“You mean you weren’t adopted like you thought?” asked my wife.
“No, I belong to my mother all right.”
My wife looked at me with her big brown eyes, which narrowed in an expression of deep thought. I watched as she rolled my words through her mind. I could tell she was about to grasp my meaning when all of a sudden, her eyes shot wide open as though she’d been punched in the gut.
“You’re kidding,” was all she could say.
We stood there in an awkward silence which seemed to last forever. It was eventually broken by her. “You mean she had an affair?”
“And was raped by her lover.”
“And, what does that mean?”
“She became preg…” I couldn’t proceed. I choked on my words and could not force them through the lump in my throat no matter how hard I tried. I stood there covering my face with my hands the way a broken hearted child does when she doesn’t know what else to do.
“Pregnant with you,” interrupted Jennifer as she wrapped her arms around me and began to whisper soft words to me.
I felt like a man that had just been told that he had less than a week to live. It was as though the weight of the world had fallen on me. For over forty years, I had lived a lie and now I hated my mother and father for allowing me to live it.
As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t cry. No matter how hard I tried, the tears refused to come. The odd thing about it was that the only part of my soul that wanted to shed tears was that part deep down inside, the part that I had buried because I was afraid of it. That part of me wanted to cry not out of pain, but out of a sense of relief. I finally understood the reason I had been considered a plague and a curse to my mother. I had served as a constant reminder of her indiscretions and failures as a wife.
As I thought about it, rage began to erupt from me. I wanted to grab my mother and shake her. In my mind, I pictured me doing just that, but an odd thing happened. The image in my mind that I saw of my mother was one of her in pain and carrying unjust shame and just as quickly as my rage came, it left to be replaced with a sense of pity and sympathy for the woman who bore me. In a split second, the anger and rage passed and was replaced by a sense of guilt. It was at this instant that I realized that even though I’d never had a say in the matter, I truly was the source of my mother’s shame and was indeed a burden to her.
That realization hit me like a runaway coal truck. I was the black sheep of the family! I was the outcast and I was a vivid reminder of all that had gone wrong in their marriage. As these feelings washed over me like a tsunami, I began to hate myself. For the first time in my life, I began to wonder about the nature of my very existence and its continuance thereof.
Had I not been born, then none of this would have ever happened. Had I not been born, then my father would not have carried that secret with him to the grave. Had God been merciful, I would have never lived to see the light of day and thus would have saved all those I loved the misery my very existence created.
In my mind, I began to curse the day I was born. I also began to curse God for allowing me to be born. What kind of being would allow a person to see this much pain? Where was the love for which He was supposed to be so famous? If this was His idea of compassion, then He could have it.
An epiphany hit me as my wife tenderly spoke to me. God didn’t exist. He couldn’t; no one could be that cruel? Why had He allowed me to suffer over forty years of pain without ever trying to do something to ease that sorrow? No, were He to exist, then He would have done something to ease my pain many years ago. It was at that instant, at that exact millisecond, I realized the truth about it all. I made myself a promise that I would never belief in God and there was nothing He could do to convince me otherwise.
My heart filled with hatred for Him and I silently curse Him for all that He had done to my family. From the rape of my beloved mother to the cruelty inflicted upon me by those around me, He had sat back and laughed as this circus of wretchedness played out like a cheap soap opera in front of Him.
“It’ll be all right,” whispered Jennifer. “We’ve got each other, Kieran and little Emily when she gets here. We’ve got a lot to be thankful for, don’t you think?”
“Why should I be thankful? I’m certainly not thankful to God! For what, pain? Over the last few days, He’s taken my father from me. He’s taken a woman that loved me more than my own mother does. He’s shown me that I’m nothing but a source of pain and shame for my mother. What else can He do to me? He’s already proven His hatred for me. He can’t do much more than that.”
“Randy,” snapped my wife in a loud voice.
I was startled by her words. They snapped me out of my funk long enough to look in her eyes. I could see her lips quiver and her eyes twitch.
“Don’t you dare try to tempt God! You won’t like the results of it.”
“I already don’t like the results of it! Besides, if He hates me that much, why doesn’t He just end it all and be done with it?”
