After forcing myself out of bed and putting clothes on, I made my way downstairs. My mom sat at the kitchen table with her cup of coffee and the newspaper. Much like any other morning when we were both home at the same time, I walked around her on my way to the fridge for a glass of juice, paying her no mind at all. Only this time, she lowered the paper and spoke to me. I had to question myself if I’d actually woken up or not.
“Do you have any plans for your birthday today?”
I slowly spun around, verifying that it was, in fact, my mother sitting there and not some nice imposter. “Um…no. Why?”
“Oh, I was just wondering,” she said, waving her hand as if brushing off my concern over my mom being nice to me. “It’s almost eleven. When the phone rings, make sure you answer it. If you don’t, it’ll go to voicemail. I have no desire to talk to your father.”
“I know, Mom. His phone calls on my birthday have been consistent for the past five years. This year should be no different. But I’ll make sure to answer it on the first ring.”
“His gift hasn’t arrived yet. It’ll probably come Tuesday because of the holiday tomorrow.” She picked the paper back up and began scanning it again. I couldn’t do anything other than stand in the middle of the kitchen and gawk at her. I would’ve questioned her motives for breaking the silent treatment she’d given me over the past five weeks, but I didn’t dare give her a reason to either go back to ignoring me, or worse, back to treating me like shit.
I opened the freezer door once I got over the shock of my morning conversation. “What do you feel like for dinner?” I asked, scanning over the frozen meats we had on the shelf.
“Pick whatever you want, it’s your birthday,” she said through the paper, not bothering to lower it in order to answer me. At least she hadn’t changed that much.
I pulled out hamburger meat and set it aside to thaw. But before any other idle chitchat could begin, the phone rang. My mom set the paper down, pushed her chair away from the table, and grabbed her mug before walking out of the room. She apparently hated my father so much that she couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as his voice over a phone.
“Hello?” I answered, already knowing it was my dad.
“Happy birthday, Aubs.” He was the only one who ever called me that. Mom hated it. She said it made me sound like a dog. But it was special to me, because no one else used it.
I grabbed a blanket off the couch and took the phone outside to the chair on the front porch. “Thanks, Dad,” I said in the most unenthusiastic voice known to man.
“Doing anything fun today? It’s the weekend, and you don’t have school tomorrow, right?”
I hated his small talk. It was like he refused to accept my pathetic life and used it to make him feel better about his decisions. If you talk about nothing important, then you don’t have to deal with anything real.
“No, Dad. Nothing fun. That would require friends, or a life outside my house. Even if I wanted to do something fun, and I was okay with being completely alone doing it, I can’t. Because I don’t have a car.”
The other end of the line became quiet for a moment before he cleared his throat. “Aubrey…I don’t know what you want me to say. We don’t get to talk that often, and it’s your birthday. I don’t want to waste this time discussing your mother.”
“Okay, fine, Dad. Let’s not discuss her.” I never spoke to my father that way, usually keeping our conversations light and free of attitude. But something in me was broken, aside from my heart.
After Axel destroyed me, I couldn’t seem to find my inner happiness again. That voice within me that kept me going day in and day out. It’s what kept me sane when everything around me became suffocating and hard. Some might call it optimism. I simply referred to it as my body’s own source of Prozac. Whatever it was, I didn’t have it anymore.
“Let’s discuss you instead. You say we never get much time to talk, as if you’re in jail and only allotted a certain amount of time to call me. But that’s not the case, is it? You were relieved of your sentence when you left here. I’m the one in prison. I’m the one suffering while you’re in your new house with your new family, sitting pretty and getting high on life. Guess what, Dad? You know if I’m not at school, then I’m at home. You know the phone number. You can call anytime you want. But you choose not to. It’s okay if you don’t have time for me, or you don’t want me in your life anymore. Just tell me. Stop dragging this on longer than it needs to be.”
“Aubrey. Please stop.” His voice sounded broken as he begged me to quit talking. I’d never heard him sound like that before, and it halted my emotional lecture. “You are my daughter. It doesn’t matter who I’m married to or how many other children she has. You’re the only one that matters to me. I’m sorry if I have a hard time showing it, or that I’ve made you feel, even for a second, that I don’t want you.”
“What else am I supposed to think? You packed up your things and disappeared. You left me here. You know how she is, what she’s capable of, and yet you left me here to deal with it all by myself. At eleven years old. You never even came back. I haven’t seen you in five years. You call once a month and we talk for maybe fifteen minutes each time, never about anything important. So, I’m sorry if I don’t believe you when you say I’m the only thing that matters to you. Because if that’s the truth, then I’d hate to see how you treat your new family.” I must’ve cried out all my tears the night before, because not one drop formed. Maybe it was because I’d had that speech bottled up for so long that instead of the words causing me pain, I only felt anger.
His heavy breathing came through the line, and I could tell I’d gotten to him. But I continued to wait until he gave me some kind of response, not letting him off the hook that easily. “I…” He cleared his throat again, sounding as if his emotions choked him. “I didn’t have a choice, Aubrey.”
I waited, and waited some more, but he never said anything else. His silence only served to fuel my irritation. “That’s the biggest cop-out I’ve ever heard. You know what? I can’t do this. It’s becoming abundantly clear that I’m incapable of having a relationship with anyone. And maybe that’s because of you and Mom. Maybe if I had normal parents, ones that loved me, things would be different. But it doesn’t matter. Have a nice life, Dad. I guess I’ll—”
“Aubrey Ann Jacobs, don’t you dare hang up that phone.”
My mouth immediately fell open at his tone, never hearing him use it with me before. But it served its purpose, making me stop talking and listen.
Once he knew he had my attention, and I hadn’t hung up on him, he continued. “I really didn’t have a choice when it came to me leaving. Yes, I was ready to leave your mother. I’d wanted to leave her years before that, but was unable to. When I finally did move out, it was basically her call. There are a lot of things involved that you don’t know about. But I’m not lying when I say I didn’t have a choice. My hands were tied with everything. You. The house. The money. Everything.”
“Why haven’t you ever told me?”
“You were a child at the time. And now…now I guess I simply don’t want you to have a lesser opinion of me.”
“Dad, you have zero interest in my life. You haven’t been here for me in over five years, and your monthly phone calls don’t even begin to make up for anything. Are you that delusional to think it possible for me to have a lesser opinion of you than I already do?”