Cold. Untouchable. Even with him.
“There was no more mistaking her depression.” That was the good news, such as it was. “She finally got diagnosed, found a therapist, and started meds. And one day, she came home from work, packed a suitcase, and asked where I wanted to be. Which one of them I wanted to live with.”
“You chose her.” Another nonquestion.
“Dad always said we were two peas in a pod. He had no idea how to deal with either one of us at that point, especially when I was a surly little shit.” He snorted. “And Maria, I wasfrequentlya surly little shit.”
Her laugh rang with genuine amusement, and he found himself smiling too.
“I believe you,skitstövel,” she said, patting him on the arm. “How did your father take you and your mom leaving?”
And suddenly, he was back to feeling he might never smile again. “When she left, it broke him, Maria. He was desperate to win her back. He gave her birthday and anniversary gifts. Hung a Christmas stocking for her on the mantel, just in case she decided to come home. He’d call and beg her to talk, beg her to tell him what he needed to do for her to move back to the house, and she tried once or twice. She really did. But what she said made no sense to him, and eventually she started screening his calls.”
“What about you?” Maria’s frown pinched her forehead. “Didn’t he care that you were gone too?”
“I guess.” Re-creating his father’s thought processes had never come easily to him, to put it mildly. “I think he sort of consideredme a . . . um, kind of a subset of my mom. Not something separate that he’d miss independently of her.”
Her voice turned rough. Fierce with anger. “I hope you were happier without him. Both of you.”
“Maybe?” Everything was in such turmoil for so long, happiness had seemed almost beside the point. “Mom would only accept enough of Dad’s money to support me. I don’t know why. I guess she wanted to prove something, to herself or to him. So we lived in a shitty apartment, and she still had to do transcription work. But she had more energy, and we spent more time together. She’d sketch, and I’d read. Or we’d take walks, like I said.”
Now came the rest of it. The hardest part of all to talk about, which was why he didn’t. Why he hadn’t. Resting his elbows on his bent knees, he hunched forward and watched the tiny little waves rush in to shore, one after another.
The world went on, always, and there was still beauty in it. Even when he couldn’t see that beauty. And there had been so many years when he couldn’t, anywhere but onstage and on set, where he could be somewhere else. Someone else. Someone who could offer and receive uncomplicated love and appreciate the resilience of the living.
For a while, Anne had reopened the world to him, but it shut tight again after she left.
And then, six years ago, he’d walked into an LA sauna and seen a woman with hair like sunshine, eyes like warm earth, and all the strength and softness he needed so desperately.
When he reached out blindly, she clasped his hand without hesitation.
He took a hard breath. “Almost exactly two years after my parents separated, my mom died of a massive stroke at work.”
Her long fingers caressed the back of his hand. His palm.
“I’m so sorry, Peter,” she whispered. “So, so sorry,sötnos.”
He cleared his throat. Twice. “Me too.”
After play rehearsal that night, not knowing what had happened, Peter had watched in surprise as his father pulled into the school lot and parked, hands shaking on the wheel, and that was it. That was the end of the life he and his mother had slowly constructed, stone by stone.
Back in his old home, everything was the same, and nothing was the same. He was still a surly little shit, and Dad was still loving, befuddled, and entirely unable to deal with his son.
But now he was also entirely unable to deal with his own grief, much less Peter’s.
“I went back to my dad.” With his small kick, a nearby pebble splashed into the water. “And he cringed every time he looked at me.”
Maria muttered something in Swedish. Probably an obscenity involving shit. “You reminded him of her.”
At first, Peter had hoped that would pass, but his father never truly managed to let his wife go. Never managed to move on, if only enough to see his son as a separate being. An entirely different person, who needed him.
Or if not him,someone. Anyone. Any fucking person who could help Peter grapple with the rage and agony and the crippling loneliness. The desolate, gaping hole in his life that only his mom had filled.
But his father never found that person. Not in himself. Not in someone else.
And Peter didn’t know how to ask for help, not when he barely talked, had no friends, and the only person who’deverhelped him was a pile of ashes enclosed in a decorative urn on the mantel above the fireplace. Contained safely at long last, where Dad would see her always, and she could never leave him again.
Outside of what his father considered crucial daily interactions, they barely spoke for years. Dad took care of meals. Herded him to the bus stop on time and made certain all homework got completed before dinner. Mandated showers and toothbrushing.