I got a few decent gifts, membership to the gym with Mark. Beth got me a book on how to talk to women, I think it was a joke and Abigail got me a new game for the massive system I got from Mom as a bribe/makeup gift. I keep looking at it as a 'she felt bad and wanted to do something' as opposed to a 'Need to make up for the guilt I feel and try to get him to love me again'. I don't open mine all at once mind you, I get them opened in turn as everyone opens one from someone else and while there aren't a lot of gifts we each get someone something and finally it comes to the end and I have to wonder where my gift from Mom or Mr. Delauter is. He hands me a small box from my stocking with my name on it and after the paper and opening the box I find a set of keys with a rabbit's foot on the other end. I shrug and look a little confused as he leads me to the garage with the family in tow.
"No more rides to school with the others unless you want to," Mr. Delauter says as he flips the light on to the garage and I see it, I don't believe it but I see it," I'm told it's a special car. 1967…"
"The 1967 Ford Shelby GT 500… Water-cooled Pushrod V-8, cast iron block and heads, 2 x 4-bbl Holley Carburetor… Three speed automatic transmission with a torque converter," I know the details, I've known them for over ten years," Why?"
"Well your Mother said this car was special to you," Mr. Delauter begins to explain and I can see the look of terror on my mother's face.
"It is special to me… me and my father. This was our thing, the dream car… but it's just a dream because he's dead," I don't even want to touch the car, it feels like I'm looking at a tombstone," This was his dream, his and mine. Why couldn't you leave it alone?"
I don't wait for an answer, I really don't want one right now as I step past everyone and head up to my room. I know everyone wants to make everything alright and hopes I'll feel better but I'm quite literally living over the dead dreams my father and I had years ago before life broke me. I've been sitting for what feels like an hour or two when there is a knock at my door that waits for me to answer it, which I do after the second try only to find Mr. Delauter standing there waiting for me.
"May I come in, I'd like to speak with you and try to explain myself," he asks and I shrug, stepping away, better to get it over with.
"Is this where you didn't plan for me to react so poorly or where you just hoped a big shiny car would keep me from hurting Mom," I ask, moving to my chair to sit down.
"Neither actually, I planned for a reaction but you were more dedicated to the car than I thought and it caught me off guard. I know it was you and your father's dream to work on one together and eventually you'd get it when you were an adult," he begins to explain and I want to speak but he holds up his hand to stop me," It wasn't there to hurt you, even though it did. I got that car because it was something good from before us, me and my children and I wanted you to have something that you could connect with your father."
"You got me my Dad's dream car so I could remember him," I ask and he nods," That's bullshit. If you wanted me to remember him you'd dig up a picture or something. Buying me the dream car is you trying to replace him like your children wanted my mom to replace your wife."
"No! They did not replace their mother with yours! That is a cop out and you are being petty and short sighted. Stop thinking about how things are affecting everyone else and try to see something from my point of view. You have been scared, hurt and alone for almost a decade and all I wanted was to give you a piece of your past, untouched, untarnished so that one day if we find your father you and he can have something together. I don't need you to be my son and you have done well enough without me as your father but I am your guardian and I WILL protect you as best I can and when I can't I will take up the charge and fight for you. I should have been doing it long before now but I'm not a good parent when it comes to some of these things," Mr. Delauter's raised voice and impassioned speech is good and it feels more honest than when Mom got me the giant ass entertainment system.
"Better than my Dad, he never came back," I say it quietly and it hurts.
"Not because of you, if I had to guess why he never returned for you I'd guess it was his shame. He fought and lost you, it hurt him to lose in front of you and he probably felt like he failed," He explains it and it makes sense again.
"I wanted to leave two years ago and you said he wasn't there, that he was dead," I state the words and he holds up a finger to stop me.
"I said they couldn't find him and they couldn't. I showed you the file," Mr. Delauter states and I counter.
"And it could be forged or falsified. You opened it and it wasn't yours," I state and he snaps on me again.
"I have never lied to you or kept anything from you when I was aware of the situation. I did not show you care and attention like I should have years ago and that I am at fault for. Adding to that I had and still have a huge blind spot to my three children and generally try to think the best of them no matter what, again this is something I know about myself. However unless you have proof, real proof that I have lied to you about anything don't accuse me of it. I will take my blame for what I did or didn't do but I won't let anyone, even you tell me that I'm a liar because it's convenient for you instead of the sad truth," he is upset, bordering mad, but it does sound true.
