capable of ruining her life twice.

Something snapped with this realization and Mr. Svendson’s meaty fingers making contact with my chest. I swung. It was the first time I’d ever punched another person in the face. It felt like hitting a bowling ball. Then I was being shoved against my rented Taurus and everybody’s screams became muted and this was when I looked to the kitchen window and saw Jacob illuminated by the Christmas tree lights and this was when I thought of my father and this was when a never became a laughable joke with every fucking mistake I’d ever made being the punch line.