Marley: Present Day
I hated him. I hate that he showed up at the doorstep. I hated that he seemed like he genuinely cared about my well-being, even after I'd hurt him. I hated that I knew deep down that I would never actually hate him.
Daniel never needed to enter my life again, that was clear, but he did so anyways. It was like the earth was trying to put two puzzle pieces back together, and by the time they reached each other, it was too late. Over time, the pieces began to deteriorate, no longer fitting like they once did. And the thing about puzzles, you can't force two pieces together if they don't fit. So why couldn't he just stay away if we were already two broken puzzle pieces?
It had been a month since Daniel showed up at Gray's door. My apartment no longer smelled of smoke, but there was still brown tinting on the bathroom wall. Leaving my room was only getting harder, and I'd stopped going to a few of my classes because my professors hardly took attendance. The only person I'd been in contact with the past month was Ivy, and that was really only because of proximity. Even getting a hold of my other friends exhausted me, not that there were many to reach out to anymore.
Ivy's worried about me. She made it clear.
"You know, my brother takes Zoloft, and he loves it," she told me once. I had no doubt in my mind that an antidepressant helped her brother, but how would it help me? I wouldn't describe my mood as depressed, just bummed out. I also didn't have anxiety that needed to be treated. Why couldn't people just accept that maybe I was a little sad? It didn't need to go deeper than that.
My phone vibrated for the gazillionth time – most of them from Gray. Along with Ivy, he was especially worried about me. After Daniel's visit on his doorstep, Gray blamed himself for telling him what had happened at my apartment. Gray apologized to me profusely when I had never blamed him.
It was nearly midnight on a Saturday. I had no doubt Gray was probably drunk-texting me his apologies again. Ivy was out, as usual, so I was chilling alone in my bedroom. This seemed to be routine for our weekends, and I didn't hate it.
I picked up my phone and opened the lock screen. It wasn't Gray who had been trying to contact me; it was my dad. Scrolling through my contacts, I noticed that I hadn't spoken to my dad in months. I hesitated before finally tapping his name and calling him back.
"Dad?" My voice was barely a whisper as if I couldn't believe my dad would ever try to call me.
For a moment there, I didn't think he'd pick up because it rang for so long. I was about to get ready to hang up when I heard the ringing stop. All I could hear was his breathing on the other line before he spoke.
"Sweetie." His voice sounded choked up, and I definitely didn't know how to react. Over the summer, I was too busy to answer any calls during the day and then I'd forget about them by the time I was free. And, honestly, we weren't the most openly emotional family.
Panic took over my body. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
I thought because of my ignorance; that maybe my father was starting to hate me. Even if it wasn't intentional, I was the one who shut him out of my life. It was as if his existence slipped my mind completely. My own father.
He took a deep breath. "You know when you're trying to sleep, but your thoughts are all over the place? That's me tonight. Just missing my little family tonight."
A lump made its way into my throat, and I tried to swallow it down. My dad and I hardly ever shared our feelings, especially about my mom's death. It seemed like she was here one day and then very sick the next and then gone in a snap. It was such a quick process that neither my dad nor I had the chance to talk about it. The only time our feelings were truly revealed was at her funeral, and then I was off to North Carolina the following day.
"I know," I said, fighting back my own tears. "I miss you, too. Is that all you needed to call about?"
"There's also something I need you to know."
We both paused, and I had to check my phone to make sure one of us didn't accidentally hang up. Whatever he was going to say was about to crush me. Had he moved on from my mother already? Found a new girlfriend, maybe even my future stepmom? I hated the thought because it was too soon. We had grieved long enough.
"I'm moving," he said. "I got offered a new job position."
"Like, from our house? You're not leaving Atlanta, are you?" It couldn't be that bad. I'd been living out of state for a while. Even if he moved across the country, it wouldn't make much of a difference.
He hesitated. "Scotland," he finally said, a pause in his sentence as though he was waiting for me to react. "I'm moving to the UK."
