Forgive Me Father For I Have Loved (32 page)

She looked at him and gripped his hand hard, afraid, but he appreciated her earnest attempts.

All the things we didn’t talk about and how I felt, we’ll do it now.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back through eyes still brimming with moisture. As he looked back out into the quiet suburban street, he reflected back on the day that started the downward spiral...

One week before Christmas, festive music blared throughout the heavily decorated house, decked out in crimson, gold and cheer. It was his mother’s favorite time of year, and the humongous tree blazed bright with antique holiday ornaments, strewn colorful lights and thick, silver tinsel on the real pine tree their father had brought home. A mere sixteen, his birthday had just passed. Dane was taller than most of his peers, so as he ascended the attic steps at his mother’s request to find a missing box of decorations, he bumped his head, causing a headache and swollen temple. Muttering a string of curses, he paused to rub his head, while moving about the cluttered, stuffy attic. Meanwhile, his parents, brothers and sister moved about the house on the relaxed Saturday afternoon.

“She said it was marked, ‘Luigi’,” he murmured as he continued to pilfer through grimy piles of memories, some dirty, worn, or sealed in yellowed envelopes and brown tape. He looked through all manner of old boxes, plastic cartons, discarded moth bitten clothing and the occasional creepy doll, with one eye permanently open and the other shut, giving him the willies.

“Everything okay up there?” his mother called from down below, no doubt passing by with her hands full of more items to hang around the home.

“Yeah...still lookin’, Mom!” he called back. “Damn it!” He’d walked smack dab into a cobweb, and fought the ropey, gray matter that wrapped around his face, even consuming bits of the old, nasty thing. Spitting, he ran his hands feverishly over his lips, aggravated, but then laughed at his own misfortune. In a deep, recessed corner, under the alcove by a small window, lay a water-stained box with shiny silver duct tape along the edges. He pushed old lamps and chairs as he made his way through until he stooped over it. With his bare hands, he tore the tape up, exposing the contents.

Finally...

He stared down at assorted ornaments, wreaths, more tinsel and a few hard bound books, most of which looked to be from the 1950s. He picked up one after the other, brushing them off as the sunlight pilfered in, exposing dust particles that looked almost magical as they landed on gold streams of exposed holiday yarn. She’d mentioned three wooden soldiers her brother Luigi had had as a child that would be lying inside. She’d packed it herself once she cleared out the old house many years ago. They were toy nut cracker soldiers, and she wanted them on full display, atop the fireplace hearth, in honor of her big brother, her protector, who no longer walked the Earth. After a few glances, he placed the items back inside, then lifted the box in his arms, taken aback when the bottom fell out.

Cursing some more under his breath, he chased a silver ball here, a red painted bell there, until he had them all collected and back inside, and peered around the attic trying to spot a temporary replacement container.

Oh screw it...I’ll just take a few down, grab a bag, then get the others.

He rummaged through, picking and prodding, until he came upon a small black book with a ballet shoe etched on it. He’d missed it on his first go-round. Setting the ornaments and musty soldiers aside, he sat closer to the window, leaning in, hearing the occasional car go slowly past on the ice covered road. He opened it, with its yellowed pages and the edges sticking to one another. Gently prying them apart, he started to read, delighting in his mother’s description of a crush she’d had in her young days.

He was sure he had the goods on her now, and planned to tease her mercilessly about that, but then he continued on, and his heart stopped... Yeah, he died a little...

There wasn’t much written in it, as it appeared to have only been used for a few months according to the diary dates, but what he read was enough to turn his stomach into hot, volcanic soup. Feeling woozy, he barely managed to get to his feet, then fell back, almost crashing into a pile of artificial plants. The book slipped from his hands. Then, he gathered his composure and ran his hands along the filthy floor until he felt it, and had the book in his grip.

“Dane!” his mother called, laughter chasing her voice. “What is taking so long, sweetheart?”

