Beneath the Surface(62)

“The note she left me was so brief,” Sheryl said. “It didn’t give any explanation.” Sheryl hadn’t allowed herself to think of her mother’s good-bye note for a long time. She kept it in a plastic folder in a drawer at work. Having it at home always seemed too much somehow. “It just said that hopefully one day, when I was older, I would understand.”

It wasn’t understanding Sheryl lacked. She had scoured the university library for any book she could find on clinical depression, and had them order any new one even remotely related to the subject. When it came to cold hard facts, she knew why her mother had taken her own life. What she couldn’t wrap her head around was why, if things had gotten so bad that a mother was willing to leave her daughter behind, to have her fend for herself in a world she herself was so desperate and determined to leave, her father hadn’t done anything about it. Had her admitted. Dragged her to counseling. Cut the noose from around her fucking neck before she choked to death.

Trevor shook his head. Perhaps he’d already lost the power of speech entirely. Then he cleared his throat again. “I can never give you a satisfactory answer to that question, Sheryl. Your mother did what she did because she felt it was the only way for her. As for me… I spent the rest of my life trying to drown my grief. There are no excuses for that.”

“For the longest time, I didn’t know which one of the two of you I should hate the most.” Sheryl’s voice boomed through the room. She wasn’t speaking that loudly, but the contrast with her father’s throaty whisper was too big. “But Mom was dead and I did everything in my power to grasp the immense blackness she faced every day. And despite the note she left me, I will never fully understand what that must have been like, but at least I didn’t have to see her suffer and wither away the way I did with you. I didn’t have to witness how she wrecked herself a little more every single day. You were still alive, but you might as well not have been.”

“I couldn’t forgive her for what she had done. I just couldn’t.” Trevor’s tone had grown a bit more powerful. “The only way for me to deal with it was by escaping myself.”

Sheryl expressed a loud sigh. “And where did that leave me?”

“No place good.” A tremor in his voice, like he was about to cry. “Every day was double agony for me. I despised your mother, the woman I loved, for being such a coward, and I despised myself for being so powerless.

“Powerless to help her and powerless to help you and myself in the aftermath. Booze became my best friend, and I just let myself slide down that slippery slope all the way. I have been an appalling father and husband in every respect. A despicable man with no pride or dignity left.”

His speech left him gasping for air.

“Oh yes, you’re such a martyr,” Sheryl said. “At least you were out of it most of the time. I was only a child. A twelve-year-old with no options whatsoever.”

“I know. And there’s nothing I can say or do that will ever change that.”

Sheryl couldn’t look at him anymore. If he died tomorrow, it would be a relief. Then she could go back to the life she had built for herself, despite all the odds stacked against her. She could shake off these bouts of deplorable self-pity that came over her. Maybe she could even stop drinking, now that she had an up-close reminder of what it could do to a person. She didn’t want to turn into a groveling, regretful shell of a human being.

Sheryl didn’t need anymore regrets. She didn’t need anymore conversations with this man who was, by blood, her father, but was by no other means connected to her. If anything, she could learn from his mistake. Though, even as she was still sitting there, rapidly being consumed by the anger she had managed to keep at bay, she already knew that her inclination toward a few drinks was not something even the sight of her pathetic father could snap her out of, because all she wanted was a large glass of wine or a shot of vodka burning down her throat, or both.

Sheryl looked at Kristin. She hadn’t noticed until now, but her eyes were wet with tears. Did she somehow owe it to the woman she loved to stay? To give Trevor assurances about her life and her levels of happiness? What could she even say? We’re happy, though things could be better. I’m turning into the same vile alcoholic that you were, now that you’ve gotten sober. How’s that for irony?

“I need to get out of here.” Sheryl rose. “Just… for a walk or something.”

Kristin stood up as well. Trevor stayed seated. If Sheryl were to etch any visual in her brain forever after coming to this house, it would be the pained expression on his face. Sunken blue eyes, dark purple bags underneath them. Hollow cheeks and lips so pale no color could describe them. All of it combining in a look of a guilt so extreme, Sheryl wondered if it wasn’t that eating him alive, instead of his liver failing. She guessed a bit of both.