Well, damn. My dad wasn't just moving across the country, he was moving overseas. There was going to be a massive time difference. Would we even celebrate holidays together? When would the next time I see him even be once he left? It had already been months, would it be more? Years?
My childhood home was being sold.
Some of my favorite memories were from that house. Learning to ride a two-wheeler, movie nights with my parents, every Christmas celebration... I even had my first kiss there. My mom's memories still belonged to that house. Everything was about to disappear. What the hell was going on with my life? I thought college was supposed to be some of the best years of my life. Best years of my life my ass.
"I'm happy for you," I managed to get out after more painful silence.
"You are?"
Even though he couldn't see me, I still forced a smile. "Yes," I said, hot tears threatening to escape. "It'll be good for you. A good change of pace."
That was what my dad needed to hear. While I hated the idea of my childhood home being sold, I wasn't going to be the one to hold him back from a great opportunity. He might be leaving behind years of memories, but I knew as much as he did that staying in that house forever wouldn't solve anything.
"Great," his voice sounded lighter. "I was hoping you'd come and visit this Christmas. It'll be a fun change, right?"
"Right."
Christmas? It was the start of October. How soon was he moving?
"I'm so glad you took the news well," he sniffled, and I wondered if he was crying because he missed me or because he was moving. "I'd love for you to come down sometime and help me pack up the house. It's already covered in boxes, but your room's been untouched for the most part."
"When do you leave?"
"The beginning of November," he said. "Maybe you could come down sometime next week for a few nights?"
I agreed to drive back to Georgia next Friday and stay throughout the weekend.
***
The house looked exactly the same from the outside. The mailbox was still bent from when I accidentally bumped into it backing out of the driveway when I was sixteen. There were empty flower pots on the porch that my mom promised she'd make look pretty but then never ended up buying flowers. The only thing that looked remotely different was the fact that my dad had bought pumpkins for the front steps. That and the For Sale sign that I pretended wasn't there.
My dad's car wasn't on the driveway, so I let myself into a dark house. He wasn't lying when he said that the place had been mostly packed up. Towers of boxes were stacked against the walls and plastic clung to the furniture. All of the photos that lined the foyer hallway were gone, and the floors were bare of the oriental rugs that gave each room color. The house looked the emptiest I had ever seen it.
Walking down the hallway, I braced myself before I entered my childhood bedroom. I hadn't gone in there since the funeral. Every time I came back home and stepped into my room, it was like stepping into a time machine. Except, I wasn't ready to travel back in time yet. Reluctantly, I opened the door.
He definitely lied about not touching my room.
While it still looked like my old bedroom, the sheets on the bed were completely different. Rather than my usual floral sheets and pink comforter, the bed was now a bare mattress. The usual mess on the floor had been cleaned up, and my room immediately felt empty without clothes and books strewn all over. My that was once full of outfits from middle school was cleared out with the exception of a random train set still in its box (which I definitely did not buy).
At least the desk was the same. For some reason, my dad had left it untouched. It was still covered in papers that I hadn't looked at in years – probably consisted of notes I took in high school. Notebooks and textbooks were in unorganized piles. There was no reason for me to keep all of my schoolwork after each year, but I was convinced I'd need them at some point in the future. (Like hello? I didn't spend hours a day taking handwritten notes for nothing.)
Your handwriting is so bad, Daniel once told me when he first visited my home. It's so you. I couldn't figure out why out of all my memories in this room, that one stood out to me. I didn't even realize my brain still held on to it. That was seven years ago.
I pulled out a sheet of paper that dated back to 2013 from the mess on my desk. It was from my seventh-grade geography class, and on the title page, I labeled it GEOGRAPHY in giant, curly. The rest of the notebook consisted of scribbles that I couldn't read now. Was I even writing real words? No wonder Daniel told me my handwriting was bad.