"Honestly I don't know. I want things still, things I shouldn't want not because I don't deserve them but because you don't. I am constantly telling myself to enjoy it now because sooner or later all of you will forget and when that happens I'm done and it's all on me after that," I explain and he's listening as he sits in my computer chair.
"Is that why you keep planning to move out," he asks and I nod," Guy I have had many thoughts about you, aside from Abigail you are an academic powerhouse in this family. I have no clue what you want to do with your life but I've been ready for you to ask me for something, anything.``
"Former status quo kept a lot of what I wanted silent," I mutter and he nods.
"I looked at you in a similar manner to my daughter, Abby, not Beth. You took everything now for years and never allowed yourself to become a bad person over it and even when we did things and you were sad to be on the outside you were still grateful. We took that vacation to Florida and my children whined about Disneyland while we were there and you just smiled a little and asked for sun block," he reminds me of one of our 'family' vacations.
"That was one of the few times where people spoke to me at length," I remember and he grimaces," I couldn't hide in my room like Beth would have wanted so everyone talked to me."
"I always thought of you as shy, that you presented me after your mother sprung the new family situation on you," Mr. D says letting some of his innermost thoughts out," And then I find out how bad things really were for you in my home."
"Yeah," I don't really have much to say on that.
"I almost disowned Beth," He says and I must look skeptical," I weighed the pros and cons but the thought had crossed my mind that when she graduated to give her a small lump sum of money and kick her out."
"That would have lasted all of a month," I state and he nods," I mean her being out there and you not taking her back. You love her."
"Yes but what she did was evil and cruel, she still doesn't realize how cruel it was from where I'm standing. Even Dr. Hill is trying to help show her the depth of what you have been put through by her actions," he says it, he believes it but I don't really feel it," There are things that I don't condone in this household and the abuse you suffered is one of them. Had I known…"
"Now we're back to the 'had I', please don't. I have some 'had I' over the course of my growing up that would make yours look insignificant so let's not go there," I do have more than a few looking back.
"You're right, we can't change what happened but all of us, even Beth, are here welcoming you back into the fold you should have never been kicked out of. And as for the car it's yours," Mr. D states and I am about to object," I chose that car because you are fond of it. Let it remind you of your father, a man who I know loves you."
Okay all pain and posturing aside it's the dream car, the 'my father and I's' dream car. There is some heartache in the memory and I figure on sitting and thinking about it in depth. I don't know how everyone else is handling my brooding thoughts but I'm not in a caring mood for other opinions right now. I go from sitting in my big comfy chair, to sitting on my bed, to sitting in my computer chair and somehow I'm in the car. It's nice… fuck its amazing. It is not what I always thought of when I was eight or so but then again I was eight and I was in the passenger seat, not the driver's seat where I am now. I did change out of my ugly ass holiday pajamas into some regular clothes. Keys are in my hand, in the ignition, I can start the car. I can physically start the car but where am I going to do it? Mr. Delauter bought it for me in honor of my father, a man he never met and a man who abandoned me. I don't like thinking of him that way but it's pretty much true. There were a dozen ways I can think of that he could have contacted me over the years and he never did. Hell he could have just kidnapped me in the night and I'd have gotten over it. Wow, I really hated my time with Mom. And I'm out of the garage and driving. I haven't driven since I passed my tests so I take it slow and even though it's winter in Texas there is no snow, it's too warm. The car is amazing and it's a manual, I prefer manual because it gives me control. Granted I almost grind my gearbox a couple times on the drive but after an hour I find myself somewhere I've only been once, Syd's house. It's nice and modest, a good little home with a plastic Santa in the front yard and some lights on the gutters. I exit the car and leave it in the driveway making my way to the front door and wait after knocking. I'm greeted by a tired looking man in sweatpants and a t- shirt who I assume is Sydney's father.
"Hello is Sydney home," I ask and he gives me a surprised look.
"Yes and it's Christmas, who are you," her assumed father asks.
"I'm Guy, we're friends from school," I should say she's my only friend but let's not seem super losers right now.
I watch him call out to Syd in the house and I quietly wait. It takes maybe a minute for Syd, in a black tank top and shorts to make her appearance and she looks surprised to see me.
"Guy? What are you doing here," Syd asks and I shrug.
"I needed to talk with my friend," I state, realizing I'm interrupting a holiday.
Her Dad leaves but I know I'm being monitored from the living room as Syd steps out and closes the door mostly behind her. We both are really awkward and nervous.
"I got a car," I start and she steps around the corner of the front to see it," I don't know what I'm doing anymore."
"We're kinda in the middle of breakfast but come in," Syd pulls me in from the not super cold Texas weather.