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holocene-sims · 1 month ago

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september 25, 2021 6:50 p.m. myshuno restaurant

why are you surprised?

grant fixates his gaze far away from his father’s fiancee, suddenly shrinking into himself when he realizes what her appearance means. she intends to talk. she’d walked him right over to the nearest bench–why else would she do that? and grant wishes he hadn’t agreed. he wishes he weren’t so brave now. he wishes he’d left faster, pretended he was in a rush, something of the sort.

you should have avoided this. all of this. this was a terrible–

the gentlest of prods at his shoulder stirs him from his racing thoughts.

“sorry. i'm still space-casing it.” grant shudders; she must have already asked him something.

if she’s bothered by his inattention, varpu doesn’t show it. instead, she smiles. not joyfully, though–it’s a thin-lipped smile that he can only describe as one of abject pity.

“i wanted to know if you were okay,” she repeats, “and no, i think i owe you an apology instead.”

“oh, i'm fine. and really, you don't.”

you are not fine.

fine doesn’t match the nagging ache in the core of his chest.

why are you upset anyway? why the fuck are you surprised? you knew all of this was coming. you knew he’d always–you didn’t. no, you bought it. you believed it somehow, in some way when he preached about being a better father.

“you are not a very good liar,” comes varpu’s retort. the pitying smile is still plastered on her face, though it slips more and more by the second, slowly replaced by an unreadable albeit piercing expression.

“it’s genetic.”

and you knew he was never going to stay. you even gave him your express permission.

and yet…

somewhere in the back of grant’s mind, a much younger version of himself–the child who experienced the worst abandonment life has to offer–is crawling out of the woodwork and screaming for attention, screaming so loud that he can think of nothing but that child’s agony. bad memory after bad memory floods grant’s remaining bandwidth. he’d barely shut them out at the table, only for them to resurface in a tidal wave the very moment he let his guard down.

“yeah, actually, you know, i don’t think i'd probably use the word fine right now, no.”

varpu knew that, of course. not an ounce of bewilderment dwells in her response. “i'm not sure i understood what happened in there, but nonetheless, i do owe you an apology. i'm sorry. it was my idea to invite you, and that doesn’t seem to have been good for you.”

“it’s not your fault.”

“i fear that it is,” she replies, and at last, it’s her turn to avert her gaze–she turns to face the alleyway on their right “it was also at my insistence that he reached out to you last year. i don’t think that was good for you either.”

“maybe, maybe not. i wouldn’t hold my dad being my dad against you, though. i appreciate that you’ve tried to do the right thing. you’ve been much kinder to the estranged son of your college sweetheart than i'd really have ever expected, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.”

varpu, underdressed for the weather without her coat, shivers as a cold autumn breeze whips by them. she turns back towards him, wrapping her arms close to her chest, and just shakes her head. “why wouldn’t you expect that i'd be kind to you? i'm a mother. it’s my responsibility to treat you like i treated my own children.”

“you can probably guess why i don’t expect that.”

“i didn’t want you to feel left out,” varpu muses, now nervously picking at her dress sleeves, “that’s why i invited you tonight. you have a complicated relationship with your father, and him remarrying and having another family must be uncomfortable for you, but i wanted you to know you would be a part of our lives, that you do have a place with us.”

“no, i very much get that from you. i can tell you care about including me.” grant winces. “my dad, your kids...not so much.”

“i only found out he hadn’t invited you to help with wedding plans or told you about the move this morning–he said he had, and i believed him, which was, as i see now, very silly of me. and my children,” varpu says, letting out a deep sigh, “i should have made you aware that they’re apprehensive about you. it’s not you, it’s…”

“no, it’s definitely me.”

varpu shuts him down. “it isn’t you. they have a good relationship with your father, and they’re very attached to him. they spent most of their lives without a father in their lives, my first husband passed away a long time ago, and having someone to be in that role now is…”

“a big deal. of course. if i were in their shoes, i might feel the same way about him. also, my condolences. i didn’t know that about, um, you know, you, but yeah, i'm sorry you had to go through that. that's terrible. and that makes sense. i mean, as in why your kids would probably not trust me. they don’t, right? you can be honest. it has to be a little bit about me. they don’t trust someone who doesn’t like my dad the way they do.”

“yes. i should have told you that, and i think i should have been much clearer about your relationship with your father to them. it was also very silly for me to think they'd change their minds before you noticed there was any distrust.”

“how much do you know about our relationship?”

she shrugs. “that it's complicated, that he let your mother abuse you. he didn’t lie to me about that. no, in fact, he was very forthcoming about his life since we last spoke years ago. at least i thought he was. i'm a little skeptical now, looking back and having realized he wasn’t being honest with you. if he lies to you, he very well may lie to me.”

