Page 50 of Rebound

I remember one of my mother’s complaints about my father was that he never listened to her. Not only that, but he would also minimize her feelings or things that she was going through or had gone through. She said over time, she became resentful of him when all she was looking for was validation that her feelings were hers and they were appropriate, whether he could identify with them or not.

“You’re right,” I concede. “It won’t change anything about the past or what you went through. I didn’t experience it, so I’m not going to tell you how you should feel. However you feel is valid.”

He exhales and says, “Thank you for saying that.”

“But,” I add as I squeeze his hand again, “sometimes the people in our lives don’t measure up to what we want them tobe for whatever reason. Sometimes those reasons are valid, and sometimes they’re bullshit. What helps is whether or not they acknowledge how they failed us. Do they feel bad? Do they have regrets? Are they sorry? If even one of those answers is yes, it can go a long way in healing you.” I point to his chest, and when I notice his brows are furrowed, I smooth them out.

Chapter 29

Seth

“That’s my old high school,” I tell Layla as I point to the large brick building on the corner. “When we come back in the fall, I’ll take you there to meet one of my former coaches. The head coach died last year.” The words get stuck in my throat. Coach Rogers was the first male adult in my life who cared about me. He’d drop me home after practice. He’d even pick me up sometimes, and when it was time for me to go to college, he and his wife drove me to Connecticut. It was the first time I ever left New York.

A few times, he bought me a bus ticket to come home for some of the holidays. Throughout all that time, my dad sat on the couch. I tell Layla that the day before I left for UConn, he cried and begged me not to turn my back on him.

A few years ago

“You’re all I have,” he sobs on my shoulder.

I resist the urge to shove him with all my strength and rage inside of me. Instead, I gently push him away and throw the few things that I own in my old suitcase. I make a mental note to tape over the tears on the fabric.

“I know it’s shitty around here, and I’m a shit father, but—” He stops talking long enough to wipe the tears from hiseyes.

I decide to tune him out and not respond. There’s no need to tell him that I’m leaving and never looking back. He’ll figure it out soon enough. There’s nothing for me here but bad memories, tragedy, and misery. I don’t want anything more to do with him, this town, or any of the people in it other than Coach Rogers and his wife.

Getting the basketball scholarship at the University of Connecticut is my ticket out, and I’m not going to squander it. It might not lead to the professional league, but it’s leading me the fuck out of upstate New York and this shitty fucking trailer. Not to mention my dysfunctional, co-dependent basket case father. Fuck him and fuck this life I was born into.

Maybe this scholarship will only allow me to play in college, and that’s fine. I have something else. I have my mind, and if basketball ends in four years, then I can fall back on other things since school has always been easy for me. Whether it’s numbers or the sciences, I can easily catch on. My mind is like a camera. I only need to read it once, and I will never forget it.

“Sethie,” my father says. He grabs both my hands and the old, faded shirt I was holding falls to the floor. “Please don’t—”

“Don’t what?” I snap. “Don’t leave? You want me to stay in this shitty trailer with you for the rest of my life?” I yank my hands away and pick up the shirt. “Why? So I can continue to take care of you while you fall apart? While you cry like a fucking little girl?”

The shirt is ugly and faded like everything else here. I look at it and sigh. I can’t take this with me. I ball it up and toss it to a corner. I look around the room. It’s small. The walls are gray and there are cracks in them. The blinds on the small window are barely holding on. The twin-sized bed, which I’ve had since I was about ten, has a lumpy mattress. The sheets were once navy blue but have faded so much over time that it’s hard to give a name to their current color.Those sheets, like my old shirt, also have holes in them.

In a fit of frustration, I kick my old suitcase across the small room. It hits the wall and half the contents spill out. Everything I own is cheap, ugly, and faded. There’s nothing new to take to college. There’s only shame and embarrassment. That’s all that’s ever been here for me, and looking at my father now, a broken man, sobbing like a toddler who just dropped his ice cream cone, I’m glad he’s confined himself to this house. I’m glad he won’t be able to come and drop me off because this is a shameful secret that I’ll never let out.

“No.” He licks his dry lips. “It’s not that. It’—"

“Isn’t it enough that I’ve had to take care of you for the past seven years?” I snap, interrupting whatever bullshit he was about to spew. “Now you want to make me feel guilty for leaving? Any other parent would be happy for me. Any other parent would be proud and eager for me to leave this mess and have a chance at a halfway decent life, but not you.” He takes a step back when I point a finger at him. In the past seven years since my mother left, it’s fallen on me to take care of him. It took him two years after she left for him to tell me she’s not my real mother, and that my real mother left, abandoning me with him. She never looked back because she didn’t want to have me, but her religious family forced her to. No one heard anything about her for years. Not until the news of her death.

Looking back now, I don’t blame my former stepmother for leaving. I’m surprised she lasted as long as she did, but when he told me she wasn’t my real mother, things made so much sense. I never felt a connection. She was never mean. She took care of me, but there was never any love.

“I don’t want you to feel guilty,” he says. He’s standing taller now, and the tears have stopped. His eyes are still red, and despite him standing to his full height, he lookssmall and broken. “I want you to go. I want the best for you,” he says quickly.

“Really? Since when?” I stop and wait for him to answer. Right on cue, the tears return, but no words come out. “If you want the best, you’ve never done anything to make sure I have it. You didn’t even do anything to make sure I had the worst. You didn’t do shit!” I yell before I kick the suitcase again. Something takes over me, and I kick it again and again until the flap finally breaks away from the rest of the suitcase. Now, it’s trash like everything else in here.

“I couldn’t—” he begins.

“Every other parent does!” I thunder. “They figure it out, but not you.” I point at him again. “And now here you are, crying like you give a damn. If you care, dry your fake tears and let me go.”

“I want you to go, but I don’t want you to forget me! That’s all.” He inches closer and reaches for my hands, but I move them away as if his touch is contaminated.

“Don’t touch me,” I snap.

“Sethie—"

“Why? You forgot you had a son. You forgot how to be a parent. Who am I kidding? You never knew how to be a parent. You know what you are?” I taunt. His tears continue, but I’m too enraged to care. “Let’s be honest, I’ve been more of a caregiver than your son. You’re not worried about me. You’re only scared now because you don’t know how you’re gonna have food to eat since there’s no one here to go shopping and cook while you sit on your ass and pour beer down your throat.”

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