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“Your child is a grown up. And you’re divorced. The only reason I told you about mom is because I’d been drinking and couldn’t drive myself. This has to stop at some point, Dad. You’re enabling her. When are you going to stop pining after her and start living your life? It’s been twenty years since you divorced. All that time and you haven’t moved on.”
Ryan shifted awkwardly on his feet. “Yeah, well some relationships don’t stick to the rules, you know. Jenny will always be special to me. I’ll always love her. You can’t turn those feelings off, no matter how much you want to.”
Jackson would have laughed, but it wasn’t funny. He knew exactly what his dad meant. And for a moment, he saw himself in twenty years’ time. Would he pine after Lydia the way his dad pined after his mom?
The thought felt like a punch to the gut. He couldn’t live his life like that. He didn’t want to be like his dad, always hoping she’d come back. Living his life around the hole she left. Christ, he loved her, but he couldn’t keep saying goodbye.
This was killing him.
Anger surged up inside of him. At the situation he and Lydia had found themselves in. At his mom and her inability to be a grown-up, no matter how old she was. And for his dad and his refusal to move on from the love of his life.
“You need to let go,” Jackson told him. “This thing you have for mom, it’s unhealthy. Stop riding in like a knight in shining armor.”
“I can’t,” his dad said quietly. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”
Jackson gritted his teeth. “She walked away, Dad. She left us. Left you.”
“No, she didn’t.”
Jackson froze. “What do you mean? Of course she did. I watched her leave.” And the little kid inside of him still hurt over it.
“You saw what you wanted to see. She didn’t leave, I kicked her out.”
He blinked. That wasn’t true. His mom was the one who walked out of their lives. She was the one who’d wanted a divorce, to be single and free. Not his dad.
“I don’t understand,” Jackson said, his brow creasing.
“It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, asking her to leave. But she was making our lives a misery. She’d take you out of school and I’d get calls from them telling me you’d disappeared or hadn’t showed up at all and they had no idea where you were. Some days I’d come home and you’d both be in your pajamas. Other times you’d disappear for days, and come back wearing Mickey ears and telling me all about your great adventures.” Ryan looked down at his hands. “And then there were the days when she’d go off on her own, and I’d come home and you’d be eating beans from a can. The house would be a dumpster. She’d fling things around and leave them everywhere, then walk out for a day or two without telling me. I begged her to see a doctor, or for us to go to counseling, but she refused. So I told her she needed to go.”
Ryan looked up, his eyes full of sadness. “I didn’t want to do it. But it was affecting you. You were confused and angry, and a lot of the time your school work was suffering. They started talking about keeping you back a year, and that’s when I knew something had to give.”
“You didn’t tell me…” Jackson whispered. “Why didn’t I know this?”
“Because you were a kid. You didn’t need to be involved in grown up stuff. I didn’t want you to be. I wanted you to enjoy being a child.”
Jackson shook his head, trying to make sense of his dad’s words. “But all these years, you’ve still loved her?”
“Yeah. It’s a strange mixture of love and guilt. Once she left, she really went off the rails. There was a year or two that I was terrified for her.”
“So the money you give her, it’s guilt money?”
Ryan’s eyes met his. “It’s money I have and that she needs. That’s all it is.”
Another thought captured Jackson’s mind. “But you let me believe she was the one who left. All these years… I’ve blamed her. I’ve been mad at her.” His muscles stiffened at the thought. “You should have told me.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “You should have…”
“I know.”
The elevator arrived, the doors opening with a ping. But Jackson couldn’t get into it. Not when everything he knew was upside down. Couldn’t go to the cafeteria like nothing had happened with the two people who’d made him what he was – good and bad. Their relationship was messed up, the same way his childhood was.
“I need some air,” he said, turning on his heel to head for the stairs.
“Son, I—”
Jackson held up his hand. “Just let me be alone for a minute. I need to think.”
His dad nodded, lips turned down. “Okay,” he said softly.
The hospital was even quieter as Jackson walked down the stairs and through reception, heading out of the glass sliding doors to the parking lot. The air was cool as it hit his skin, and he took a deep breath, slumping against the wall of the hospital as he tried to make sense of his thoughts.