He dropped it once more when her voice rang out, making his mind spin. Grabbing one of the soldiers and the book, he made his way down the rickety ladder steps until he stood face to face with her. She looked at the sad wooden soldier, the Nutcracker, his nose splintered and his mouth, agape, full of wooden teeth…and then at the diary. Her eyes stayed on it until seconds had turned into a minute, maybe longer. He thought he may have to catch her as her eyes suddenly fluttered and she haphazardly stepped back. Instead, he followed her back into her bedroom, and waited while she closed and locked the door behind them.

She crossed her arms, her face a mixture of anger and desperation.

“So, you read it...”

He looked away, and nodded, then sank onto the bed. The room smelled of sweet floral perfume and baby powder. It sickened him more—the strange contrast of the alluring, fragrant bouquet didn’t match the sentiments that grew inside of their hearts. Instead, the odor of hot, rotten trash should have been present. Isn’t that what dashed dreams and horrible tragedies smell like?

They said nothing, but he knew what was coming...a promise to keep to his death.

“Don’t tell your father...please!”

It was all there, written in faded black ink in the diary.

At the age of fifteen, his mother, Maria, had run off with the neighbor boy, snuck away as sometimes lovers do. She knew her father didn’t approve of him, as he came from a Protestant family, and to make matters worse, he was bad news. Grandpa had called them trash that had acquired a little money and set up shop right next door. It seemed the boy, originally from a rough borough in Philadelphia, appeared tough and rugged with his leather jacket and slick black hair, and rode a motorcycle. He was a greaser, and he had a standoffish way, the kind that women adore. Yes, the girls loved him, but he chose the pretty wallflower—the sweet, shy Maria...

One night, under the stars, he took the one thing from her that she prized above all else. A thing a girl would never admit she’d given away, not even to her own self. And it happened a time or two more, but she believed she was in love. It didn’t take long before the rendezvous and fantasy teen romance burned out like a fire in the woods after a torrential storm. Soon, her clothing began to fit tighter and she was filled with insurmountable fear and shame. To make matters worse, when she told Ronnie of the news, he disappeared, like a shadow once a bright light is shined upon it.

One moment he was scorching the night air with his rough elegance, next, he left a smoldering, shameful stench and only a whisper of his name. She was stuck, her virtue gone, and indignity fell upon her. She’d been Daddy’s little girl...and she was sure that status was in jeopardy. And she was all alone, for no one else was there to help in her time of need. Her own mother had died when she was only ten. She struggled to hide the hideous ways in which her body was changing, telling on her, as her stomach swelled a bit more each passing week. Meanwhile, she wondered about the retired doctor from Sweden that lived in Flint and gave cold, garage abortions... She’d heard the rumors of the bad girls seeking him out, but no, she was too afraid. Yet, she had to. Who could she trust? Who could she run to?

Another month past, and most her clothing no longer fit. Luigi looked at her suspiciously over dinner one evening while their father read the paper and smoked his pipe, completely oblivious as the radio played low in the background. A lanky, auburn haired boy with quiet mannerisms, quick wit and a loving nature, Luigi took his little sister by the arm to a far corner of the house, and made her confess her sins. She did so tearfully, terrified, in explicit detail from the morning sickness, the missing father who’d run off after the news reached him, and no man from Sweden to be found...

Luigi kissed his little sister on the top of her head and assured her that he’d find someone to help. If their father found out, he’d kill her, and the threat of that was quite real and almost scarier than the pregnancy itself. Their old man had only remarked playfully that she’d had plenty of cakes—never suspecting that it was a different baking bun altogether...

No, not his little girl...she’d never do anything so vile.

A week later, Luigi shoved a wad of cash into the old doctor’s hand and waited in the kitchen while she screamed with pain in the adjoining room. After a while, her brother carried her out of there, put her in his car and drove her shivering, traumatized self back home. He took care of her, telling their father she’d come down with an awful cold, and had to miss school. While their old man toiled away at his company, brother and sister sat together, making sure she didn’t bleed to death. Finally, the blood had stopped, the pain was gone, and she could walk with ease once more. Though the words were never spoken, she believed her beloved father treated her differently after that horrid ordeal. She’d never whispered a word to him, and knew her brother would never betray her in such a manner, but the glow in his eyes when he’d look at her was gone...