I took out my phone to take a picture of the horrid handwriting to text to Ivy.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a box of photos I took from camp. There were pictures of me and my friend Anna (who I rarely talked to, but still have added on Facebook). One of the photos was just a blurry shot of my red Crocs, which I probably thought was artsy at the time. The majority of the photos were selfies, but more than half the time the camera was too low down or the flash was on, causing my eyes to squeeze shut in most of the photographs. I couldn't help the laugh that escaped my lips when I came across a photo of me from when I was eleven: one eye half open, the other squeezed shut, and my mouth wide as if the flash had surprised me.
Then the pictures start to change. From ages ten to fourteen, it's clear a child took the photos. Little to zero effort was put into what I was taking pictures of, which is why most of them were so terrible (yet hilarious). Around fifteen, they started to become more of me and Daniel, or me and Anna, and someone had taken the pictures rather than me taking a selfie. A smile spread across my lips as if I was returning the smile in the girl's – my – photos. Had my smile always been so contagious?
I picked up a photograph of me and Daniel in a motel room. This was when we were either CITs or counselors, and we were allowed to go off campgrounds every few weeks for a break. It looked like we were sitting on an unmade bed, and I might've been sitting on Daniel's lap because his face was barely shown in the photo. His eyes were squinting, and even though I couldn't see his smile in the photograph, it was clearly there. My eyes were almost shut because of how big my smile was. The photo is taken from the head up, but he's shirtless, and I appear to be in a bra... I realized exactly when this photo was taken.
Butterflies filled my stomach looking at the photos, and it was almost too much to take in. I quickly put them back in the box but kept a mental note to bring the box back to school with me.
My ears perked up at the familiar sound of the garage door opening. I could remember perfectly whenever my mom would ask me to defrost a lump of meat from the freezer and I'd forget until I'd hear the garage going up. The adrenaline I got running from my bedroom to the kitchen to bring out whatever it was she wanted me to defrost was insane at the time. The sound still elicits a familiar reaction in me, causing my heart rate to speed up. This time, though, there was nothing to defrost.
"Marley?" Dad called from the door that leads to the garage. Hearing his voice in person made my stomach sink at the realization of how long it'd been. I really did miss my dad.
I heard his footsteps approaching. Just like hearing the garage open, listening to his footsteps walk down the hallway also felt so nostalgic. I remembered being a kid listening to the different footsteps my parents made when they'd get home. Mom's consisted of the high-pitched sound of heels clicking on the floor, while Dad's was more of a heavier, louder step. After all those years, that heavy sound never changed.
"Dad, you lied to me about my room not being touched. Everything's gone," I said once he appeared in the doorway.
He let out a hearty, contagious laugh that I couldn't help but smile in response to. "I might've moved some things around a while back."
"Moved some things? My entire closet is missing!"
He was wearing his usual sports coat over a light blue button-down and tie. I swear he had at least thirty of the same dress shirt that he wore to work, and they were all light blue.
We weren't a touchy-feely family, so I didn't expect a hug. So it definitely surprised me when he came up and squeezed me from the side. A classic, awkward Harvey Miller side-hug. I didn't know what to do with my hands. Of course, my dad has hugged me in the past, but as I got older, it became way less frequent.
"I've missed having someone around," he said while opening some empty boxes for us to start loading stuff in. "Sometimes your Uncle Skip comes around for drinks and the occasional barbeque, but other than that, it's been quite lonely."
Uncle Skip wasn't my real uncle. I'm not sure how he won the award of being my uncle, but I assumed it was because neither of my parents had brothers (my mom had three sisters and my dad was an only child). Uncle Skip was friends with my dad since college, so he'd been always been in my life. I kind of expected my friendship with Ivy to be similar to theirs when we get older.
Skip also wasn't his real name. But if anyone called him David, he'd politely tell them to fuck off.
"I bet Uncle Skip's great company, though," I said, loading some books into a box.
"Sure, when he isn't crying over me leaving the States."
I let out a laugh. "No way."
Dad gave me a slight smile and shook his head to indicate that he was joking. I wouldn't put it past Skip to cry over dad's departure, but I also had never seen the man cry.