“He doesn’t hate you, but I do believe He’s working on you. He’s got a plan for you and He needs to break you so that He can use you. God can’t use a person unless they’ve been broken.”
“Broken,” I whispered and then let out a soft but maniacal laugh. “If He needs to break me in order to use me, then I must be the next John the Baptist. What else is there? Even if He wanted to use me, I hate Him so much I’d rather die as to serve Him. I guess His plan backfired because I’m at the point to where I’d rather go to Hell than serve such a being.”
“Don’t say such things! God will not be tempted.”
“Like I fear Him!”
“You should.”
I laughed not because I found her words amusing. I laughed because I could think of no other way to keep from crying.
“Come get me!” I shouted as I looked up towards the ceiling and held my arms open wide. “Come get me because you’re not going to break me. Take me to Hell and be done with me. I defy you and want nothing to do with you. I don’t even believe you’re real. I know you won’t answer my prayers, so, who cares about you?”
“I won’t listen to this,” shouted my wife. “If you tempt God like that, then He’s obligated to straighten you up and I don’t want something to happen to the children.”
“He hates me and not the children. He loves you and the kids. It’s me He wants to destroy. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Jennifer let go of me and stepped back away from me. I looked at her face as she slowly moved backwards. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and her face was ghostly pale. Her right eye was flittering like that of a madman. She tried to speak, but her lips convulsed and she swallowed her words.
“What?” I asked. “It’s the truth. God is a fake!”
She put her hands to her ears and ran out the door. “I won’t listen to this foolishness. You’re going to live to regret those words.”
“I already do.”
As she made her way down the hall, Kieran met her at the kitchen. “What were you and dad fighting about?” he asked his mother.
“Go ask your father,” replied Jennifer as she ran past him and made her way up the stairs.
He looked at me and asked, “Why are you and momma fighting?”
“We’re not. Not really. We were disagreeing on something.”
“On God, right?”
“Yes, son, on God.”
“Dad, do you hate God?”
“No, but I think He hates me.”
“God loves you. Why else would He let Jesus die for you?”
I could see the confusion in his eyes so I walked over and put my arms around him. I’d never felt so ashamed in my life. “You’re right, daddy’s been a fool.” I cupped his face in my hand and raised it so that he could see me. I smiled at him. He smiled back and I could see the doubt pass from his face. “Will you forgive me for being so foolish?”
“Always,” was his angelic response.
I pulled him into me. “I love you,” I whispered through a lump in my throat.
“I know. Us boys have got to stick together, don’t we?”
“You betcha.”
I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what was going on with my life. I decided that I needed to deal with my mom face to face. That evening I called into work and left a message on the voice mail. I told them that I would be taking a few days off to deal with some personal issues regarding my family.
I was in my own world for the rest of the night. Kieran, enjoyed the time I spent with him because we played with his toy dinosaurs for several hours. He would give me an herbivore dinosaur and he’d pretend to be a carnivore. Of course, his always ate the one I was holding. Even though I was not there mentally, my son didn’t care. He had someone with whom he could play and that was all that counted to him. When my wife called for him to come and bath before going to bed, he stood up and hugged me.
“Thanks, dad,” he said. “This was the best day ever.”
As he pulled back from me, I drew him into me. “Who do I love more than you?” I asked.
“Nobody,” he responded as I had hoped.
“And don’t you ever forget that.”
“I won’t. Did you like playing with the dinosaurs?”
I pulled him into me once again. “You and momma and the baby make life worth living.”
“Are you being silly, dad?”
“No, thankful that you are my boy.”
Tears began to stream from my eyes. They didn’t go unnoticed by my child.
“Dad, why are you crying?”
“I’m not.”
He touched my face with his index figure and caught a tear that had been meandering down my face. “Then, what is this?” he asked as he held his finger up for me to inspect.
“Fountains of love, my boy.”
“Are they good tears or bad tears?”
“Both.”
He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on the forehead. “Don’t ever be scared dad; I’ll be here for you.”
I pulled him in close to me and nearly squeezed the breath out of him. As I held him, I knew that at least this aspect of my life was on track. Despite all that had happened to me during the last few days, I still had a family that genuinely loved me and I was thankful for that.
