I had to know what happened. So, I pulled up in front of Cheryl’s house, rang the doorbell, and she opened the door for me. From the door I could see my father sitting in the living room, having a glass of wine in his hand—and no, I did not see any kid in the house.
Cheryl was surprised to see me there, as you can guess by now. “Emma? What’re you doing here?” she asked.
“Just trying to check up on my nephew,” I responded. For a fleeting moment, I could see it in her eyes that she was trying to avoid the topic. “Oh, a friend of mine is babysitting Anthony now,” she responded.
“Do you want to come in? We haven’t seen you in years,” she added. I was still hesitant at the time—just one step, and I could step inside the house and perhaps deal with all that trauma sown within me years ago.
It was so close, that feeling of being able to make things right at last. But I wasn’t ready. I told them I was a bit under the weather and got back into my car and drove to a nearby motel.
The next day I bumped into John again at a local diner. God certainly works in mysterious ways. But it was a bit different this time—when he saw me at the diner he simply turned around without saying a single word.
That was strange, I thought to myself. Considering we were on good terms the whole time, there was something odd about it. I decided to walk towards him and asked him what’s up.
“Hey man, sup? Is everything alright?” I asked him when he sat down at his table. He tried to avoid having eye contact with me, but I just stood there, utterly bewildered by his reaction.
“Hey, I know it’s none of my business, but I think you might need some help,” he said. Now this just got way more confusing. “What?
Why? I don’t think I understand,” I said. “Look, I talked to Cheryl last night, about her having a kid—she told me that … well, she told me why you left,” he said meekly.
“What? What did she say?”
“She said you were … imagining things, and they had to send you away to the hospital.”
“W—what? How?”
“She doesn’t have a kid and I don’t understand why you said she has.
So last night I went over to her place and asked her about it, and she told me what happened,” he said, but then he paused for a moment. “She said you just showed up out of nowhere and started asking about her kid … Look, I don’t want any trouble here.”
That … wretched woman. I don’t know if I can still call her my sister anymore.
Did she just throw me under the bus after all I did for her and presumably our father? Am I hallucinating? No, I was pretty sure I was not.
“Wait a second,” I said to John as he was about to leave. I then went through my inbox and showed the email to John. He looked at it and went quiet for a while.
But at last, he responded. “Look, it’s really none of my business, just leave me out of this,” he said, and he simply left the diner without touching his pancakes. So here I am, back in San Francisco at my own apartment.
I just drove all the way back here after that interaction with John—Lord knows what other folks in town were talking about right now. Can you imagine that? My very own sister, fabricating a lie so that I could save our father who never cared about me, and then throwing me under the bus and telling the folks that I was crazy?
Seriously? I am not sure how I should feel about it—I admit that writing it down did make me feel better. But still … I couldn’t help but wonder if it would have made a difference if I actually walked into the house and talked to them.
Maybe I had a chance to change something? Maybe things wouldn’t end up the way they are now? I don’t know.
I really don’t know. What can we learn from this story?
Sometimes we just have to let things go.
It is what it is, sometimes there’s just nothing we can do about it. Let go and start living. Look forward.
We cannot change the past, whatever that is, but we can try and move on, one way or another. Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.