The next hour was spent packing my room. I was surprised by how much stuff I had accumulated since I was a kid. There was a box of fortunes from probably every Chinese restaurant I had been to growing up. I was even shocked to see my old Littlest Pet Shop toys that I once used to collect stored away in a plastic bin under my bed. Part of me wanted to keep them forever, but the part that had grown up wondered how much I could sell them for.
My dad had stopped helping me pack soon after he got home and started working on dinner. I suggested that we order food, but he insisted on cooking. "Gotta get rid of as much food as possible to prevent waste," he said when I raised a brow. My dad was not the chef of the family.
When the food was ready, the dining table felt empty.
My dad made spaghetti and meatballs, which was fitting considering his cooking background (none). I noticed that my mom's apron was nowhere to be seen. It used to always hang on the oven handle when it wasn't being used, but now it was gone. Bringing that up to my dad would only trigger a depressing conversation, so I kept my focus on the pasta.
"Pretty good, huh?" he asked, his voice rising with excitement. "I've been teaching myself new recipes for a while now. At some point, I realized I needed to stop eating like a college student. Without your mother helping out in the kitchen, I reverted back to the simplest meals possible. Look at me now, cooking up a real dinner for my favorite daughter."
I refused to break my dad's heart by telling him that spaghetti and meatballs was a college meal. Like, the most college-type dish one could make. Dad seemed a little too proud of his creation.
"It's delicious," I said, shoving a mouth full of noodles into my mouth. "What's your secret?"
"Salt and olive oil before the water boils."
Mom always told me that olive oil makes it harder for the water to boil, but I wasn't the chef, so I had to trust my father.
We spent the rest of dinner talking about mundane subjects such as school and the internship I worked on over the summer. Those were probably the last things I'd want to talk about, but my dad seemed genuinely interested. I didn't tell him about Daniel being in one of my classes, and the fact that I rarely go to any of my classes now. I also never told him about the incident with the straightening iron last month and how it could've burned down the entire apartment. The last thing I wanted to do was stress my dad out before he was moving. This was supposed to be a good weekend for us both. I needed a break from North Carolina and he needed his daughter.
"You want to make s'mores tonight? We haven't sat by the fire in a while." Dad asked.
I forgot that my dad had a fire pit built in the backyard when I was in high school. As far as I knew, it was hardly used. The last time I could remember making s'mores at the house was that first night after the fire pit was finished.
"Sure," I said. "I'd love to."
The rest of the night was spent by a campfire, not discussing our future or past, but staying in the present with one another. It was nice to be back home, and I promised myself that I would cherish my last moments here while I could. Saturday would consist of moving everything to storage, so tonight was the best time to take in everything while it was still here.
When it was finally time to leave, I let my dad give me a real hug, not an awkward side hug. I was afraid this would be an emotional moment since it was the last time I'd be in the home I grew up in. I wouldn't let myself cry, at least not in front of my dad. I was going to see him over the winter holiday, and I didn't need him thinking I didn't want him to move. While I hated the idea of him leaving the states, I knew it would be a good change.
"It's going to be tough leaving this place," Dad said while he helped me put my suitcase in Ladybug's trunk. He put his hands on his hips before turning to face me, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "But I'm excited. I'm moving to Scotland. Can you imagine?"
"I can't," I replied honestly.
"Me neither. I've lived in this city my whole life. I'm ready to finally start a new life."
I liked seeing my dad so optimistic. It calmed me to know that he was ready to leave. It was me who was having a tough time saying goodbye.
"Well then," I said, and I could feel my smile quivering as I looked at the house and then back to my dad. "Ladybug and I are off."
Dad patted the red Beetle and then opened the driver's side door. "Take care of my daughter, 'Bug," he joked and turned toward me. "And you take care of yourself, okay? I love you."
I tried to choke out an "I love you" but my throat felt like it was closing up. Speechless, I rolled down the windows and waved at my dad as I drove back down the street for the last time. I told myself I wouldn't cry, but once I took a right turn out of the neighborhood, I couldn't help but let the tears fall.