I'm working so much this week I find myself falling behind on my Freewrites. I think that's the reason I dedicated so much to this one.
This is for the daily prompt: direct responsibility. You can see the prompt Here.
Hope you like it, sorry if it hits a little too close to home for some people.
Her words took me to that horrible place. To a closet I never open in a room I never enter. To a submerged part of my mind I kept drowned in alcohol and whatever else I could get. I barely glimpsed it, but even that was too much. A poison held at bay for decades seeped into my heart.
A trembling hand reached for a bottle and found only emptiness.
"I said I love you, dad."
Grief gathered like a knot in my throat. I let out a quaking breath and held my face, my senses raw and sober. She just happened to find me in the twilight between my last drink of the day and the first of the next.
"You don't have to live like this."
I spat a laugh and turned away. My hands ached as I rummaged through refuse and detritus for something to dull the pain.
"You've punished yourself enough, it's time to come home."
"I am home." I sputtered pathetically. She crossed her arms and leaned to one side in the same manner her mother would. I could feel her eyes burrow into me.
"Do you know how long it took me to find you?"
She spoke with her mother's voice; every syllable and intonation hauntingly familiar yet uniquely different. At that point my whole body began to tremble and I remembered one of the reasons why I left.
"You aren't registered anywhere. We looked for years, even after the police gave up. I never stopped. I had my jacket and my wallet stolen trying to find you."
"I didn't ask you to do any of that." I checked my pocket and found a cigarette butt with at least four good puffs remaining. I lit it up and took a long satisfying drag.
"What kind of answer is that?" It was Piper's voice but through Veronica's mouth. She would use that tone when I annoyed her, or when I did something stupid. I was plenty stupid. My stomach lurched as a suppressed memory slipped and began drifting toward the surface.
"Look at this place, dad. This isn't a home a home. This isn't what any of us wanted, especially mum. It's time you met your grand-children."
"Why? They don't know a thing about me." Another puff and it was done.
"They ask about you a lot."
I didn't know their names and she knew it.
"Jacob is ten and Claire is eight and they want to meet you. Blake has kids as well, did you know that?"
"Little Blake has children?"
I raised my head and looked at my grown daughter's face. It was so perfect. She had every ounce of her mother's beauty and more. I felt for a moment that the past thirty years might have been a bad dream, but they weren't. I looked away. Suddenly I could hear tires screeching as razor sharp memories began cutting me from all directions.
"He's not little anymore. His children's names are Quentin and..."
"Are you okay?"
Images of a green car assaulted me. A flash showed the car slowly budging from its parking spot, another showed it inching backwards pushed by nothing. I watched in horror as it approached the steep incline of Berger Road. Then... Then I saw her face.
"It's okay, dad." Her hand touched mine and my body stopped shaking.
"No one blames you."
"But I'm directly responsible." An all-too familiar self loathing came over me.
"No you're not, you never were."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"No, you don't know what you're talking about. I proved it."
I definitely didn't hear that right.
"You what? But I served time."
"You shouldn't have and I have proof."
"Bullshit."
She challenged me with a grin that wasn't like her mother at all. No, this was me coming out in her.
"Come with me and I'll show you."
That was my voice this time. It was same voice I used when I sold to wholesalers - only through her it sounded different. Her confidence wasn't fake like mine, she wasn't selling me something. I squinted and took note of the suit she was wearing, no wonder she got robbed. Before I could speak she stopped me.
"I'll tell you what you are responsible for."
"What's that?"
She handed me a phone with a photo of dozens of people posing in a suburban back yard. I could see a verandah and a stretch of properly trimmed grass. I could see a barbeque in the background and all the blokes had their shirts off like they had been swimming. Ladies sat around a large white table waving and smiling at the camera, while others waved cheekily in their two piece swim clothes.
They all looked happy and healthy. A timestamp read 25/12/2020. This was Christmas just a couple of months ago.
"You're responsible for that, you and mum both are. We all love you, and we all want to meet you."
"No that's not possible." My mind raced for any possible way to negate what I was seeing. It was beyond too good to be true.
"It's true. Come with me and I'll show you."