SHORT STORY TIME: "Gavin"

The day I had been dreading for the past 16 years of our lives was here. My son, Gavin was now 16, angry, and eager to know.

It all began with an argument. This particular argument involved Gavin directly.

“It doesn't feel right, Eliza. I just can’t do it anymore! He’s not my son. He’s not my problem.” My husband, Derrick and I went round and round for hours that night with Gavin sitting outside of our bedroom door. We had found condoms in Gavin’s jacket pocket after his girlfriend’s father called frantically to inform us that he had caught the two love birds doing more than making out in Gavin’s car outside of their house that night.

Derrick left that night in a storming rage. I didn't bother to ask him where he was going, because I knew. It was the bar. He’d turned to alcohol to self medicate after we had failed to conceive for years. Although we didn’t know whether the problem was him or me, he’d always resented me for not bearing him offspring of his own.

For hours, Gavin didn’t budge from the spot he had chosen from outside my bedroom door. I simply stepped over him as I went to sit on the leather sofa in the den to stare at the family portraits hanging on the wall that Olan Mills helped us to fake happily.

“Are you even my god dammed mother?” Gavin cried.

I held Gavin for hours that night. Surprisingly, he had no more questions. I had almost hoped that he hadn’t heard that Derrick, the man who raised him, the man who coached little league, the man he had always called “Dad” wasn’t his father; however, I knew it wasn’t always going to be that easy.

Derrick didn’t come home that night. I didn’t expect him to, but unlike most other nights, I didn’t go looking for him. It would just be adding gasoline to a fire that had already been burning for quite some time. Luckily Dobby, our house mutt kept me warm all night as I tossed and turned dozing in and out dreamland. The thoughts that filled my head made my belly ache. I knew what I was going to wake up to; I just wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it.

“Mom?” Gavin walked into my bedroom in the previous day’s attire.

“Gav, let’s talk about this later, okay?” I replied.

“Tell me about Wrenn…now!” Gavin threw his mug of tea at my vanity, shattering glass. He had clearly spent the night researching.

I had started law school at Duke in the fall of ’88. I was a fresh 22 year old with big dreams of becoming a prosecutor when I met Wrenn in a bar while visiting friends in nearby Chapel Hill. As cliché as it sounds, the chemistry between us was indescribably strong. I knew he was special from the second I stared into his glassy, blue blood shot eyes. If there was ever such a thing as love at first sight, it happened that September night.

Wrenn was attending medical school at UNC, and as a native North Carolinian, he showed me around the triangle area. North Carolina was quite the culture shock from my native Boston, but I had Duke on my mind since I was a little girl. My father attended law school there, so he expected no less from his only daughter.

Wrenn, being quite a few years older than me, finished med school and accepted a job on the coast. Like a faithful little doll, against the wishes of my father, I quit law school, eloped and moved to Wilmington with Wrenn to begin our lives together. Because I had let my father down, Daddy cut ties with me. All I had was Wrenn, or so I thought. After taking a job at the local hospital, the ridiculous hours that Wrenn had to work not only ran him ragged, but it was posing negative consequences on our marriage.

It’s true what they say. No one really knows a person prior to living together. Wrenn’s manic depressive phases were far too much to handle. Eventually he turned to alcohol and prescription medication. After being caught stealing prescription medicine from the hospital pharmacy, Wrenn was fired from his job. This sent him deeper over the edge and he hit rock bottom face first. Because he hadn’t easy access to the prescription meds, Wrenn turned to cocaine, and eventually crack cocaine and heroin.

After a three day crack binge, I came home from my second shift at the diner to find Wrenn in our bed with a nurse from the hospital where he had worked. I packed a bag and went to my boss’s house for the night. I had nowhere else to go.

My boss let me pick up extra shifts at the diner over the following weeks. He even helped me make the deposit on an apartment around the corner from the diner. The apartment wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but it was all that I could afford. I had no family. I had no friends. I couldn’t even call my father in fear of hearing the “I told ya so, kiddo” on the other line.

