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“Stop saying that.”
As far as I was concerned, he was trying to let himself off the hook.
And I wasn’t going to let him.
He had finally pushed me too far, and I was finally ready to push back.
Until one of us broke.
My father cleared his throat and leaned forward. “It’s true. I know that she did her best with you, but your mother had been struggling since the minute you were born.”
I pressed my mouth into a thin, white line.
“She had postpartum depression,” he continued in a quieter voice. “We didn’t know it at the time, so she was undiagnosed for a very long time.”
“She---what? No, mom wasn’t sick.”
She couldn’t have been.
All of my memories of her were of a strong and loving woman who would’ve moved heaven and earth for me.
My father exhaled and clasped his fingers together. “I never wanted to tell you. She actually begged me not to, but it’s time that you knew the truth. I loved your mother, but she’s the one who pushed me away. She kept me at arm’s length, so I tried to respect her wishes. I hoped that in time she would get better.”
“I even hoped that her love for you would help her find a way back to us, but her depression got worse over time. She even accused me of having affairs, including one with her best friend.”
“But I was there. I saw her.”
And I hadn’t seen any sign of her illness.
But I hadn’t been looking.
“I tried to keep you away from it. Why do you think I sent you to boarding school? I didn’t want you seeing your mother like that. I was trying to protect you, Bernard. I’ve always tried to protect you.”
I stood up and ran a hand over my face. “No, it’s not possible.”
My father sucked in a harsh breath and lowered his head. “I spent years telling myself the same thing. For a long time, Iconvinced myself that the Eleanor I loved would find her way back to me, but she never did.”
“Even on her worst days, she was a much better mother than I was a father.”
I could barely hear anything past the dull roar in my ears.
Instead, I stood there staring at him while a fire roared in the background, casting long shadows across the wall. I kept waiting for him to glance up at me, for the familiar smirk to give him away, but he remained hunched over, his towering frame frail and defeated.
He didn’t look anything at all like the man I’d come to know.
Suddenly, I saw my mother talking to herself in the bathroom. I remembered her fidgeting whenever my father came too close and how she always glanced over his shoulders when he hugged her. Then I saw her in bed, a blanket drawn up to her chin and a blank expression on her face.
I had let myself forget in a desperate attempt to protect myself from the truth.
All these years later, the truth still hurt.
I should’ve never confronted my father.
“What happened on the day she died?”
Slowly, my father stood up and drew himself up to his full height. His blue eyes were wide and brimming with emotion when he looked at me. “I told you that she stayed in bed all day until I went to wake her up, and I…she wouldn’t wake up.”
I nodded tightly.
