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I got tired of Aunt Jeanie saying that, so I wrote a letter to the president once. When a response came, I was awarded with two black eyes. I had to miss school. After that, I stopped writing letters.
It was probably for the best. One day when I was home sick I found all the letters I’d written my father in a stack in my aunt’s nightstand. It hit me why she hadn’t sent them. There was too much truth inked on those pages. All of a sudden, it made sense why my father never answered my questions or wrote about any of the things I was interested in. He had no idea. He didn’t know me at all.
Not long after that, I vowed I would never be poor again. I learned everything I could about money.
Senior year, when the money I’d stashed away went missing, I intercepted the check my father sent that month, cashed it, and took what was mine. Maybe I should have let it go. But this was important. I was taking a girl to the prom, and even though it wasn’t a real date—she made it clear she just didn’t want to go alone—I couldn’t exactly let her down at the last minute.
When Aunt Jeanie realized what had happened, she showed up to the gymnasium drunk, railing. “You think a girl like that could ever want you?” she yelled. She walked right on the dance floor and accosted a poor kid that wasn’t even me. That’s how drunk she was. “You’re fooling yourself. Look at her. She pities you. There’s a difference, Thomas.” Everyone knew who my aunt was. She didn’t have to say my name. “And someday,” she slurred. “Someday you’ll learn what that is.”
It wouldn’t have been so bad if that had been the worst of it. It wasn’t. A few weeks later, I came home from school to find Aunt Jeanie on the couch staring at the ceiling. Her eyes were glazed over. I thought she was dead. The doctors said she’d had a stroke. Eventually, she woke up, but she wasn’t the same person. She was worse. Combative and angry, even more so than before. The doctors diagnosed her with dementia, likely brought on by the excessive alcohol use. She did get better after a few weeks in the hospital. But not much.
We didn’t have money to keep her there, or anywhere else for that matter, so I brought her home. My father was supposed to come home on leave, but then some conflict broke out somewhere and he couldn’t.
Every day Aunt Jeanie would make my father a cake in preparation for his arrival. Every day, the conflict was not resolved. After two weeks, I explained there could be no more cakes. But Jeanie insisted. She cried like a small child. She reverted into herself. Dementia is a horrible disease. Eventually, I gave in. This time Jeanie was convinced it was my father’s birthday, so I stocked the house with cakes until her use of the oven became a concern. It was the least I could do. I’d come home from school and a cake would be waiting. It was the same day, every day. At least to her. I would celebrate with her and she would insist that I blow out candles. At first, I wished for my father to come home. Then I wished for Aunt Jeanie to die.
She called me Anthony when she sang. My father’s name.
In the beginning, I cared to correct her. I’d say, “No, I’m Tommie, remember?”
“That’s right. You’re Thomas.”
I’d tell her stories to help her remember. It’s the only thing that keeps you sane when there’s no one left to remember everything you thought you knew.
“Anthony,” she’d say in the next breath. “Why don’t you get a job here in town? Surely the lumberyard would hire you.”
“No, Aunt Jeanie. I’m Thomas.”
“But that boy needs you,” she said. “You know I don’t like kids.”
When I left for college, my father put her in a home run by the state. Even after he was discharged, he never came back from wherever he’d been, not really. She couldn’t be alone, he’d said, and I couldn’t stay. I’d drive sixty miles one way on Sundays, after work, to see her. She always called me Anthony when I walked in the door.
Eventually, when she forgot both of our names, I stopped going all together.
Not long after that, my wish finally came true.
Chapter Nineteen
Melanie
How well can you really ever know a person? I ask myself this, looking over at Tom. I consider asking his opinion. But I won’t. We’re backing out of the drive, and this could be a mistake. Mom left. Maybe I should have stopped her. Was I wrong to send her on her way? I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything right now. I don’t know where we’re going or how long we’ll be gone. I don’t even know if I have packed the proper attire. I do know it was the first time I’d ever seen my mother look proud of something I accomplished, and even if that something was landing a man, I couldn’t bear to let her down. Sometimes you take what you can get.
Speaking of which, what I didn’t get is a chance to drive my new car. Maybe I should have insisted. But Tom was adamant. Planes don’t wait. Before I knew it, he was hurling me out the door.
Maybe I should tell the driver to pull over and let me out. I don’t know.
If I keep my eyes focused straight ahead, I’ll come up with a plan. I’ll figure it out.
Tom briefly glances over at me. Then he looks down at the phone in his hand. “Just have to tie up a few loose ends real quick.”
We’re seated in the backseat adjacent to one another. I study the back of the driver’s head. If we’re going to have a fight, and we are, I realize now is the best time to have it.
“Are we even going to talk about what happened?”
My husband’s eyes shift in the direction of the driver.
“Of course we are.”
I widen my eyes. I’m expecting more.