For weeks, Wrenn tried to get me to come home. Although I wouldn’t go back, I would stop by the house on the way to the diner everyday to make sure he was okay. I felt like it was doing more harm than good to both of us psychologically, but I couldn’t sleep at night knowing that he might not be alright.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I had been so caught up in the hustle and bustle of the events going on in my life, that I didn’t even recognize I had missed my period. I was hoping that it was due to the stress of what was going on, but it wasn’t. Four pregnancy tests and a bag of potato chips later, I was sitting on the coast of North Carolina contemplating life itself. It was the Fourth of July and the diner closed early. I hadn’t been by to check on Wrenn in a couple of days, because I was afraid of what he would say if I told him I was pregnant.

I finally gathered up the nerve to tell him after finishing up the closing time cleaning routine at the diner. I walked up the steps in slow motion to a house that I once called home. My heart was pounding so hard, I could have sworn it was going to burst out of my chest. I turned the door knob and opened the door to complete and utter silence.

“How unlike him.” I thought. Never had I walked into a completely quiet house before. I figured he was down on the beach with the rest of the town participating in the Independence Day festivities.

I walked into the kitchen to find a note pad and pen to leave him a note.

Wrenn,
I stopped by to check on you. We need to talk. I don’t have a phone hooked up, but I work the evening shift tomorrow night at the diner. Please stop by. It’s really important.
Love,
Eliza

I knew he would never find the note in that wreck of a kitchen, so I walked upstairs to what was once the bedroom he and I shared. I left the note on his pillow next to a soiled sweat shirt and a cigarette lighter. Flushed and sweaty, I proceeded into the master bathroom. I wanted to splash my face with cold water.

Looking into the mirror, I didn’t even recognize myself. Twenty-five year old me had aged ten years. I splashed myself once more, turned to grab a towel and there he was. My Wrenn. He was hanging lifelessly with his eyes wide open from the shower curtain rod by the belt I had given him two Christmases ago. His eyes were the same glossy, blue blood shot eyes that I had fallen into that night we met at the bar.

With all of my strength, I pulled him down from the rod hoping to breathe life back into his lifeless corpse. It was too late. I held him and sobbed blaming myself for this catastrophe.

In the front pocket of his ragged ole jeans was a note sealed in a folded up envelope addressed to “My ‘Liza, Darling.”

My ‘Liza Darling,
I stare out the window so emptily wondering if you will ever be in my arms again. I have failed you. All I ever wanted to do was to make you happy, and I couldn’t. I don’t blame you for leaving me. I would have left, too. Find it in your heart to forgive me.
I will always love you, but I can’t go on without you here.
This is the only option I have, now.

Wrenn

For years I had blamed myself. Perhaps if I had only gone to check on him sooner, he would have never gotten so low as to have taken his own life. Each year since, the Fourth of July always leaves a sour taste of guilt in my mouth.

The following months brought forth a new life for me. Wrenn’s suicide left me with nothing but a house full of sorrowful memories. Luckily, the realtors came in and took charge. The house was sold by Labor Day and I had enough money to buy a more decent place than the apartment I had been living in. My beautiful Gavin was born on the very last day of February in ’93. After a long few months, I knew that having Gavin in my life was going to give my life purpose. He was going to make life a little more worth living.

The next summer, my boss’s son had finished law school at Duke and decided to move back to the coast. Derrick Jefferson’s charismatic manner drew me quickly to him. Maybe it was the fact that he had finished what I couldn’t finish, but he was a breath of fresh air. He even accepted Gavin as his own.

We were married before Christmas of that year and we quickly relocated to Raleigh where we built a life for ourselves. Derrick and I both agreed to raise Gavin without any incite to the truth. We thought it would be easier that way.

“Mom. Hello?” Gavin, now sitting on my bed, was waving his hand to catch my attention. He handed me the letter that I had found in Wrenn’s jeans pocket that Fourth of July.

“Where did you find this?” I asked ignorantly, knowing that he had been in my top drawer.

“Did he love me, Mama?” Gavin asked.

“Your father loved me very much, Gavin.” I started to weep.

“I know that, Mom, but did he love me?”