I got back on my feet. Oliver was right. This was unfair. Here I was, a grown-ass man, feeling like I’d been cheated from time with my father, all because of what? Because of his self-imposed fears and prejudice? Because he lived in a world too cruel to accept him for who he really was, so that cruelty turned inward before being aimed directly at me?
“Beckham… I don’t… I’m not sure it would have changed anything.” Oliver’s voice was soft, but it cut through the symphony of chaos that filled my head. “He had a disease that was set on killing him. This might have been the only way he had to get it all out and have it mean something. It was out of his control, as badly as I wish it wasn’t. This letter, it’s your dad; it’s him saying sorry. It’s him saying he would be here.”
“Ten years. He was with him for ten years.”
“And have you two ever talked during that time?”
“He’s tried… Jesus. He tried calling me. Four separate times.”
“And?” Oliver asked, even though he must have already known the answer.
“I denied all four calls.” The wind fueling my rage ship sails disappeared. A fire of self-doubt and pain started up on the deck. “What if he was trying to tell me then?”
“You can’t do that.” He straightened his back, lifted his shoulders. His voice was still soft, but there was a harder edge glistening underneath his words. “What’s done is done. There’s no point in guessing how any of those four conversations could have gone. It sounds like he didn’t get the courage to be honest about it until recently, and that’s where the shame lies. But not in what you ‘could’ have done or what you ‘should’ have done, cuz neither of those things matter right now. What matters is what you’regoingto do.”
I felt myself moving away from the ledge. Oliver was a guiding force, bringing me back to the rational side of things. It didn’t ease the raw pain that wedged into me like a broken dagger, stuck between my ribs and digging through all the sensitive nerves and thick muscles. No, I wasn’t sure anything except time would ease that pain.
But still, Oliver worked to move my mind away from the twisting dagger.
“We could have been good,” I said, my voice cracking. I imagined a world in which we were good. Where I would visit him and his partner and have dinners with them and introduce them to Oliver and move past all the trauma that had been inflicted. “I would have worked on forgiving him. On making things better.”
“I know you would have, Beck. And I know things would have gotten better.” Oliver’s eyes seemed to dig through all the muck that was floating about me, threatening to suffocate me. “There’s nothing to work on for now except yourself. That’s what his message is really about. He’s found his peace; now it’s time you get yours.”
Oliver’s words hit home, and they hit hard.
“You’re right,” I said, after a brief moment of cicada-filled silence. “It’ll take some time. I won’t lie. But I think I’ll find some peace over all this.”
“You will.” Oliver rested his head on my shoulder. I had never felt so connected with someone else than I felt with Oliver in that moment. It was as if I’d been propelled out of my body and was looking at the two of us from the outside, as though we were painted into a picture destined to be framed next to a classic masterpiece.
“I love you, Oliver. So, so much. It’s almost painful.”
Oliver lifted his head from my shoulder. He looked a little awestruck, his jaw slightly open. And then he said the words I’d been dying to hear from him.
“I love you, too, Beck. More than you can ever know.”
We kissed under the moonlight, the proclamation of love from the both of us spilling over into the moment like an overflowing glass of the most expensive wine.
The weight of it all didn’t escape me. I hadn’t told someone I loved them since my last long-term relationship, which ended five years ago. I hadn’t found anyone since, and I was resigning myself to thinking that there would be no one else.
Then in walked Oliver into my life. “Remember when you introduced yourself to me as Jamison?”
Oliver’s eyes opened wide, and he let out a surprised laugh. “I do, yes. It was because I saw a bottle of Jamison behind the bar and couldn’t think of anything else. God, that feels like it was years ago, huh?”
“It does.” I kissed Oliver again, never wanting to stop. “I’m happy you ended up telling me your real name.”
“Me too.” Oliver smiled as he kissed me, neither of us able to keep our lips separated for long. “I’m also glad I got the guts to talk to you that night. I was so close to just apologizing for bumping into you and walking away.”
“Really?”
“Deadass.”
“Dead… what?”
“Deadass, it means dead serious.” Oliver must have picked up on the face I gave him. “I know, I know. Deadass, it’s weird.”
We both laughed, the roller coaster of a night felt like it was pulling up to a stop. My father’s letter was folded up next to me.
“I’m glad I didn’t walk away that night, too. I was close.”