“I love you,” I whispered into his ear.
“I know,” he whispered back.
“Now, go bath and get ready for bed.”
“If you’re scared, you can sleep with me tonight.”
I looked into his face and saw genuine concern. I smiled at him and gave him a wink. “I’d like that.”
“I won’t let nothing bad happen to you, ever.” He smiled and then tried to look tough. “If something bad happens, I’ll use my lightsaber on it and make it go away.”
I laughed at his statement and then looked at him with a new found respect. “I believe you would.”
“Us guys take care of each other and don’t let nothing happen to each other, do we?”
“That’s right now go bath.”
It was tough sleeping with him on a racecar shaped twin bed, but I did manage to catch a couple hours of sleep here and there. I woke up once at around three-thirty. He had his legs resting on my face and he was lying sideways on the bed. I carefully corrected his sleeping position and began to gently stroke his head.
I spent the next hour or so reflecting upon his childhood. When I first found out that I was going to be a dad, I began to think of all of the things I was going to teach him. I naively assumed that I had enough life experiences to teach my son what it takes to be a good man, but the thing I never expected was all the things my son has taught me about being a good father.
He’d taught me way more than I had ever taught him. Now, here he was teaching me another lesson and that was that a child’s love knew no boundaries. He loved me unconditionally, and I felt the same about him. Despite all the pain I had experienced the last few weeks, I found unfathomable joy in the love that my son offered. It was his love that was carrying me through this time of pain and doubt. Once this thought hit me, the pain I had been carrying lessened at least enough for me to go back to sleep.
I kissed him on the forehead prior to going back to sleep. Somewhere in that twilight world where the mind is not quite asleep yet not quite awake, something whispered into my ear and told me that my son had been given to me by God to act as my savior during the worst crisis of my life. Although, I don’t believe in angels, I filed that thought in the back of my mind. How could a child who’s favorite words in the world were, “Dad, need you,” save my life? Still, it was a nice thought and I desperately needed such thoughts, therefore, I held on to it when I probably should’ve let it go.
The next morning I was awakened by my wife. “Randy,” she said, “Denver, is own the phone.”
“What does he want?”
“I don’t know, but he didn’t sound happy. You should talk to him.”
I shrugged my shoulders and eased my way out of bed and made my way towards the living room.
Denver Cosby was the senior partner in the firm. He and his cousin had started the firm over thirty years ago. His origin partner, Jason, had died ten years back. Currently, the firm had seven partners and I was the only one that wasn’t a blood relation to the Cosby family. I had grown the business by twenty-five percent since joining the firm five years ago and that was why I made partner.
“Hello,” I said.
“Randy!” shouted Denver. “Why aren’t you here? You know it’s tax season and you should be reporting to the office at six o’clock. It’s now fifteen to seven.”
“Didn’t you get my message?” I asked.
“What’s so personal that you think you can take the day off? Do you know how much time you’ve missed already?”
“Yes, but I can explain…”
“Explain nothing! You’ve got fifteen minutes to get to this office or you’re fired!”
“I can’t do that. I have to go back home to Eastern Kentucky.”
“Then pick your stuff up when you go!”
“Is that how you feel?” I asked.
“If you can’t uphold your responsibilities, then I don’t need you.”
“Fine!”
I heard a click before I could say another word.
“What was that all about?” asked my wife.
“They just fired me.”
“What!” I could see the pain in her eyes as she spoke. “Why would he do that?”
“He said I’ve been missing too much work during a critical time.” I spoke in a calm rational matter even though part of me wanted to scream from the hurt and anger that had just been added to an already heavy load. I had done more for that business than any other person there with the sole exception being Denver himself. How could he fire me?
The instant I had that thought the answer came to me, it was God’s will. The kindly and loving being had struck out at me once again. The instant that thought hit me my pain changed to defiance. If war was what He wanted, then that was what He would get. If He thought that would beat me, then He had another thing coming.
“You need to call him back and explain your situation,” shouted my wife. Her face was etched with fear and doubt. She looked as though she had just lost a loved one. Her lip trembled and her body quaked.
“I can’t.” I said defiantly. “I’ve got enough clients that are loyal to me. I can get them to join me when I start my own firm. I don’t need them. I can make it on my own.”