A few years later, she met Tony, Dane’s father...and pretended to be the virgin bride he’d assumed her to be; surely not a young woman who’d become pregnant from a wayward street punk and did the unthinkable, the ‘no-no’ in Catholic law...snuff out the life of a child. Maria carried the guilt with her like a scarf around her neck, and it strangled her into submission. She walked around needing to make things right, to think that nothing bad would ever happen to her again, if she made sure the world around her was safe by simply pretending that all was well...

Dane did her bidding, promised to never tell their father of what had occurred, even though he tried to assure her that Dad loved her so much, he would not hold this against her. She staunchly disagreed, and when he saw the trepidation in her eyes, he knew, he must never even insinuate that it should be addressed again, ever. He promised to let sleeping dogs lie, but then, the following year, he saw his father and his mistress, and that, too, would have to be a secret, for Mom couldn’t handle any more bad news, it would break her in two.

He tucked it all away, and before he could catch his breath, Joseph confessed to him in an inebriated stupor, after they’d played a liquor game with their father’s beer stash, Playgirl magazines and a pack of old cigarettes, that he didn’t have a part-time job to help with the bills while Dad was away. He stated that wasn’t enough to keep them from all being out on the street, so instead, he was selling marijuana. The money had gotten good to him, and he thrived on his illicit business, still dealing long after Dad came back with the promise of a new job and a fresh start. Yeah, Joseph laughed and bragged about the gravy train that only got thicker and thicker until Dane had to bail him out of jail...another family secret he was sworn to keep to himself.

He poured the pain into Josh’s ear after the final blow toppled him like a cinder block. The final aggressive hard hitting punch came from a woman named JoAnne, who knew her way around a Chrysler, as well as Daisy’s heart.

That was it. Dane was then convinced that God was chasing him down, tormenting him, trying to make him do right, and bend...so he ran straight into the Lord’s arms, sober and certain he’d be finally delivered. Enough of the girls, parties, drinking and secrets all piled inside of him like rotting autumn leaves that molded, turning blacker and blacker until they died. He became a zombie, so he did what anyone in his predicament would do—he stopped running away, and instead, ran toward... He ran into the safe confines of the priesthood. Regardless of the haphazardly way it fell into place, he knew he was being called because that could be the only explanation for all that he had seen and endured. That one final straw had been life changing, the pivotal moment in which his entire world changed and he finally surrendered.

His dilapidated world came crumbling down the rest of the way, on a fine spring day. The day he’d visited his little sister in college and her girlfriend popped over to tell him the damn truth—that they were in love and planning to get married...

Daisy had lied, said the woman was only a friend and kidding, but Dane knew better. She’d tried to hide the relationship but the truth was, the woman who was madly in love with his little sister and refused to be hidden away like some filthy disease. She wasn’t ashamed, and figured out Daisy’s little hoax to keep her clean front before big brother came to pay a visit. Tired of being forced in the closet with her lover, she told on Daisy; let it all out with Dane. He’d stared at the woman as she confessed—her hair the same length as his, yet her features soft. He could see she loved his little pain in the butt sibling, and he respected that, regardless of his religious beliefs regarding the matter. She’d fallen hard for the petite head-turner, and wanted Dane and everyone else within earshot to know all about it. After it was over, JoAnne stormed away, angry and resentful of the stunt her lover had pulled.

With sad eyes, just like their mother’s, Daisy begged him to keep it to himself. And then he got the same awful wails of despair from Joseph, when he called from behind the black, chipped paint of the jail bars with criminals willing to eat him alive. He needed to be bailed out and pleaded that nothing be said about his criminal activities then and forever. With the little money he had to his name, he made sure his big brother was released. Dane agreed to keep his secrets, even helping him find the right lawyer to get his record eventually expunged...