One silly little name.
That’s all I’ve got left from him.
When he was nowhere to be found, I’d made my way to the garage. I knew he liked to hang out in there since the crash. I couldn’t understand why, though. Doesn’t it remind him of what he’s lost? Nine-year-old Aveena asked herself. Doesn’t it make him think about how he’ll never drive one of those fast cars again?
My dad was a race car driver, and a damn good one at that. He loved it more than anything in the world.
Even his family, apparently.
One wrong turn and it was over.
He lost use of his legs, his career, his dream. He landed in a wheelchair and became a completely different person. He went from world’s best dad to shell of a human being overnight. Then he fell into a depression so dark, no one, not even my mom, could pull him out.
And she tried. Lord, did she try. She loved my father more than she ever loved any of us, even Ashley. She forced him to get help. But two years of constant therapy later, here we were.
In a cold, dusty garage that reeked of goodbyes.
He was sitting in an old swinging chair when I came in. At first, I shook his arm. I asked, screamed for him to wake up until my voice was no more. My child brain couldn’t comprehend what the empty bottle of pills in his hand meant.
There was a letter, too.
One my mom refused to let us read.
She claimed it contained the rambles of a broken man and we were too young and fragile to be exposed to such tragedy. She swore it was for the best and the only important thing was that he said he loved us and he was sorry. I cried, begged her for a chance to read it.
She burned the letter a few days later.
Then she never spoke of him again.
She sent Ashley and me to therapy so we could talk about himto professionals but never to her directly—I still go from time to time. She was in complete denial then, and she’s in complete denial now.
It’s like she shut down after she had to rip me away from his body. She was closer with Ashley than with me long before my dad passed, but she grew even more distant after that night.
I gather the courage to drive to the springs two hours later. Dad used to take me there whenever I was sad as a kid. The springs were ourspot.Our favorite place in town, in the whole wide world, really. We’d sit by the stream, listen to nature and the water rumbling in the distance.
It always cheered me up.
Now it just makes me sad.
I park my car in the designated area. You can see and hear the springs without getting out of your car from here. Funny enough, the springs’ parking lot is never packed. The locals have grown bored with the town’s wonders and leave visiting honors to the tourists now. Oh, and the couples looking for a hookup spot.
Halfheartedly, I open my car’s glove compartment and pull out a pen and paper. I come prepared every year. I’ll never say it out loud, but I hate my mother for what she did to his final words.
And since I never got to read his letter…
I thought maybe he could read mine.
Every year, I come here, put on music as I bawl my eyes out, and write him a letter. Tell him everything he’s missed. It’s probably pointless, but I do it anyway.
I used to throw the letter into the water and watch it sink to the bottom, but I figured that wasn’t good for the environment, so now I just shred it to pieces and let the breeze blow them away.
It’s probably still not good for the environment, but hey, I tried.
I turn the radio on to dampen the sound of my breakdown and let it all out. I cry until I can’t breathe. My letter isn’t lengthy, but then again, neither was his.
It was one page.
One short page to say goodbye. I sign off the letter with “Love,” his nickname for me, and reverse out of the parking lot. As I’m rolling down my window to let the wind take my words to my dad, I dare hope that one day…
“Love” will stand for something good.