Outside the Lines: A Novel

The rest of my father’s letters were much like the first. They told me little of where he was living or how he survived during those first six months after his attempt to end his life, only that he was sorry for the pain he caused and longed for the day when he could see me again. The last letter was the shortest and left me no clue where he’d gone for the next ten years when I didn’t hear from him.

It read,

Dear Eden,

You don’t want to see me, that much is clear. And while I can’t blame you, I’ll continue to wish for a change in your heart.

I’m thinking of leaving Seattle. Leaving the rain and darkness and green. But don’t think for a minute I’m leaving you. I AM you. In your blood and thoughts, inside every breath you take. As long as you are alive, so will I be.

Love, Daddy

Wanda, the apartment manager, mentioned California as a possible place he had lived, but where would I even begin to look in that state? Especially if he was homeless there. The two letters I received from him when I was twenty were similar in tone but also spoke of the time he’d spent living on the streets. I was so angry with him back then, I didn’t keep them.

After I read the letters twice through, I only debated a moment over calling my mother versus going to see her. It was the kind of conversation we needed to have face-to-face. I needed to see her reaction when I told her I knew that she had lied to me for almost twenty years. I needed to look her in the eye so she could see the damage she’d done.

I called to make sure she was home and asked if I could come over.

“Of course, honey,” she said. “I’m just rearranging the living room. Is everything all right?”

“Not really,” I answered. “I’ll be there in a little bit.” I hung up and immediately called Georgia to fill her in on the letters my mother had hidden from me.

“Holy crap,” she said. “That sucks. Do you think it’s a good idea to go talk to her now?”

I grabbed my purse and snapped my fingers for Jasper to follow me outside to my car. “Waiting won’t change what she did.”

“No, but you’re pretty pissed off, which doesn’t always make for the most productive conversations.”

“I don’t see myself getting any less pissed if I put it off.” I shut the back door behind me and locked it, tucking my cell phone between my shoulder and ear.

“Okay. It was just a suggestion.”

“I know, Georgia. But I’ve needed answers my whole life.” Why did my dad get sick? What was really wrong with him? Why didn’t he take his medication long enough to get well? Why did he leave me? Did he ever really love me at all? Where is he? I felt my jaw tremble and I gritted my teeth to keep from crying. Why the hell did I always seem to cry when I got angry? I was irate, not sad. I wanted to hit something, not sob like a baby. “I need to understand why she did this.”

We said good-bye and I hung up before I realized I hadn’t told her about Jack spending the night. Jasper whimpered in the backseat as I drove, picking up, I was sure, on the stress I felt. “It’s okay, buddy,” I said, trying to soothe him. “Momma’s fine. I just need to take care of something.”

I let Jasper loose in my mother and John’s fenced backyard, then entered their house through the back door. “Mom?” I called out from the kitchen. “Where are you?”

“In the living room, honey!” she called in response.

I walked through their kitchen and down the long, narrow hallway. Pictures of my family hung all over the walls. My mother and John, Bryce as a baby, me feeding my brother a bottle. My graduation, then Bryce’s, then John’s award ceremony for bravery during an especially dangerous factory explosion. There was no evidence I ever had a father before 1990. My mother preferred it that way.

“Hi,” I said when I saw her sitting on the couch. Her legs were propped up on the coffee table and she wore a bright blue handkerchief over her head with a matching velour sweat suit. Her cheeks were flushed, and despite my anger, I was hit with an immediate fear the cancer had come back. “Are you feeling okay? You don’t have a fever, do you?”

She smiled and her eyes lit up. “I’m fine, baby. Just moving furniture around again while John’s at work. Are you okay? You sounded upset on the phone.”

“I am.”

“Well, come sit down.” She patted the cushion next to her on the sofa. “Tell me all about it.”

I stood in the doorway, unable to do as she asked. The rage I felt tensed my muscles, gluing me to one spot.

She tilted her head and furrowed her forehead. “What’s wrong? Did something happen with the new guy you’re seeing?”

I shook my head. “No. We’re fine. It’s about Dad.”

Her shoulders slumped, visibly disappointed. “Oh, Eden. I thought you might give that up.”

“Why would you think that?” I asked angrily.

“I don’t know. I thought maybe since you found a boyfriend and had something positive to focus on you’d let it go.”

“Well, I haven’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her. “In fact, I went to dad’s old apartment building with Jack and we found some of his paintings. And a box of his things.”

