DeadLine

PC: “Hello?”

HC: “Hi. Is Paul there?”

PC: “Speaking.”

HC: “Hey Paul, it’s, uh… it’s your daughter. Mom gave me your number so I could, you know, maybe talk to you for a bit. I have a lot of questions and uh, things I wanna know.”

PC: “You know, I uh, don’t have a lot of time to talk right now. Maybe later?”

HC: “You and I both know that ‘later’ means never.”

PC: “Hah, your mother sure raised one hell of a firecracker. Keep it short, sweetheart, okay?”

HC: “Don’t call me that. Look, I’ve heard a bunch of different things about you growing up. Mom’s side of the story is obviously a little… bitter. Sarah’s side is a bit more ‘informative’, but there’s still a ton of gaps.”

PC: “So, where to start? How I met your mom? The whole ‘love story’ drama? Why’re you calling now?”

HC: “I could say the same thing. You KNEW about me and Ri. Hell, from what mom says you were in our life for all of, what, eighteen, nineteen months? Why did I have to be the one to reach out first, twenty-two years later?”

PC: “Okay, okay, I get it. Your mother fed you the ‘deadbeat dad’ shit. Honestly, I don’t blame her. I wasn’t necessarily the best for you three.”

HC: "I'm glad we can agree on that. How did you meet mom?”

PC: “More like she met me. I was a landscaper back in the day, just as a hustle until something better came up. My ad was in the newspaper she read, she needed her, uh, house foundation fixed, a garden bed put in and some other odd jobs done. I think it was when I was mapping out the bed that she offered me a glass of water and a sandwich. It was warm, or as warm as Indiana can get. We started talking and just kinda hit it off from there. Sarah and I were especially close. She loved helping me plant the flowers, and I even showed her how to use my tools.”

HC: “You sounded like you would’ve been a good dad if you stayed.”

PC: “Oh, I was a good dad. Did your mom not tell you about Mackenzie and BJ?”

HC: “No. So I also have half-siblings?”

PC: “Yeah, they were from my first marriage, first set of kids. By the time I met Sheryl, I think I was about twelve years older than her. I guess I just didn’t have anymore, uh, energy I guess. I earned a pension from an office job and was just doing really whatever I wanted to for extra money until I really wanted to retire.”

HC: “So you didn’t want anymore kids, but still had us?”

PC: “Well, you two were an accident. Sheryl was forty-three when she had you. She started taking birth control after, as a just-in-case, then got pregnant with your sister the next year.”

HC: “So we were mistakes to you?”

PC: “I mean, I’m sure your mother thought so too. She had two kids she had to raise in her fifties.”

HC: “Yeah, and SHE did a good job raising us by herself, no thanks to you. She never treated us like we were mistakes, and worked hard to give us opportunities and privileges that we wouldn’t have gotten from you.”

PC: “She never remarried?”

HC: “No! She was too busy working and taking care of us to worry about anyone else. She tried to ask for help, but every time she got some, there were always strings attached. She never needed another man to raise us, and she did one hell of a job all on her own. And by the way, she never married you. That was a constant in every version of the story I heard.”

PC: “No… we weren’t married… yet. I gave her a ring and she accepted. I even asked her to move in with me down the street from her ex-husbands house. We lived together for a bit before she ran to her father in Alabama.”

HC: “And why did she do that? I want to hear it from your mouth.”

PC: “I wasn’t the best man. All of my money was spent on alimony, beer and marijuana. I’m assuming it's because of that.”

HC: “That’s it? I mean, I heard SHE was running to the store every night after work to stock you back up on beer and cigarettes. With HER money. At nine o’clock at night, and the only gas station open on the way home was in Gary. Then she’d come home with your stuff, and you’d disappear into the backyard with your ‘buddies’ and drink two cases a night, while she made dinner and took care of us. She said you’d come in drunk out of your mind at three in the morning and piss and vomit all over the bathroom and sleep in it! I mean, does none of that ring a bell?”

PC: “I mean, I’d have my friends over every once in a while, and we would get drunk, but other than that, I don’t really remember. I guess I did have a habit of getting black-out. But I never remember lying on the bathroom floor in a mess.”

HC: “Because mom always cleaned up after you and took care of you, whether you deserved it or not. That’s how caring of a person she is.”

PC: “Caring? Pfft… She ever tell you that her and her ex-husband were still together when she started screwing me? If you want to talk about caring.”

HC: “She did mention that, but instead of weaponizing it like you are, she admitted it to herself that it was wrong. What I’m surprised about is that you never mentioned Stacy.”

PC: “Stacy?”

HC: “The woman you hired to watch us while mom was working evenings. The woman who mom found in her bed with you while you dropped us off to strangers down the street?”

PC: “Her name was Stephanie, and Sheryl said she forgave me for that…”

HC: “Mom is not the kind of person to just forgive when her fiance is in her bed with another woman!”

PC: “Well she said she did! What about the time your mother got our van repoed?”

HC: “Oh, you mean the time you skipped so many payments on it and it got repoed while me and Riley were still in the back of it? Mom had given you money for the payments! What did you do with the money?!”

PC: “Do you really want to know the truth?”

HC: “Yes! That’s the whole reason I called you in the first place!"

PC: “Cocaine. The weed just wasn’t hitting the spot no more. I got hooked and spent almost all of the money she gave me on it.”

HC: “I can’t BELIEVE you. Mom was working two jobs to support me, my sister, and a manchild. It’s no wonder she left you.”

PC: “I can’t believe your mother raised such a disrespectful little brat. You will never understand the stress I was put under with you two kids. Your mother didn’t make it any better jumping down my throat everyday for how I CHOSE to live my life. If she hated it so much, why didn’t she leave sooner!”

HC: “She wanted to! She didn’t have enough money to find a new place! That’s why she called grandpa. That’s why she ran to Alabama! TO GET AWAY FROM YOU!”

PC: “But she left her oldest kids in Indiana. I think Sarah was only thirteen. Kevin couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Sounds like she was running away from something, and I was the straw that broke the camel's back.”

HC: “They still had their dad. Sometimes, I wish I had mine.”

PC: “You can’t have it all, all of the time.”

HC: “Rich, coming from the person who chose everything over his family.”

PC: “Alright, that’s it. I’m done with this conversation.”

The line goes dead. That was everything I wish I had the chance to say.