Chapter XIV-Rebekah
As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two
ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with
bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided
to follow the latter course.” –Martin Luther King Jr.
It’s amazing how small your life
seems once you pack everything you ever own at nineteen and load it into the
back of your father’s truck. It took two trips which we had divided up between
two days of moving my stuff up to New Port, where I was to live with my father
and grandmother. It felt strange saying goodbye to the place that had once been
my home and had spent so much time within and finally walking away from
everything. It was hard. Even though she wasn't the best mother in the world,
she was still my mother and for better or worse, I still loved her. I only
wished that she could love me too and I wish I could tell you why I loved her.
But I suppose it was the little things and something to do with all children
loving their mothers. Leaving me to often contemplate about all the things that
could have been. But I couldn't let a few good memories anchor to someone who
would only drag me down to the bottom of the sea. It was sink or swim and I
chose to swim.
 |
| My grandma & the closest I had to a mother. |
After two days of
moving my stuff, we went to Burger King
to pick up my last paycheck, followed by a short trip to the Bank of Kentucky
to close out my savings accounts, ideally to transfer the funds over to a bank
closer to where I was going to be, which was fifth third. However my mother had
already beaten me to it, the young woman at the desk politely informed me that
my account had already been closed two days prior, by my mother.
All
the money I got for graduation, money I had saved doing odd job while growing
up, but all money I was going to save for college or put towards a car was
gone. Every penny I had saved since I was fourteen. The poor girl must have
thought I was insane as I started to laugh, knowing I should have seen this
coming, but I didn't. Because when you’re under 18, you need a co-signer and I
agreed to make her mine, figuring if I was ever in a bind she could withdraw
some cash for me. Also, I was fool who believed if I had her name on my account
it would show that I trusted her and bring us closer together. But I was wrong.
She had taken it for herself, or perhaps even given it to my older brother, but
I'll get to that in a minute. But i shouldn't have been surprised, because a
year prior, I wanted to get a high school graduation ring along with the rest
of my friends and my mother talked my dad and grandmother into pitching in,
they agreed and pooled their money together to send her a few hundred bucks so
that I could get a nice ring.
Two
years prior I had been the proud owner of a dirt bike that I was given a year
before and a mini bike the year previous from my grandpa on my mom's side. Then
one day I noticed both my bikes were missing from our garage and when I
inquired about them, I was told my step-father had taken them to get serviced.
But as time wore on I kept getting excuses as to why it was taking so long to
get my bikes back. Until one day, I came home early from a friend’s house and
by chance I happened upon my mom on the
phone with my brother, which wasn't uncommon, they called each other every day,
but then I overheard her saying,
“Dominic I can’t afford to give you any more money right now, I already
gave you the money for Josh’s bikes...”
Then I froze there on the bottom of the steps, knowing that she didn't
know I was home and that I had just overheard the truth of why it was taking
the guy so long to finish tuning up my bikes, because they were gone, sold.
I
never confronted her though, I figured if I did she’ll only deny it, or give me
some excuse, or sob story, or somehow turn it around on me for ease dropping
even though it hadn't been purposely done so. You can't help but hear something
you overheard. So I let it go and quietly fumed and never thought of it again,
until that day at the bank when the young woman was telling me my account had
been closed.
Anger
soon gave away to depression and I spent the next few days just lying on my
grandma's couch, feigning illness so that my grandmother and father wouldn't
worry. Truth was, I was broken and couldn't stop thinking about all the things
my mother had done, wondering if she ever loved me at all, or if it was all
just some ploy to rob me blind and to make my life miserable. Everything I had
been working towards was gone and at nineteen my life felt like it was over.
The task of starting all over from scratch seemed daunting and I was afraid of
failing again. I blamed myself as much as I did my mother, hating myself for
not getting out when I had the chance, for not being smarter and not better
protecting myself. I hated my naïveté.
I ended up
beating myself up for days, before finally finding the strength to pull myself
together. My cousin Nick contributed more than he knows to helping me find the
strength to pull myself back together again. For after hearing I had moved in
with my father and grandmother, he took it upon himself to help me stand back
on my own two feet again, reminding me how to have a good time, how to laugh
along with helping me rediscover my lost smile. Every week we hung out, went to
the movies, biking, or simply sat around and shared a few laughs.
