I get my coat and I get in the car.
I sit in the driveway for a moment — engine on this time, heat running, hands on the wheel — and I look at the front door and I think about walking back in there and saying the thing I drove two and a half hours to say and didn't.
I sat in the hard chair and I answered questions about hockey and then I waited to be dismissed and I was dismissed and I got my coat and I got in the car.
I didn't say it, though. The one question I wanted to ask.
Why couldn't you love me?
The way fathers are supposed to.
The way you loved hockey.
What was so wrong with me?
I used to lie awake at night and try to figure it out.
Maybe if I worked harder.
Maybe if I played better.
Maybe if I got stronger.
Maybe if I stopped being whatever it was you saw when you looked at me.
Maybe if I fixed all of the things you said were wrong with me.
Maybe then.
Maybe then you'd look at me and see your son instead of a problem.
I spent years trying to become someone easier to love.
Years.
And none of it mattered.
Because it was never about how hard I worked.
Or how good I was.
It was me.
Just me.
Was it really that bad?
What I was?
I did exactly what you wanted.
Every time I stood there and took the beating because I thought if I could just survive long enough you'd eventually see me.
Was it really enough to make you stop loving me?
Or worse—
Did you ever love me at all?