“What will we do until then?”
I put my arms around her and gently pulled her into me. “I don’t know, but we’ll make out just fine, that I promise you.”
She didn’t say a word, but I could hear a soft moan come from her. I also felt the rising and falling of her shoulders as she gently cried.
“There, there,” I whispered. “Adolph Fields wants me to handle his accounts. We can live well on that account alone. My family will come and so will at least four other major clients and a couple dozen smaller ones. We can make it I tell you.”
She started to say something but began to softly beat on my back with her hands. “Randy, what’s going on between us?”
“It’s not us,” I replied. “This is God’s fault and no one else’s.”
“Don’t blame God!” she shouted.
“Okay,” I said even though I knew that He was to blame.
She hugged me tightly and then pushed me away. “I need to go wake the baby,” she whispered.
“I’ll get ready and then head towards mom’s.”
“Be careful.”
“I promise.”
Within half an hour, I was shaved, showered, making toast and pouring myself a glass of orange juice. As I was slathering a spoon of peanut butter on the toast, my son entered the room.
“Good morning, dada.”
“Hello, son. Who do I love more than you?”
“Nobody.”
“And, no one else.”
“Will you take me to school?”
“If you want me too?”
“Today, Kyle is supposed wear his hair blue and white like the UK Wildcats. I can’t wait to see it.”
Ten minutes later I dropped him off at the front door of Emma B. Ward Elementary. “I love you,” I said as he crawled out of the back seat.
“I know,” he replied as he closed the door and then waved to me.
I spent the next three and a half hours rehearsing what I was going to say to my mother when I saw her. I played out various scenarios in my head. I imagined how things would go were I confrontational, conciliatory, contrite or straightforward. I envisioned each one a dozen times and still hadn’t decided on my course of action when I turned right off of Kentucky Highway Eighty and on to Rural Route Seven. As I stopped at the bottom of the exit ramp, I thought to myself that I’m at least a local phone call away should something happen.
I was less than thirty twenty minutes from home. Knott County was about five miles away and from there the Isaac’s Fork Road and mom’s house was less than a twenty minute drive.
I stopped at the Garret Chevron Station and filled up with gasoline. I also purchased a sandwich, a root beer and a bag of Uncle Ray’s barbeque potato chips. I was getting nervous and was hoping to delay things a bit longer so I talked to the store clerk what time I ate my lunch. When I couldn’t justify delaying any longer, I thanked the clerk and got back on the road.
I pulled into my mother’s driveway less than half an hour later. As I made my way up the steps, mom met me at the door. I could tell by the look on her face that she was worried about something.
“Randy, what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk with you, if I could?”
She became cautious as I spoke to her. “About what?” she asked.
“Me, I need to talk about me.”
“What about you?” Now fear was etched upon her face and I thought that she might bolt like a frightened rabbit.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It looked to me as though she was trying to blow her very soul out of her body.
“Dad had written me a letter a while back…”
“And you came to ask me about it?”
Genuine terror now shown upon her face and at that instant I knew that the letter contained the truth. The look upon her face hit me like an army tank and my legs wobbled under me and I nearly collapsed. I steadied myself on the metal railing connected to the steps. It took me a couple of seconds, but I was eventually able to regain my bearing.
I looked at her and with all the compassion I could muster, I said, “I don’t have to. I can tell by your reaction that it’s true.”
“So, now you know. What are you going to do about?” There was anger and fear in her words.
“Do you think this makes me a terrible mother?”
“No, but it does explain some things for me.”
I hadn’t meant for my words to sting her, but apparently they had. “That’s right; I’m a terrible mother and a low down slut. Does that make you happy? I’m a lying, cheating rip.”
She stepped out onto the porch and shouted as loud as she could. “You hear that world? My son thinks that I’m a dirty man grubbing tramp!”
Things were not going as planned and they had gotten way out of hand. I decided to try and calm her down so I climbed the steps and then reached out to hug her, but she pushed my hands away and slapped me.
“You’ve been nothing but a plague on me since the day you were born. I wish you had died before you were born.”
“So, do I.”
“At least we agree on something.”
