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“Hey dad, can we talk?” Chris’s voice echoes from the hallway outside Eddie’s door and he sits up quickly. His son is definitely well into being a teenager now, with all that implies, and so his dependence on his old dad is fading away. Even the last major conversation they had to have, he shopped out to Buck, because even though his best friend wasn’t actually a “player” (that requires actually dating people and telling them that they’re the only one), he did have more experience than Eddie with three partners in his 35 years.
And the results of the conversation were horrifying. Because his son was more like the man that Eddie baby trapped into being his co-parent… right down to his abandonment issues. Isn’t that a huge kick in the face? Eddie has always done whatever he could for his son, but knowing that his failures as a husband and a partner have led to this point where Chris didn’t care if girls thought he was a bad guy, because they wouldn’t stay anyway? Hurt more than being shot.
“Yeah, sure kid,” he croaks out, meeting his son at the door. “Is this a kitchen or living room conversation?”
His son actually takes the time to think about it for a moment, and that alone reminded Eddie that his kid was growing up, that he’s only got a few more (well five) years until his son is all grown up and no longer needs to have anything to do with him. He himself remembers how at 18, he walked into an Army recruiting office, copy of his current transcript and paperwork from JROTC in his hand. He’d had to graduate first, before they would sign him up fully, but he wanted that paperwork on file, so Helena Diaz couldn’t stop him. And the plan was to go, as far away as he could. He and Shannon had connected (well, reconnected from their freshman romance) but this was his plan from before that happened and he fully expected her to break up with him for it. Which she did, but it didn't stop her from seeking him out on his leave a couple years later. And the Chris came and their sort of on-and-off again was over. Marriage was their only option.
"I think this is a kitchen conversation," his son says and Eddie looks at him, before nodding.
He goes to the kitchen, a faint click coming from behind him as Chris uses one of his crutches to get around, his other hand against the wall. Letting his son get comfortable at the table, Eddie looks longingly at the coffee pot, but goes to put a pot on the stove instead. This feels like a tea or a hot chocolate kind of conversation, and he'd rather have chocolate right now. He begins warming the milk as he pulls out some of the speciality chocolate that Hector brought back from Mexico, the stuff Abuela always keeps in her cabinets for a bad day.
"So, what's going on kid?" He finally asks, still not turning back around to face the room. He's managed to narrow down the possible topics and the only one that he could think that would require a kitchen conversation is Shannon's letter. He had received enough condemnation for the ending of his and Shannon's relationship, from her, his parents, and even himself. Only a couple of people seemed to be on his side, but considering Pepa was reduced to calling his wife a gringa he didn't really consider that to be fair. Even Carla, in the beginning, told him how Chris needed a mother... and Eddie knows that it's his fault he doesn't have one. And now Chris does too.
"Dad... papí ¿Puedes mirarme?" Eddie sighes, and lifts his head, turning to face the firing squad. The letter sits on the table, looking like it had been balled up and smoothed out; at least a couple different times. "Why didn't you give this to me sooner?"
"Mijo...," Eddie sighes thinking it over. "Right after seemed too soon, and then there was the bombing, and then the tsunami, and then... I could just say it was just one thing after another, and it never seemed like a good time. Like, it seemed like you were having more problems about her dying than her leaving, because it seemed like when you were younger you were just happy to have her back for as long as you did... And it was partially selfish too. Because... she left me. There were things..." Eddie struggles to voice those thoughts aloud, things that he's only admitted to himself in the relative safety of Frank's office.
Chris looks back down at the letter. "The way this was written, she never intended on coming back. Why did she?"
Eddie tilts his head back, trying to breathe down the panic attack. "Also my fault. I had to call her when enrolling you into Durand, and then she... For a bit there it was like she hadn't left. All the angry words between us were gone. But after a couple of months she started getting insistent. Showed up at work a couple of times. And I wasn't sure if you even wanted to see her, because you hadn't talked about her, but then you told me what you asked Santa for that year... I thought, "well, that I could do." So..." Eddie spreads his arms. "And then the accident happened. So maybe I thought... you'd be mad that I brought her back? Or mad that I waited so long to bring her back in the first place."
Chris frowns, the look on his face so similar to Eddie's own that it causes the man's heart to ache. "See you gave me this, and I keep reading it, hoping for some explanation as to why she left. And maybe, if I was younger it would have made sense to me. Because she obviously didn't write this with me in mind. She wrote this for a little boy who wondered why his mommy didn't love him enough to stay. It's all... platitudes. Like people saying that time heals all wounds. It's not original, and there's... no actual emotion in this. Like, "You're so young, you've probably already adapted to a world without me". Firstly, that whole "it's not like they'll remember this anyhow," is gross. People use that as a reason to strip little kids of any autonomy, because they won't remember it as adults. Secondly, how can the fact that she was gone not affect us? Between grandma and abuelo constantly making things hard for you, and the fact that you had to work three times as hard so we would be okay? I remember, Dad!"
"Okay, okay," Eddie tries to sooth with his voice, turning off the stove and pouring the milk into the cups he'd prepared. "That's... a lot mijo."
"Penny's parents went through a divorce. She said that one night her dad just had it, and stormed throughout the house packing a bag, and left. But how he went through lawyers, to make sure that he had the right to see her and her younger siblings. Apparently the court decided that he was better for them so they live permanently with him, and get visits with their mom... as long as she pays child support. I tried looking it up, but I don't understand."
Eddie clears his throat. "Well, child support is basically... the non-custodial parent paying the custodial one a portion of the child's expenses. To try and ease the burden of being a single income household."