“it makes me a little mad to know he’s just, like, chill with someone else’s kids.” the ache in grant’s chest flares with the heat of a billion suns. anger–the ache is anger, the purest he’s felt in years. “sorry. dick thing for me to say. and think. it’s horrible that a part of me wants him to be a piece of shit like he was to me with everyone else, right? no, i don’t really want that. you and your kids don’t deserve that, it’s just–”

“it stings.”

he almost laughs. “it’s so fucked. he can move on, have a new family, like a family he cares about, a family he does stuff with, a family he talks to about important topics, a family he’ll move for, a family he’ll fight for, a family he respects, and–” and again, too, the anger flares. “and he can just abandon me with no qualms. i was always nothing to him. jesus christ, none of my siblings were either. one’s dead, one’s still estranged, and he doesn’t even think about them.”

“the unfortunate thing is i think he doesn’t want to abandon you.”

“now that i have to argue with you on. he's done it before, so he's very likely doing it right now, too.”

the pitying smile returns to varpu’s face. “as far i know, as of this morning, he doesn’t believe you’ll ever forgive him or trust him. he feels rejected by you, and he's reacting to that feeling. i think. i can no longer prove he was telling me the truth about this, but..."

“oh, he feels rejected? fantastic, maybe he finally gets how i feel then. rejection fucking blows, doesn't it? also, that’s just ridiculous. i don't know how he can claim that. i came to meet him last year, i met him earlier this year, i let him meet my ex-fiancee, i took his phone calls, and i showed up tonight. he’s even admitted before i'm putting effort in. where the fuck is this rejection claim coming from? is it because i'm not falling over myself to kiss the ground he walks on?"

“i've truly disrupted your life by encouraging him to talk to you. i'm sorry.”

grant shrugs. “it’s okay. you were very positive in assuming things were salvageable, but he’s always going to be the same piece of shit to me at the end of the day, and i'm always going to be bitter and refuse to forgive him. i think we’d only be on the same page if i just rolled over like i used to."

“why did you try to reconnect, though? why agree?”

“fuck, i have no idea. it’s ultimately my fault for saying yes.”

why did you?

nothing comes to mind. nothing in particular. only the vaguest list of shitty excuses, the same ones he’s thrown at family members time and time again trying to justify his perennial need to prove the people who hurt him love him, actually.

he no longer wants to roll over like a coward, but–

“simple enough, i guess i want to hope he loves me.”

“what does that look like to you?”

his first response, once more, is to shrug helplessly. “i don’t know. i can’t say he didn’t try at all. he tried to apologize, tried to talk things out, tried to include me. even if he was lying about it or faking to win me over...well, i still bought that he was trying, but it never pleased me. it never felt like enough. god, this all, like, sounds insane, doesn’t it? i'm having this whole meltdown over one night.”

“but it’s not about one night, is it?”

grant’s breach catches in his throat. it’s not, not at all. the unruly child screaming in his head is showing him a pile of evidence, thirty years worth.

“no.”

“and it’s not salvageable, is it?” varpu asks next.

if his father ran outside right now and proclaimed with his soul his love, would it satisfy him? would it cure the ache in his chest, soothe the raging child in his head, turn his bitterness into saccharine peace?

he dwells on it for only a moment before an earth-rending realization dawns on him, and for once in his life, the answer is clear as day.

“no. there’s…” grant stops himself, peering up at the sky. “there is nothing he could do to fix this. i don’t think i want him to love me. i want for what happened to me to have never happened, but time traveling to the past inherently violates the second law of thermodynamics, so that’s unfortunately impossible.”

“i suspect you don’t need my advice, but you shouldn’t be afraid to act on that. your father is a grown man. he can continue to live with the consequences of his actions. you live with them, so can he.”

“that’s very true. uh, and yeah, i think i have to. again, that is. i have to tell him to fuck off again. i'll give it a few days, but yeah.”

varpu stays quiet, acknowledging him with an encouraging nod.

“so, i'll be completely honest with you..." grant trails off.

"please do."

"i doubt i will ever see you again after tonight, but it’s not personal. i just want to make that clear, in case it matters. i do mean it when i say your kindness is appreciated. i care that you care, and you’ve been nicer than my own parents did somehow. thank you."

"you're welcome seems a terribly inadequate response, but..."

"you're welcome is fine. best of luck with the wedding and the house search. regardless of how i feel about my father or the fact he has a new family, i don’t wish any harm your way. if you want to build a life with him, have at it. i know what i said earlier is not in line with what i'm saying now, but i hope the future is good to you specifically, and i hope it’s not disappointing i don’t want to be a part of it.”