Caleb,
Let me preface this email by saying that I know you don't want to hear from me but please, please continue reading.
Caleb,
I spoke to Frank. He tells me that you're doing well in your job. He told me about Haley and said that you seem happy, that you've landed on your feet. I always knew you would. It sounds like you're doing well.
Know that I think about you every single day. You're my son. We're family. Please respond.
Kathleen x
March '97
His tongue is unexpectedly sharp in the mouth of a 9-year-old. It's a self-taught skill he will hone to keep the threat of heartbreak at bay. "Fuck you" are his parting words before he smashes the phone against the receiver and balls his hands into fists as anger overwhelms him. It closes around his chest so tightly that it's hard to breathe until he sees red. There is a feeling of something being taken from him but he can't fight for it because he doesn't know what it is yet, like the sustained sense of dread in a nightmare that stays with you long after you've woken up. Her voice that was once a comfort to him fills him with a bitterness he can taste on his tongue. It doesn’t read to him from the pages of books anymore. It doesn’t say his name with a distinct fondness of belonging. It empties everything of meaning; words, photographs, every kiss on the cheek before school. Tears threaten to burn in his eyes as his dad’s clumsy footsteps in the hall remind him that he's not alone, but loneliness seeps in anyway. He wants to curse and break something. He wants to run and keep going until his legs give out.
July '18
He sees her for the first time in 21 years in the grocery store. Haeley is deliberating between two different brands of oat milk when it stops him dead in his tracks, like a weight binding both feet to the floor. Everything tightens. Jaw, throat, shoulders, chest, fists. She sees him too and, in that moment, Caleb can’t figure out if she recognizes him or if she’s looking straight through him. The distance between them seems so much greater than it is but there she is, staring back at him, a reminder of just how much time has slipped between them, both of them older, both of them different but the same.
"Sweetened or unsweetened?" He doesn't register Haeley's question until she's already spotted that something isn't right. "C, what's wrong?"
"Can we pick this stuff up later?" He asks her, trying to mask the urgency in his voice but she can read him like a book. "Babe, we're almost done," she responds, looking down at the almost full basket he's holding before she looks back up at him.
"Look, just trust me. I have to get out of here." He drops the basket on the floor as his irritation comes to the surface and takes her hand. She's resistant at first, unmoved as he tugs her in the opposite direction until she turns around and sees a woman standing at the end of the isle, staring back at them.
September '18
He doesn’t say it but he thinks it. Knows it. He’s known for some time now. Every time she puts her hand on the back of his neck and squeezes like she’s reminding him to relax, every morning when she smiles at him still half asleep, or at night when she crawls toward him from the bottom of the bed with that look in her eyes, those three words threaten to spill from him, but he swallows them down.
She doesn’t give anything away as she looks up at him now. It’s part of what he appreciates about her. She’s stoic and capable and when he grows tired of being those things himself, she feels solid enough to lean on. She asks him to call when he settles in but they both know how easy a new place will come to him. Philadelphia is home because he was born there but those roots are easily pulled from the ground. Still, it’s harder to leave than he imagined, and he always imagined he’d leave. It’s hard because, for the first time in a long time, he has hinged parts of himself on someone else.
Their goodbye is unceremonious. Caleb has spent a lifetime holding back but he knows if she asked him to stay, he might, so he’s relieved that she doesn’t. He doesn’t tell her he loves her because it makes no sense. Why would you leave someone you love? Why take the gamble of giving up something good for something that’s uncertain? But isn’t that the way it’s always been, he thinks to himself. The Tarason way. She reminds him that he is not his mother or his father. Those roots were pulled from the ground a long time ago.
“I adore you, you know. I don't think I've adored anyone the way I do you,” she tells him.
He doesn’t say it but he knows it.
This is the third time in 6 months i've had to change my email address. I don't owe you anything. I don't recognize you as any part of me. I've felt that way since the day you left. I'm not your family, stop calling me that. Stop calling. Stop writing. Just fucking stop. There's nothing left for you here. Don't contact me again.