Page 156 of My Merry Mistake
Maybe this is the way it works—in fits and starts. One step at a time.
On the other side of the water, a white-tailed deer walks into a clearing. She freezes, ears fluttering as she looks right at me. I hold my breath for a long moment, not wanting to spook her.
She bends down, looking for grass beneath the snow, and I watch her for another minute. With a huff, she slowly trots back into the trees, disappearing from view.
I know what I need to do.
I’m back at the community center twenty minutes later, years of hurt left on the snowy shore of Hunter’s lake. The letters, most still unopened, are in my pocket, except for the first one, which is balled up in my hand.
I pull the door open and walk into the lobby. There’s no music playing, but voices are coming from the room, so I walk through the door and look around.
Just like back in Chicago, this tutoring club switches gears on days when there’s no school. Instead of coaching kids in math and science, there are coloring pages, art projects, and Christmas crafts on the tables.
Down the hall, I hear the sound of foosball being played. I remember hauling the old table from the ranch’s basement, fixing the leg that my brothers and I broke during one specifically heated game, and setting it up in the game room here last year.
I look around, expecting my mother to try and intercept me, but a quick scan of the room comes up empty, and I wonder if she went home thinking she’d find me there.
And then my eyes lock onto Eileen’s. She’s sitting in a big, oversized armchair with a little girl on her lap, pointing into the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. She stops reading and doesn’t move.
I take a breath.
With my head, I motion back toward the door and nod aWill you come with me?at her. She catches her breath and stiffens,but then nods, handing the book and the child to another volunteer nearby.
I walk into the lobby first, not waiting for her. I keep my back to the door, but I don’t need to turn around to know she’s there.
“Finn, I?—”
I hold up a hand. “I didn’t come here to have some big conversation with you.” I turn around, but it’s hard for me to look at her. I guess one emotional by-the-lake session isn’t enough to let go of years of habitual hatred.
And it’s hard to hold onto my hate when there’s a real human standing in front of me.
I hold up the balled-up letter. “I just read this today. It’s the first one you sent.”
Her face falls.
A battle wages inside of me. I want to yell years of pent-up rage at her, like a cannon, but I’m still clinging to the release I felt only a half hour ago.
“I’m not going to read the others, and I want you to stop sending them to me,” I say. “Every time I get one, it ruins my day, and it makes me feel like crap. Because I still hate you for what you did.”
She nods.
“And when I see your stupid name on the return address. . .” I ball up the letter tighter in my fist, holding it at her, letting the motion finish my sentence.
“I understand.”
“But I don’t like to be angry,” I say, the softer side of me taking the lead momentarily. “It’s not who I am.”
She doesn’t respond.
“It is not who I am.” It bears repeating.
I push a hand through my hair, then scratch the back of my head.What am I doing here? I turn a circle, not sure what to donext. I want to leave. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of thinking that any of this is okay. It’s not.
Nothing about what happened is okay. Nothing about what she did is okay.
But I am on my way to being okay.
I realize that I’ve been going about this the wrong way—not talking about Hunter. Living like I mean it includes not forgetting the reason why.
