A Collection of Thoughts I’ll Never Say to You

Do you know that Mom cried every day after you left?Always in the mornings. In the shower.When she thought I couldn’t hear.

I can’t remember you and Mom together. I don’t remember your fights, but I also don’ tremember us as a family.
I wish that I could.

I want to know the story behind you and Mom. How you met, how you fell in love. I try to keep track and see if there’s a day when Mom is the angriest, or the saddest, or the most prone to cracking. I wonder if it’s your wedding day. I’m afraid to ask, even though it is my history, too.

“Who are you texting?” you said.
You always ask that, as if it’s any of your business.
“I’m not texting, I’m Snapchatting.”
You took your hand off the wheel. Started to snap. And talk.
“Look at me,” you said. We were always looking at you. Like you would just - poof - disappear. “I’m snap chatting.”
That joke got old quick.

It’s selfish that you left us; it’s selfish of me to wish you had stayed.

When we talk about music, about chord progressions and black keys, about The Who and Vince Gill, I forget everything I hate about you.
I could play a two chord song and you’d still grin at me like I’m Bonnie Raitt.
On Friday nights you picked me up from swim practice. You loved telling people that I was a synchronized swimmer, and I loved hearing you say it, even though my face got hot and my smile felt slippery.
“My meet is next weekend, can you make it? It’s in Ipswich.” You lived there at the time.
“I’ll have to see. I’ll try to make it.”
You didn’t. You never did.
Still, standing up there with a first place medal never felt as good as telling you I’d got one.

We used to go ice skating in Peabody. I clung to the wall and stared at you. You’d stop and sprayme with ice. I loved that. Like you were a god that made it snow just for me.

“Lesley University, huh?”
“Yeah, they have a really great program.”
“Be careful you don’t become a Commie.”
Maybe I’ll become a Communist just to spite you.

I was always divided between you and Mom. After Obama was reelected, I asked you if you thought he was a good president.
“Mom told me that she voted for him. That he’s good.”
You scoffed. “I didn’t vote for him.”
I don’t mind that you’re a Republican, that you vote for people I disagree with. I mind that you like to make fun of liberals. I mind that I’m a liberal when I’m with you.
I would rather be a Republican than lose you.

You were bred from a Revere cop and a pill-popping housewife. The youngest of three boys that were supposed to be four. High school quarterback. Star hockey defenseman. Winning smile with a single dimple. You always text me love yooze because that’s the Revere way. I always text you back, love yooze, too. My fingers never stutter and my brain never thinks.

You told us Memere died through a text.
“That really hurt, Dad,” Isabelle said. “You should’ve called us.”
I curled into myself as she spoke. Daniel, as the youngest, will fight you with reckless abandon, but Isabelle only says something when she feels desperate. I won’t say anything at all.
“This is my fault?” you said. “I’m dealing with a lot right now. You could’ve reached out. I haven’t heard anything from you. I had to call the funeral home, and talk to Uncle Robert about bills, and-”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Isabelle said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t breathe at the funeral. I counted the tiles on the wall of the church. Read the names of the parish’s donors. Of the dead priests. Tallied up the bibles in the pews. Choked on sobs during the peace be with yous. You hugged me. My mascara got on your new white shirt.
“She’s with Jesus now,” you said.
I wanted to scream at you, bullshit.

Part of me had always thought that when Jane succumbed to her cancer, you would die too. Like it had metastasized from her body to yours, a marital disease that spread from second wives to second husbands.
She died this year. You didn’t. I don’t know how to talk to you. I refuse to come over without Isabelle there. She can talk to anyone about anything. I like being eclipsed by her when you’re around.

We all sat together at Isabelle’s college graduation. Watched her walk across the stage. You and Mom said hello politely.
After eleven years, we were a family again. You and Mom were a family again.

At Isabelle’s graduation party, Daniel drank three beers. You didn’t say a word. He was seventeen. And desperate. You’re the one who gave us these messed up genes. The ones filled with panic and depression and the needs to drink and smoke and fuck everything up. He’s living under your roof. He’s my brother. He’s your son. Fucking act like it.