The muscles in her face seemed to freeze beneath her skin; panic flashed in her eyes and she began to blink rapidly. “What kind of things?”

“Letters, mostly. They were addressed to me in 1989. And then returned to sender. By you, I assume.”

Her blue eyes widened and filled with tears. “Oh.”

“Oh?” I said, feeling the tightness in my chest begin to shatter into more of my own tears. “That’s all you’re going to say? ‘Oh’?” I took a deep breath and blew it out through my nose, trying to calm my pulse. “You lied to me, Mom. You said he never wrote. That he didn’t want to see me.”

She lifted her chin and it trembled. “I did what I thought was right.” She paused. “Maybe it wasn’t the best decision—”

“Maybe?” I said, cutting her off. “More like it was a completely fucked-up decision. How could you do that to me? I cried every night, missing him. You knew that. You watched that. You knew I wanted to see him and talk to him and make sure he was okay and you kept him from me. How could you possibly have seen that as the right thing to do?”

“He was a train wreck, Eden. Being around him tore you apart. You were always so busy rearranging yourself trying to make him happy. I didn’t want you to spend your life doing that, honey. I wanted you to be free of him. I wanted us both to be free.” Her voice shook with emotion but I had no sympathy. She brought this on herself.

“Free of knowing my father loved me? That despite everything wrong with him, he still thought about me? Yeah, I definitely should have been freed of that. Good choice, Mom.”

“I struggled with this, Eden. I swear I did.”

“You didn’t struggle half as much as I did not knowing it!” I shouted. I’d never yelled at my mother like this. But the anger was bigger than me, bigger than anything I’d ever felt. It took me over. My whole life could have been different. I could have seen my father, spent time with him. Maybe even convinced him to get help. But no, instead my mother let him rot on the streets. She let me believe he didn’t give a shit about me.

She cringed. “I just wanted to protect you. After what he did, after all you saw that night. No child should experience that kind of trauma. I just couldn’t stand the idea of him putting you through it again. I thought it was better this way, I really did.” She sighed. “Then when you got those letters from him at your house after you moved out and you didn’t want to see him, it confirmed for me that I’d made the right choice.”

“I didn’t want to see him because I thought he’d abandoned me, Mom!” I tried not to scream, but I felt my tone escalating toward hysteria with every word. “I spent the first ten years he was gone thinking he forgot about me completely and I was pissed as hell. That’s why I didn’t write him back. Now I find out he tried to keep in contact and you just let me believe he didn’t care. You let me cry and suffer and think he was a piece of shit. If I’d have known he’d written me, I wouldn’t have ignored him the way I did. He was homeless, Mom. He probably still is. And now I can’t find him and he’ll never know I love him and it’s your fault!”

She started to cry in earnest. Her shoulders quaked and she put her hand over her mouth to muffle the sounds. She looked small and vulnerable sitting on the couch. Regret sat like a block of cement on my chest, but I was too angry to apologize. She was the one who needed to apologize. She was the liar in this room, not me.

“Were there more letters? Ones that you didn’t send back to him?”

“No. He only sent those few.”

“Did he write to you? Did he say anything that might help me find him now?”

“No, Eden. He didn’t. I swear.”

“Does John know about this?” I asked, continuing my interrogation. “Does he know what you’ve been keeping from me?”

She shook her head and dropped her hand back down to her lap after wiping her tears away. “No. I didn’t tell him.”

“Because Bryce told me John’s upset that I’m looking for Dad. I thought this might have something to do with it. That he didn’t want me to find out you lied. That his perfect wife maybe isn’t so perfect.” I was hitting below the belt but I couldn’t stop. “Are you sure he doesn’t know?”

She nodded and sniffed. “He thinks you’re looking because he wasn’t a good enough father to you.”

“It has nothing to do with him.” My eyes darted around the room, taking in all my mother’s fine things. The picture-perfect world she’d built after the one she’d lived in with my father. She hadn’t wanted to be Rapunzel when she met my father, but she ended up letting John rescue her after all. And she was happier for it. At least she seemed to be. I suddenly understood her constant need to redecorate; always rearranging her outer world was a way to try to maintain a sense of inner calm. But she couldn’t. Not with the lies she’d told.

“Do you know where he is?” I demanded.

“No, Eden. I don’t.”

“Did he ever call? Did you talk with him?”

