That Friday, I drove up to see Diane.
She looked tired, more tired than I’d seen her in years. Cheryl had been calling three times a week, and every call was more aggressive than the last. The most recent one ended with Cheryl threatening to tell the whole family that Diane was an unstable old woman ruining a young bride’s wedding over a grudge.
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“I told her the only grudge I have is against a man who left his son on the side of a road and lied about it for eighteen years,” Diane said from her recliner. “Then I hung up on her.”
She took a sip of her tea.
“Next week I’m seeing Dr. Patel for my checkup,” she said. “I’m going to have him write a letter saying I’m of sound mind. Put it in your lawyer’s folder. If Ray wants to call me senile, he can argue with my cardiologist.”
That was Diane. She’s never been the type to flinch.
“Be ready,” she said as I was leaving. “Your father is about to lose his mind.”
The certified letter was delivered on a Monday. I know because Jerry called me at 6:15 that evening.
“Your dad just pulled up to the lake with another guy,” he said. “They’re down at the pavilion yelling at each other.”
“Yelling about what?”
“Can’t hear the words. But the other fella’s waving a piece of paper around, and your dad keeps throwing his arms up in the air.”
The other guy was probably the contractor, a roofing buddy Ray had paid cash to build the pavilion off the books. My guess was he’d just found out he’d been building on somebody else’s land without a permit, and that his name could end up in a lawsuit.
Ray called me twenty minutes later. This time I answered.
“Thomas.” His voice was tight and controlled, but only barely. “I got a letter from a lawyer today.”
“I know.”
“You know? So this is coming from you?”
“It’s coming from Diane. She owns the property. You built on her land without permission.”
“That’s family land, Thomas. My in-laws had every Fourth of July out there. Your grandfather built that dock with his own two hands.”
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Ezoic
“And then he put Diane’s name on the deed. Not yours, and not anybody else’s.”
“That was a technicality. It was supposed to stay in the family.”
“Diane is family, and so am I. Neither of us gave you permission to build there.”
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Ezoic
He went quiet. I could hear him breathing hard, like he’d just come down off a roof.
“I’ve spent forty thousand dollars on this wedding,” he said. “Forty thousand. The pavilion, the lumber, the tent rentals, an eleven-thousand-dollar catering deposit. I took a second mortgage on the house to pay for it. And you’re telling me to tear it down?”
“I’m telling you that you built on property you don’t own after the owner told you no. Twice, in writing. What you spent is between you and your bank.”
Ezoic
“This is about the past, isn’t it?” His voice dropped. It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation. “You’re still holding on to whatever happened when you were a kid. I thought you’d have grown up by now.”
“Whatever happened?” I said it slowly. “You left your thirteen-year-old son on the side of a dirt road with a duffel bag and drove away. That isn’t whatever happened. That’s what you did.”
“I was trying to toughen you up. You were too soft. Diane had you acting like a little girl, and somebody had to do something about it.”
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Ezoic
There it was. Eighteen years later, and not one ounce of reflection or a single syllable of regret. He was still the same man who thought kindness was weakness and cruelty was parenting.