"Well, yeah. That part I get. What I don't understand, is how you were so willing to give mom visitation, when she "didn't attempt to ease your burden of being a single income household"." Eddie looks at his son, dumbfounded. Christo he knew his son was smart that was obvious when he stole his phone to Uber to Buck's but this... "And actually, as a custodial parent, why did Durand need to talk to her anyway? You were the one making decisions for me, why did she need to be consulted?"
"We... weren't legally separated. So according to the state, she still had those rights too."
"She's the one who left. According to Penny, because her dad left, he's the one who filed all of that. So why didn't mom? Or why didn't you, when she didn't come back?"
Eddie scrubs his hands down his face. "For the first bit... I thought, she didn't give me divorce papers, so that meant she was coming back. I tried calling, mostly when you were asking for her, and she always sent me to voicemail, but I'd let you talk to it. And then two months went by, I tried calling again, and her phone was disconnected. All of her accounts were. I didn't even have an address to serve her papers, and by that time, my savings from the army had dried up, I had to get that surgery to get the shrapnel they left in my leg out, because it had shifted, you had that other surgery, and then I went off to work three jobs to keep us floating. Hard to find time to visit a lawyer, let alone the cash to pay one to draw up papers. No custody agreement, means no child support, and full retention of rights." He feels like he's maybe talking to much about these things to his young teenager, that maybe bringing up what a mess he'd made of things back then was too much, but then Chris reaches out and puts a hand on his.
"Dad. Why do you think mom leaving is your fault?"
"I was a bad communicator. I didn't listen. She wanted to be here to be with Janet, and I wasn't ready to go yet. She said she needed to have someone who had her back and I was too busy running to foreign countries to do it."
"What, she didn't like having her housing, medical, and other bills paid for while she sat on her butt being a stay at home dependa?"
"Christopher!" Eddie's mouth drops open. "Where the he-- heck did you hear that?"
His teenager shrugs. "TikTok."
Eddie takes a second to reframe things. "Why would you think that about your mother?"
"Well, you think you did something wrong. But you were always the one working hard to take care of us. Like you said, you came home, and you were still injured, because they needed to do another surgery. And mom waited until you got home before going to go see Grandma Janet, but she could have done it sooner. Abuela and Tia Pepa are here, and there's a military base too. When you came home, you could have come here. But Abuelo and Grandma were a lot, and they didn't help. And mom didn't think about the fact that you were probably in pain still, or how you would have had to work harder because you weren't in the army anymore. And she didn't give you the proper paperwork to take care of me. Not even touching the fact that she didn't even tell us she was leaving, she just left. That's straight up abandonment."
"She ran, mijo. It's not something I can condemn her for, I ran first."
"To Afghanistan?"
"Yeah."
"So you signed up immediately after hearing that she was pregnant and begged to be sent as far away as possible?" Eddie frowns. Where did he hear that?
"No. I joined the Army at 18. I did ask for my deployments to be done as quickly as possible though. My contract called for at least two."
"Okay... so you were in foreign paradises drinking the fruity drinks with little umbrellas and squandering your paycheck, right?"
"I wouldn't call Afghanistan a paradise, though there were a lot of oranges to prevent scurvy. And where was I supposed to "squander my paycheck"? It deposited into a shared account, here in the states. Your mom was the other name on it."
"Okay, but you were definitely gone for two years straight, and refused to answer the phone, or send an email. Just completely went no contact."
"No I called! I swear! I mean, it was a little hard to get you to engage with a screen back then, which honestly I wish was still the case, but at least once a week, barring a mission. And even then I wrote emails."
"Then in my book, there is only one parent who "ran away" from their family."
Eddie sits back in his chair, blinking at his son. "The hell, Chris?"
"Look, I think you need to go back to Frank, cause this guilt you have for "driving my mother away" is honestly not on. And whatever she said when she came back... she never should have blamed you for her leaving. Just because you weren't working a regular 9-5 stateside, does not mean she gets off the hook for her bad behavior. And just because she died, doesn't mean we have to make her a saint, and forget how she hurt us. Us, dad. She hurt me, and she hurt you. And it's still hurting you, because you thought I'd take her side."
"But... what you said, about how it doesn't matter because they're just going to leave anyway?"
"Maybe I need therapy too. But that letter, isn't going to fix the fact that I know people leave. Because in my mind she didn't have a good reason. You'd never have raised a hand to her, and were getting over being shot overseas. And even if you were abusive, than it's even worse that she left her 4 year-old too. So she's right. I don't forgive her. But I don't need her permission to feel that way."
"Is part of this about Ana? Cause I know I screwed up with her too."
"Dad, I liked Ana cause I thought you liked Ana. She was always a hard grader in school, and she thought I should sit quietly with a book all the time. Honestly... kind of like how grandma is sometimes. But during the blackout, I suggested a couple of times how we should clean as we went, or offered to pull my stool out to do dishes and she ignored me. And then she left you with the mess, and..." Chris grows quiet for a second. "She wasn't quiet when she said that thing about your panic attacks."
"Yeah, that was rude."
"It was ableist. Just like her believing that I shouldn't surf, or rock climb." Chris opens his mouth again, before closing it suddenly.
"What's up Chris?"
"Nothing... it's just. You know I don't need another mom, right?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, apparently you and Ana went on dates where she taught you math," Chris makes a face, "And now you're inviting Marisol over to "help you chaperone"?"
"What's the problem with that, mijo?"
"The problem is... it's like you're looking for a partner who can slot into this space where you think there should be a mom, but I'm telling you that you don't need to. I don't want a mom. I have you, and Buck, and sometimes Carla. All full up on the parents front here."
Eddie blinks again. That's going to be another kitchen discussion. After he goes through therapy for this one.