“He only called once, from the hospital, to tell me he’d sign the divorce papers. Never after that.”

“What else haven’t you told me?”

“Nothing. You know everything. He wrote those letters and I sent them back. That’s it.”

“That’s more than enough,” I said. My bitterness barbed each word.

“I’m ashamed I stayed with him as long as I did,” she said quietly. She wouldn’t look at me; instead, she kept her eyes on the floor. “I let you be exposed to so much of his illness that you never should have seen. I was so young. So stupid. I should have left long before he slit his wrists, Eden. I should have left the first time he refused to take his meds or after he slept with a stranger. Taking him back after he went to jail was the biggest mistake of my life. I spent a long time feeling guilty for that. Protecting you from getting hurt by him again was the only way I knew how to deal with it. I thought a clean break was the best thing. I honestly believed that.” She lifted her gaze to me, her eyes pleading for understanding.

I dropped my arms to my sides and glared at her. “You believed wrong, Mom,” I said, and for the first time in my life, I turned my back on my mother and marched out the door.

I didn’t know where to go. After leaving my mother’s house, I drove aimlessly with Jasper in the backseat. I ended up heading downtown, taking the Union Street exit and going west toward the waterfront. Where my parents first met. Where my father might still be. I found a parking spot beneath the viaduct and hitched Jasper to his leash. I didn’t have a plan. I only knew I had to look for my dad. He had to be down there somewhere.

It was a typically drizzly, gray Northwest autumn day and walking along the waterfront, I had to steer around the tourists who were crazy enough to come to Seattle in November. I watched businessmen and women on their lunch hour stopping at Ivar’s Seafood Bar for some of the city’s best clam chowder. I scanned the face of every homeless man tucked into a corner beneath an awning. I showed my father’s picture to several of them.

“Have you seen him?” I asked. “This picture is old, but I thought you might recognize him anyway.”

“Don’t know him,” was the answer, if I was lucky enough to get a response at all. Many of the people stared off into space, dazed or drunk or some combination of the two. I wanted to shake them. Didn’t they understand how important this was? What if someone in their own family was looking for them? Wouldn’t they hope someone else would offer to help? I felt desperate for this search to end but couldn’t fathom giving it up. Especially not now, knowing what my mother did. How hurt my father must have been when those letters came back to him. How deep did that hurt go? Did it lead him to attempt suicide again? Did he succeed? Is that why I couldn’t find him? Was I looking for a man who no longer existed? Was I chasing a ghost?

What bothered me most was not the fact that my mother didn’t give me the letters when my father’s suicide attempt was so fresh. I supposed I could even understand her reasoning, though I wasn’t sure I was ready to acknowledge this out loud. What bothered me was that she continued to lie about it, even after she had the chance to tell me the truth. To tell me about the letters when my father wrote me again. She was the parent I trusted. The one I turned to for security and support. When my father said she never wanted to have me in the first place, the very core of me didn’t believe him. Even at ten years old, I knew not to trust it. I understood that he lied. I’d seen it time and time again.

My concept of my mother had been the complete opposite. She was someone I could always rely on to give me the facts, no matter the consequences. Would I need to revisit everything she’d ever told me? Would I always question her version of the truth, never knowing if she was being honest or just trying to protect me?

As I stopped to let Jasper sniff at one of the artwork pigs on the pier, my cell phone rang in my pocket, interrupting my jumbled thoughts. I fumbled to answer, catching the call on the last ring, too late to see the caller ID.

“Hello?” I said loudly. My reception was always lousy close to the water.

“Hey, it’s me.” Jack’s voice came over the line and I was so happy to hear it, my breath caught in my chest.

“Hi, Me.” I scanned the pier for an empty spot on one of the benches to sit down. There wasn’t one.

“Are you okay? Did you see your mom?”

“I did see her, but I’m not sure if I’m okay, really. I’m not sobbing, though, so I guess that’s a good thing.” I took a deep breath. “How are you?”

“I’m glad you’re not sobbing.” He paused. “Are you busy? I have something I need to talk to you about.”

Oh no. He’s already regretting sleeping with me. I opened up too much too soon and he didn’t mean any of the wonderful things he said. I’ve got too much craziness going on with my family and now he’s going to tell me he doesn’t want me to come around anymore. I never should have let him in. I never should have believed something as good as this would last.