After
a while I was finally ready to start all over, walking the streets of Newport
everyday going to every business and filling out applications and always
following up the next day and the day after. Eventually the Newport Library got
tired of seeing me coming in every day and asking for work, so they finally
offered me a job as a shelver.
A few
months later the calls started, my mother was trying to get a hold of me,
wanting to talk. At first I avoided her calls like the plague, refusing to
speak to her, always telling my dad or grandma to tell her I wasn't there or
that I had just left. I didn't want this woman anyway near my life. As far as I
was concerned she was poison.
But
eventually, my grandma and even my father of all people began telling me that I
needed to talk to her and I should see what she wants. So then one day she
called and I answered. I could hear the tension and the relief in her voice and
the tentative way that she spoke that she was afraid I'll hang up before she
got to say what she wanted to say to me. At first she was asking me questions
about how I been, what I've been up too and how it was living with my father. I
kept my answers as short as possible, afraid of accidentally opening that door
that would lead her back into my heart, until she started crying... between
sobs she confessed to everything, apologizing profusely for not being a good
mother and for never being the kind of mother that I needed. She begged for my
forgiveness, and for another chance. Reluctantly I cave and agreed to let her
back into my life.
For a
while things were okay between us, I started spending time with her and the
rest of the family again and as if by some unspoken agreement, none of us
mentioned the past or what it was that drove me away from home and all of them.
In time, it began to feel like family again. But over time, the cracks began to
show and suddenly I wasn't good enough and my job at the library had become a
disappointment. Things slowly escalated from there with little snide comments
and the "forgetting of my birthday" and eventually things degraded to
the point where I didn't like the way I was being treated. I couldn't help but
feel like I was becoming the target of ridicule, with nothing I ever did being
good enough and I was constantly being treated like I was some little kid and
calling me selfish and greedy because I didn't come around more, ignoring the
fact that I was working and also had another family so to speak.. But I bit my
tongue and kept trying to make things work, wanting them to work and trying to
watch my own behavior to see if they were right. But I was feeling torn again
between what felt like to warring factions, my mother's side and my fathers.
Rebekah changed all that, I me her by chance at the library; she was a volunteer along with her sister Rachel and Rebekah's smile reminded me of Christmas morning and the sound of her laughter was as soothing as a warm breeze in the fall.. She was the first girl I ever met who made the first move by leaving me at work after we first met. She was...and still is the most beautiful girl I've ever laid eyes on, sweet, attentive, understanding and her laugh had a almost musical quality about it and she was always quick to laugh and the ease of which her laughter came always brought a smile a to my lips
But I never told her about my past, or my mother, instead I
pretended to have a good, healthy relationship with her and her family, so that
she wouldn't think I was some guy weighed down with a crippling amount of
emotional luggage. Plus someone once told me that I should never tell a love
interest about all the things wrong with me, for they can become overwhelming,
thus become a turn off. So I let her get to know me in the present, for the
person I was and not who I had once been.
Overnight it
seemed we had become best friends, even though I had already fallen head over
heels in love with her on that that day we first met, losing myself forever in
her big doe eyes. I loved her then and ever since, although back then I was
afraid to admit it, but still everyone knew it. But I was afraid of what would
happen to my heart if my love once again went unrequited as it did with Sherry.
So I
remained her friend, for the longest time, longing every day to hold her in my
arms and to kiss all of her worries away….But I was fool and I was afraid, so I
dragged my heels for the longest time, feeling constantly at war with myself.
Then one day another guy came along, who was a singer like her, a real
musician, who was well on his way of turning his passions into a career. She
grew to where she talked about him all the time even when she was around me. I
knew without her saying that she was torn between him and me. But in the end, I
decided he could offer her more than I ever could, so I walked away. I didn't
fight for her or try to argue my case, I simply stopped calling/texting her,
avoided her if I could, but remained friendly whenever I ran into her.