I looked at her with a combination of pity and disgust. I was amazed by her brazen attack on me. She became angry and released a verbal barrage upon me and it was accompanied by several hard blows from her fists to my chest. For some unexplainable reason, I took it. I didn’t fight back, but stood passively by what time she physically attacked me. I watched her carrying on like a mad animal. She did this for about five minutes before she stopped and looked at me. As she focused on me, her eyes began to narrow and I could see shear hatred in them. I was startled by that realization because I knew her hatred was geared towards me instead of herself.
For the first time in my life, I began to fear my mother. Over the years, her mind had twisted things so wildly that her self-hatred had been turned to focus on me. Perhaps that was how she was able to cope with things, I don’t know.
What I did now know was that I had been wrong about myself. Since my earliest recollections, I had blamed myself for her problems when in fact I was the innocent one. I had been the result of and not the cause of her problems. The second I realized this, a since of relief and pain washed was over my body like a title wave and I began to laugh.
It was not a mocking or evil laugh, but one born by the sense of liberation and release that was now flowing through my soul. My laughter confused her and she stopped shouting long enough to look at me. Apparently, my lack of hatred frightened her so she went back on the attack.
“You,” she spat. “You always acted like you were better than the rest of us! You’ve always lorded your superiority us. You act as though you’re the king of Siam. You don’t have a clue what it’s like for the rest of this family. You’ve always pretended to be something other than what you are; a dirt grubbing hillbilly from the Mountains of Eastern Kentucky. I bet you even pretend to be from somewhere else when you are away from here. You’ve even lost your accent; the one thing that set us apart from everybody else.”
“Special,” I retorted. “No, I don’t know what it’s like to be special, but I do know what it’s like to be the outcast. The one standing on the outside looking in; the one who wants to belong but always knew he didn’t.
“How dare you say I don’t know where I come from? I’m a hillbilly and proud of it. I love these mountains, soup beans, fried chicken and corn bread. I even know my heritage. It’s Appalachian in general and Scots-Irish and Highlander in particular.
“You accuse me of being above my raising, but I’m not. I’ve spent my entire life trying to fit in and have failed miserably at everything I’ve done.”
“Failed,” she retorted and then rolled her eyes. “You’ve always got everything you ever went after. That is except for fitting in and being a member of this family. True mountain people know that life is hard and that we are near the bottom of the barrel and family is all we have. We know our place in this world and that is with family. You’ve always tried to live above yours!”
“Ughhhhh,” I screamed as I cradled my head in my hands in order to keep it from blowing off the top of my shoulders. “I set out to accomplish so much with the hope of fitting in. I knew that unless I did something special, you’d never look at me the way you look at my brother and sisters.
“I wanted to be loved. I knew I could never get the unconditional love you showered on them so I was willing to take conditional love. I knew the condition was that I had to be rich and successful. That’s why I’ve tried to do things beyond the rest of the family. I wanted to be loved and not just tolerated. I wanted your approval and to be part of this family!”
She shot me a look that was pure hatred and then an evil smile slithered across her face. “Well, you’ve failed at least one thing, then, haven’t you? Now get off my porch and don’t you ever step foot on it again.” She then hissed at me and slammed the door in my face.
My heart stopped beating the instant I heard those words. It didn’t skip a beat; it actually stopped beating for several seconds. My entire system nearly shut down as her words began to bury their selves deep within my soul.
At that point, everything that had ever happened to me made sense; it was as if the clouds parted and God whispered the secrets to the universe in my ear. She didn’t hate me. She hated herself. Her loathing of me was merely an offshoot of the self-hatred she carried within her.
They say salvation comes quickly and for me it was a bolt of lightning. In that instant, I knew the answer to every question I ever asked. I knew the truths that all men seek and I knew at that instant that hatred was real and that God hated me. It was then that the madness or was it lucidity crept into my mind.
It was then that I knew I had been born to bear the sins of my family. It would be my sacrifice that would wash away their sins. It would be my crimson blood that would be used to cleanse their stained souls. It was then that I promised myself that I would be master of my destiny and would not God to dictate terms to me. I controlled my own life or death and I wanted the pain to end. I knew that I was going to end His amusement by destroying the object of His cruel pleasure.