The Trip

“Not even close.” He answers for the hundredth time, or so it would seem. How did he end up here, in a car trip with his children and wife, heading back home? Oh, he knows the logistics of it. His father is dying and they need to say goodbye. That isn’t the whole story though. “We have hours to go.”

“What an hour?” Two years old Hannah asks. His wife, calmer then he is, answers her.

“An episode of Sesame Street.”

He smiles at her but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He doesn’t want to be doing this. Why did his old man have to pick now to die? His wife would be horrified at his inner thoughts. She only knows the man he became after he grew up. He doesn’t know the monster he was.

“That long.” Hannah states it as a fact. Her brother, Eli, gurgles in his car seat. The baby is but a month old and has never meet his paternal grandfather. If it was up to him…

“What’s with the face, Dave?”

What was his face telling her? He focuses on rearranging it. “Nothing Sara, just can’t wait to be done driving.”

“I offered to do some of it.” She has but it was to soon after the C-section that delivered their son.

“It is alright honey.” He forces himself to give her a full smile. “You are still recovering.”

He watches the highway stretched out before them. Any of you going to your father’s death bed? Anyone out there wishing that their father had died decades earlier?

He was five. It is his clearest early childhood memory. Hiding from his enraged father as he beat his mother for not having supper on the table. His fault. He had been sick and she was taking care of him. Shaking, he ran to his closet, hiding under the pile of clothes at it’s floor. He can smell the odors of his own urination and fear even now, twenty years later.

He comes back to himself when she places her hand in his. “Homey, I need to feed Eli.” Her tone said she has said it more then once. He nods and looks for a spot to pull over. There is a rest spot up ahead. He pulls in.

“Sorry babe.” Now he hears his son, wailing in the backseat. Looking back, he sees Hannah has her hands over her ears. Grinning at his princess, he adds,  “Daddy was daydreaming.” It was more like a nightmare.

Sara reaches back and fetches the little prince. She places him at her breast. Quiet reigns again.

“Eli a cry baby.” Hannah announces.

“Exactly. That is how they communicate. You were the same.” Her mommy tells her. Daddy watches the highway they just exited.

“Daddy is just like that when he is drinking. It isn’t him. It is the liquor.” His mom had told him once she found him under the clothes. She leads him to the bathtub. In the clear light of the bathroom, he sees what he did to her.

“I hate him!” He says, tears falling as he strips his clothes off. The arms that help him into the tub are already starting to bruise. Her face is puffy with cuts and bruises. At five, he already knows it means her arms weren’t enough to stop him.

“You mustn’t say that David. He is your dad. You are to love him.”

“I wish he was dead.” She had slapped him before crying and leaving him to clean up himself.

It is his wife moving beside him that brings him back to the present. After a sated Eli is placed back in his seat, he pulls back out . A few minutes later, they pass the sign that tells them they are entering KY, the bluegrass state.

“Hannah, we are in Kentucky now. Not much farther.” Sara cheerfully says. She grew up in a good home and couldn’t understand the depth of his loathing for the man they are going to see.

He was in high school when the old man entered re-hap. Court ordered. After mom ended up in ICU, even the good old boys network couldn’t protect him. He hadn’t a drop since. His mom praised him to anyone who would listen. Her son left home the day he graduated.

“Liver cancer, stage four. He hasn’t long.” Good, is what he wanted to say. “He would like to see you.”

So, here he is, in Kentucky again. They made a trip out when Hannah was a baby, at his wife ‘s insistence. Now it was a different call. The long overdue death call.

“See granny and grandda?” Hannah FaceTime ‘s with them, again at Sara’s insistence.

“Yes, but remember grandda is really sick.”

Dave refrains from saying anything. He is dying, the old bastard. Let him die. When the children are older, then he will tell them about his father.

A few hours later, they cross into Summerset. He is flooded with memories. Some actually good. His first kiss. Riding sleds through the center of town when the big blizzard hit. Shopping for Mother’s Day, a few dollars in his pocket. Most though.

“You little bastard. I bet you won’t be doing that again.” It was the calm way he spoke that had little Dave’s skin crawling. When his father was loud and out of control, it was easier to escape him. He had stole a fiver from his pants pocket. He wouldn’t have dared except that there was a girl, in his class. Her birthday was the next day and he had a major crush on her. A gift would get her attention. Instead, it earned him a lashing. It was the worst hiding he ever received. He wasn’t  able to attend her birthday party or school at all for the next week. His mom wrote that he has the flu. He wonders if anyone wondered.

The old house looks the same. Mom had tried to keep it up but age and the effects of years of beating have taken their toil. The home resembles the people living in it, downtrodden and abused. Maybe after they put the old man in the ground, he will bring mom to live with them.

“Oh Dave, we should have got out here more. They obviously need help.” Sara twists her hands in her lap. He wants to yell, say he tried, so many times he tried, but who would believe a little boy? No one. No one in this small town wanted to see. So they didn’t. He takes a breath.

“Let’s go say goodbye.”