“I’ll be right there,” I said, figuring I might as well get the conversation over with. First the fight with my mom and now this. It was turning out to be one hell of a day. “I’m not too far away, actually. Down at the waterfront.”

“You didn’t go in to work, did you?”

“No, I’m where my parents first met. I come here sometimes, thinking my dad might come back.”

“And has he?”

“Not today.” I kept my voice hard, steeling myself against the disappointment already flowing through my veins.

“I’ll see you soon, then.”

“I have Jasper with me. Is it okay if I bring him?”

“Of course. Will you come around back, though, through the alley entrance?”

“Sure.” I decided that instead of trying to find another parking spot near Hope House, I would just walk the ten or so blocks over to get there. Maybe the exercise would do me good. I tried not to think too much about what Jack might have to say.

When Jasper and I turned the corner into the alley behind the shelter, I saw Jack and Rita standing by the back door. They waved and I picked up my pace to reach them. I really wanted to get this over with.

“Hi,” I said. “What’re you doing out here?” Though the drizzle had dissipated, they were both a little muddy and wet and wearing garden gloves. Why would Rita be with him if he was planning on breaking it off? Was he looking for a way to cushion the blow? If he broke up with me with Rita standing next to him, I was going to scream.

Rita tilted her head toward the deserted lot across the alley. “We’ve been working.”

I turned my head and saw that the lot had been completely cleared of any and all trash. The soil had been overturned and was now dark, not just from the rain. It looked as though it had been mixed with some kind of fertilizer. It smelled like it, too; the earthy scent of manure hung in the air.

“Working on what?” I asked, swinging my gaze back to look at Jack.

He reached over and took my hand. “Come look.”

“Here,” Rita said, taking Jasper’s leash from my grasp. She grinned from ear to ear. “I’ll hold on to this fella.”

Jack led me over to the lot and pointed to a stack of weathered railroad ties over by the brick wall. “See? We’ll be able to build raised beds with those. A friend of mine over at the train station gave them to me for free.”

“Okay,” I said, drawing the word out. I looked at the railroad ties and then back at him. “I still don’t get it.”

He grabbed my shoulders and turned me around to face the corner off to our left, which was taken up by an enormous pile of yellow-netted bags filled with flower bulbs. “It’s the new Garden of Eden,” he said. “I checked with the nursery and since we haven’t had our first freeze, it’s not too late to get the bulbs in the ground. I’m going to leave a few of the beds empty so the clients can help plant some vegetables next spring. Maybe some tomatoes and corn.” He squeezed my hand. “It gets great sun back here and I’ll have to put up a fence with a lock so people don’t just come in and steal from it, but I think it’s a great use of the space, don’t you?”

For a minute, I couldn’t speak. He wasn’t breaking up with me. He was giving me a gift. One more meaningful than anything else I’d ever received.

Jack leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Don’t you like it?” he asked.

I pressed my lips together and nodded briskly. I looked at him, hoping my eyes conveyed the emotion I felt. My heart ached, but I couldn’t tell whether it was more from the pain of the argument with my mother or the happiness I felt seeing the garden. I threw my arms around his neck and pushed my mouth against his ear. “I love it,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

He pulled back and kissed me. “My pleasure.”

“You did all of this this morning?”

“I’ve been thinking about doing it since we found your dad’s painting in the basement and you told me the story of how you two planted your garden. But I had some help getting it started.” He shifted and nodded his head toward Rita, who was crouching down and scratching Jasper’s belly. She looked up and gave me a thumbs-up sign and another huge grin. I waved and smiled back, then gave Jack a playful smack on his shoulder.

“So,” I said, “when I was here yesterday you already knew what you were going to do with the lot and you didn’t tell me?”

He shrugged innocently. “I wanted to get the beds in first, but after the morning you had with the letters from your dad and having to talk with your mom, I thought you could use something positive. A few clients volunteered to clear out the rest of the garbage and Tom brought in the topsoil from the nursery. It still needs a lot of work, but I thought maybe we could get the bulbs in this afternoon.” He smiled. “But we do have one problem.”

I looked at him quizzically. “Oh yeah? What’s that?” At that point, I wasn’t sure I could handle another problem.

“I’ve never planted a garden before. I’m excited to see how it turns out.”

“Well,” I said, hearing my father’s low-timbred voice as I repeated the same lesson he’d taught me so long ago, “good things come to those who wait. I’ll show you how to start.”