My nightmares are filled with funerals. Dan’s. Mom’s. Isabelle’s. But never yours.

“Your father sued me again. I wish he would fucking leave me alone. I’ve let payments slide, I never took him to court. This time everyone will know. I stayed quiet when he sued back then. I’m not staying quiet now.”
You’re suing her. For what? All of the child support you never fucking paid? The medical bills from years of me going to therapy? From Daniel being admitted over and over and over again to a hospital for being suicidal? What more do you want from Mom? From us?
“I’m not talking to Dad. I think it would help if you didn’t, either. He cares about you more.” Isabelle didn’t look at me when she said it. I had been lying in bed for two hours, staring at nothing. Mom was on the phone with the lawyer.
“That’s not true,” I said.
“It is. And I’m not talking to him, so you shouldn’t either.”
“Okay.”
You called me the next day. I picked up. And I bit my cheek the entire time.

You still call me Lulu, like I’m five, walking around in footie pajamas.
“First, you were Bobo the Lion, because you had the cutest curls and roared all the time. And Lion turned into LiLi, and LiLi turned into Lulu, and now you’re my Lulu. My Lulubelle.”

I keep a voicemail from each person I love. In case I need to hear their voices again. I have nineteen of yours.

Yes, I cried to get you to pay your court mandated tuition contribution. Yes, I’m a manipulative bitch. Just like Mom. Will you tell me that to my face, too?

“I see why Dad left you.” Dan screamed it. Mom went to her room. The next day, Mom told us what happened between you two. I don’t remember what she said. There’s some switch in my brain that flips when I hear something bad about you. You’re my father. I’d rather think you’re perfect than anything else.

When Mom kicked Dan out, you were there. There to take him in. There to corroborate that Mom is a crazy bitch, and that you have been the victim from the very beginning.

Daniel looks like you. I mean, just like you. I wonder if that drives Mom insane.

What if all this time you’ve been telling the truth? What if Mom lied?

“Michael went off on your dad,” Mom said.
“Michael did?”
“I guess Caitlin was talking about what happened down the Cape.” Sometimes I forget that I am not the only one in your life. That I am not the only one angry with you. Yes, you left me and Isabelle and Daniel. But you also left my cousins. They adored you.
I have a picture. You. Michael and me on your lap. You held Make Way for Ducklings and Michael and I held each other. You cared then, right? You loved us then, right?

Cape Cod. The first full week with Daniel since he left us. To live with you.
“Daniel?”
He took the side apartment. Meant for a single adult, or a kid desperate not to get caught.
“Dan?”
I know you think that by not fighting him on these things that he’ll work himself out, but he won’t.
“Dan, seriously. If you scare me . . .”
You’ve never discouraged it. You’ve never told him no.
“Dan?”
He was on the bathroom floor. He wouldn’t wake up.
“This isn’t funny. Daniel.”
I pulled on his eyelids, forced myself to take his pulse.
“Get up, Dan. Please.”
Mom took him to the hospital. His face was so pale, it looked purple. Hours later, they pulled up to our rental. No one said a word when he slunk to the kitchen, made a sandwich, and called it a night.
“What happened?” I said to Mom. Her whole body looked like it was about to cave in.
He’s her son. He’s your son.
“He took too much.”
“Of what?”
“He wouldn’t say. He told the nurse he was fine,” Mom said.
“Can’t you-”
“No. Leave it. There’s nothing we can do.” Leave it. Leave him. Like you did. Like he’s already halfway gone and we have to sit around waiting to see if he’s going to show up dead or clean, because we can’t do anything. His family can’t do anything.

The day that I got admitted to Salem Hospital was the first time that Mom told me that you had been admitted to Salem Hospital on the night before my eighth birthday.
“It was for a suicide attempt,” she said.
The social worker wrote it down. I stared at Mom. What?
History is cyclical. Genes must be, too.

Mom always tells me never to go out with someone who honks in the driveway. You do that all the time.

It’s hard loving you. Sometimes I think I just say that I do. Like a requirement.