Crossfire (Cross Duet #1)

27. IVY

27

IVY

Found it…

Finally. When I’d gotten home, I started hunting through the boxes I had packed away of Dad’s things. I was worried his gratitude notebook might’ve been thrown away or perhaps packed up in the things that Mom had taken with her. But alas, at the bottom of one of the boxes, here it was.

The worn leather was cool to the touch. Holding something in my hand that my dad had touched every single day made my chest ache. This very leather, smooth against my skin, had been touched by my father.

I brought it into my living room, poured myself a cheap glass of wine, and stared at it as it sat on my coffee table.

What are you waiting for, Ivy?

I took a sip of the white wine, its sweet taste lingering on my tongue as I stared at what might have the answers that had eluded me.

I knew why I was hesitating, though.

There was something that happened the day that Dad died that I never told anyone—the flashback of it launching into my mind’s eye as if it were happening right now.

“What is going on, Dad?” I demanded, sitting next to him on the sandy beach of Chicago. “You haven’t been yourself in forever.”

In fact, he’d been a shell of himself, no longer smiling or laughing at jokes. It was like someone let the air out of his happiness tire, and in the midst of it, the silence between us had grown, an invisible wall that seemed to stretch wider with each passing day.

Every time I attempted to reach out, to bridge the gap that had formed between us, my father would brush me off with a half-hearted, “I’m fine.”

But the truth was written in the lines of his face, the weariness in his eyes, and the slump of his shoulders, and today, so help me, I was going to finally get answers. Because I couldn’t handle the cascading emotions charging through me anymore.

The worry…pitted in my stomach that he was going through something alone. The fear…that every time we talked, there was this “undercurrent,” if you will, like he was almost saying goodbye, as if he were preparing to slip away from me forever. And most selfishly of all, the rejection that crept into my heart.

I hated myself for feeling this way, for making my father’s pain about my own wounded spirit. What kind of daughter was I, to feel abandoned when my father was clearly drowning in his own sorrows?

A better person would never feel hurt by someone else’s pain.

I desperately wanted to be his life raft, to pull him back to shore and help him find his way again.

But as the days turned into weeks and my father continued to drift further away, my worry and sadness that had once consumed me slowly gave way to anger. I was tired of being pushed away, tired of watching my father suffer in silence. Today, I was determined to confront him, to demand answers and force him to face the truth he had been running from.

With a deep breath and clenched fists, my voice trembling with a mixture of pain and determination, I started.

“Answer me, Dad,” I demanded, my vision locked on his weary face.

“I’m fine, Ivy.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.”

He didn’t even try to look me in the eye this time, so I guess that was something. No more lying right to my face.

“Is this about the divorce?” I asked for the millionth time, because maybe he didn’t realize how many nights I had spent staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what could be upsetting him.

Dad rubbed his temples.

“She’s the one who made the bad decision, Dad.” One I don’t think I could ever forgive her for. “But for your own sake, you need to find a way to move on.”

Instead of giving me the courtesy of an answer, he picked up a handful of sand and let it drift through his fingers, watching the granules float away in the breeze. All I could see was the sands of time that felt like they were drifting away from me.

“It’s like you’re indifferent to life, Dad. Like you don’t care anymore.”

“I do care.” He brushed his hands clean. “More than you can imagine, Ivy.” He let out a sigh so deep, I could hear the weight of anguish. “Sometimes, you can be doing everything ‘right’ in life, and it still all goes horribly wrong.”

“Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce,” I said. “Maybe Mom will realize she made a mistake one day, maybe she won’t, but don’t let her affect your self-esteem.”

Something passed through his eyes then, something that made it look like he was about to say something—a rebuttal, I think. And in that instant, I wondered if none of this had to do with Dad processing the divorce.

But whatever it was about, he needed to work through it. I needed my father back.

“I don’t feel like I can call you when something exciting happens,” I admitted. “Or if something bad happens, I don’t want to weigh you down with it.”

Dad scrubbed his face with both hands, and after a few silent, heartbreaking moments, he gently shook his head.

“Never meant to make you feel like that.” His voice was low, full of shame that I wanted to untangle from his soul.

“You’re going through the motions,” I said. “But it feels like you’ve given up on trying to ever be happy again. And if you give up on being happy, you’re giving up on your family.”

Tears burned as the memory washed away with the current of regret.

I thought I had been doing the right thing, saying something to snap him out of it. But those words—“You’re giving up on your family”—had since haunted every moment of my life.

Sure, I had said them gently. I had put my hand on his shoulder and told myself he needed to hear it.

But I was wrong.

Because as it turned out, aside from, “I love you. I’ll see you later,” those were the last words I’d ever said to him.

We all say things to people we regret, later cringing at our words when we replay them in our mind. But some of us, when we go back to apologize, don’t find our loved ones there. Instead, we cradle our dead father’s hand in ours, terrified our words were what sent him over the edge.

After all, when someone is struggling, dangling off the precipice of a deadly cliff, gripping its edge with white fingers, they need a lifeline. What if my words had been the final blow, stomping on his fingers and sending him falling?

This was why I needed to know why Dad had ended his life. I needed confirmation, one way or the other, if I was the one that pushed him over the edge.

If I had, I wasn’t sure how I could live with myself.

With trembling hands, I lifted the leather-bound notebook and opened it to the last page.