She won custody of me, did you know that? So I’m pretty sure
not only are you a deserter, but technically you’re a kidnapper, too.”
No, goddamn it! She was leaving us for that woman, that Tatiana.
The one who was with her today.
If she really cared about you, she wouldn’t have brought her.
Spin
He’s good at it, and I know
that, but what he just said
might contain an element
of fact. Still, I want to know some things, the main one
being, “Who are Ariel
and Mark, Dad? Please
tell me the truth. I think
I deserve that much.”
He sighs. Okay. But then we leave.
He plants his butt on the arm
of the sofa, waits for me to sit.
You probably don’t remember because you were so little, but a few weeks after we left North Carolina we were in an accident in Virginia. You were fine, but I got pretty busted up. The woman who stopped to help was named Leona.
We lived with her for several months, while my broken bones healed up.
“I remember her, but only bits and pieces. She took care of me while you were in the hospital.”
That’s right. Well, Leona was a widow. She lost her husband and little girl in a train wreck.
Oh my God. The lights snap
on. “Mark and Ariel Pearson.
I remember photos . . .”
It was Leona who started calling you Ariel. You reminded her so much of her little girl, and I think she was a tad tetched in the head, which was why she wasn’t working right then.
She named her baby after Ariel in that Disney movie, The Little Mermaid, and she used to watch it with you. You loved it because you were the spitting image of that mermaid. Well, except for the tail.
Not sure if that’s a weird
attempt at humor or if he’s
serious, but I do have a vague recollection of sitting in a woman’s comfy lap watching that movie
while she hummed along to the music.
Makes Sense
At two years old I absorbed the name
Ariel. Yeah, but what about Dad?
“So how did you become Mark?”
I can pretty much figure out the why.
I needed a way to protect you, and he had no use for his identity anymore. Leona had everything necessary in her filing cabinet— social security cards, birth certificates.
You and I became the Pearsons.
Calculating bastard. “I see, and
did Leona know you took them?”
I think she kind of liked the idea of her family living on in some way.
Like I said, she was messed up.
In fact, at one point she tried to off herself. That’s the main reason I decided it was time to leave.
There’s truth here somewhere,
but I sense doublespeak, too.
One Question Answered
Truthfully or not,
others appear like
rabbits pulled out
of a magician’s hat.
“What about Ma-maw
and Pops? They always
called me Ariel. Didn’t they know I was Casey?”
I can see the wheels
rotating in his head
and expect yet another circuitous response.
Instead he answers
reasonably. They knew, but went along with it.
There was a lot at stake.
They’re good Southern Baptists, for one thing, and weren’t about to let you go live with your mother and her female “friend.”
But they also knew sending me back to the army would’ve been the end of me.
The End
Why not just spice up
the narrative with a big
dose of melodrama? “Come
on. Not like they would’ve
put you in front of a firing
squad for going AWOL.”
Shit. Flipped his switch.
That is not what I mean, girl.
You don’t know the things
I saw, serving my country
in godforsaken third-world
armpits. You don’t know what
it’s like to duck when you hear a sonic boom, to avoid July
Fourth celebrations because
fireworks trigger panic attacks.
You can’t possibly imagine
what it’s like to get turned on by the scent of blood, to break down at the smell of burning
rubber or singed hair.
Don’t you dare lecture me as if your life has been so fucking miserable, when all I’ve done for the last fifteen years is sacrifice my needs in favor of yours.
Dressed-Down
In proper military fashion.
“Sorry, Dad. You’re right.
I wouldn’t understand
any of those things.”
Here I am, apologizing,
like I always seem to do.
There’s something seriously wrong with my psyche
because “sacrifice” paired with “Dad” defines oxymoronic.
And I’m not sure exactly
what I’m sorry about.
Good. Then throw whatever you can’t live without into a suitcase.
I don’t trust that bitch to keep quiet and I’m not going to jail.
My head is shaking before
my mouth even opens.
“I already told you, no way.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever straight-up defied my dad, and it scares me that
he might in fact go and
leave me here alone.
“Look, Dad, I love you.
I really hope you’ll decide to stay and work through this.
It will be okay. Things don’t have to change, at least