Eventually, things with her and Caleb fell apart, then somehow she found
her way back to me and we became fast friends again. Then before I knew it, she
had fallen in love with me, or as she told me, she was always in love with me,
but her father had disapproved of me and when I disappeared from her life she
thought that maybe she was meant to be with the other guy, (Caleb so she chose
to be with him.) But now she was finally distancing herself from her father and
wanted to live her own life, one she wanted to share that life with me which
she did.
We were together for six months before I finally decided to bring her around my mom’s family. Albeit I was curious if what I perceived as disrespect was real, or was all just in my head. She would be my impartial witness, because I still hadn't revealed any of the truth about my childhood and I wanted...needed some kind confirmation if what I was seeing was real or not.
So I took her down to my mother's for thanksgiving and to my surprise my mom and her family fell in love with her almost immediately. They fawned over; she was the daughter my mother always wanted, beautiful, charming, talented, graceful and modest. But for some reason my family also seemed to go out of their way to paint me in a negative light. Harping on me whenever I wasn't being the perfect boyfriend, (I.E pulling out her chair, or refilling her glass for every three sips she took, all things I kept thinking was odd and even though she kept trying to tell them that she didn't like that kind of hovering. Insisting that did like doing some things for herself.
At the end of the
night, she and I went for a walk and I asked what she thought of my family and
I noticed her hesitation as she told me they were very nice to her. However I
had known her long enough to know when something was bothering her and when I
asked what it was she said,
"I don’t
like how they treat and talk down to you all the time, it’s almost like they
don’t think of you as a person….”
“Oh…”
I said, knowing she was confirming what I had been feeling this whole time when
I've been trying to heal the past and mend all the broken fences between me and
m family.
“I’m
sorry, I didn't mean anything by it, I know it’s your family and you love
them,” She whispers, kissing me, before pulling me closer against her. I could
lose myself forever in her warmth; for nothing in this world had ever made me
feel better.
“It’s
okay,” I assure her, “You’re right, I just needed confirmation.” I confessed,
returning her embrace and her kiss, happy to have her as a part of my life and
knowing I would have to tell her everything once we got home.
“I
just don’t think they’re good for you, I felt like the whole time they kept
trying to turn me against you for some reason.”
“You
saw that too?” I asked, smiling sheepishly, knowing she had also become my rock.
I would have probably married her too and would have if I could go back, but
that's another story for another time.
By the time
we made it back to the house, Rebekah already had me feeling better and that
night we spent the night at my mother's. The following day we were having
dinner, a follow up to our thanksgiving day feast and while the food was being
prepared my mother had asked me to help my little brother's put together a
Star-wars Lego set, which I eagerly agreed too. But fifteen minutes in, my
mother asked Rebekah if she could talk to her upstairs for a moment because she
wanted to show her something. I don't know why, but something in my mother's
tone struck me as a little odd. So I waited several minutes before finally
deciding to sneak upstairs and see what she was up too. I heard them talking
down the hall in my mother's room, along with my aunt and they were asking her
why she was with me. She explained that she had been in love with me, that I
had been the sweetest, most caring and thoughtful guy she's met and she loved
my sense of humor, and my intellect. When I heard my aunt start asking her if
she met my older brother and how handsome, smart and funny he was.
My
heart started to sink and I realized as I stood out there in the hall, that my
mother, along with her sister was trying to convince her to choose my brother
over me. I heard my own mother say how Dominic was so much more handsome than I
was and how he’d be such a better match for her. My heart broke into a million
pieces that day; I stood out in the hall.
I know I
could have made a scene and kicked the door open, confronting my mother, but
instead I retreated and went back downstairs to play with my younger brothers,
trying to pretend I didn't hear what I had. The next day I went and saw Rebekah
and asked her what happened when my mother was talking to her in private and
she told me everything that my mother and aunt were trying to talk her into
breaking up with me in order for her to date my brother. Thankfully Rebekah
loved me and was loyal to a fault, my heart and my guiding star, my best
friend. And in that moment I knew I had to keep my distance from my mother and
shield Rebekah from her as well…
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