Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
"You've never been a father to me and you never will!"
I listen as he screams profanities in the background of a rare phone call I am having with his mother. I am certain he has not learned those words from her, particularly when she pauses to reprimand him for them. The sentences he strings together next are much less vulgar but are still harsh and in much too bitter a tone for a boy of his age. I can barely fathom that the words are coming from my son…the last time I heard him speak, he was babbling and trying to form his first words.
His hatred for me is profound and rightfully so.
Et est mea culpa.
I dropped a birthday card baring an extra check in the post a year ago for the floppy haired teenager before me on my computer screen. I still have not heard back and I almost hope that means it was lost in transition. Deep down I know that is not true. This is an older photograph of him. His mother had once emailed the rare smile she had captured to me, he was thrilled to have made his school's football team that afternoon. American football, of course. I could not bare to look at it for some time after, not after the sinking realization that his toothy smile was something I had never seen before.
As I stare at this handsome young man—he has all of his mother's best features—I am overwhelmed with regret for my past decisions. I refuse to believe the trouble he is beginning to cause at school, so easily giving up his team…the one thing that had seemed to make him so happy. I do not want to acknowledge that his teachers are merely substituting for his absentee father, an educator himself. They are receiving his ever growing adolescent rage for me. If my peers knew of this, I would lose all credibility as a disciplinarian.
I cannot even control my own son.
Et est mea culpa.
I swallow hard as I look into his eyes for the first time in over a decade. They are cold and distant and I feel ill knowing that the last time we were in this position, I had stooped down to pick him up. It was my last goodbye.
He now stands at almost six feet on his own and has freshly bleached away his dark brown hair that had once matched mine. When he finally speaks, I am startled more by his American accent than I am the pitch of the voice delivering it. He sounds nothing like me, his words pronounced entirely different than my own. He looks nothing like me, his hoodlum attire is casual and sloppy.
You cannot even tell we are related, much to his approval.
Et est mea culpa.
It pains me each time I have to strain out a Mr. Miller in class or read Eddie Miller scrawled across an assignment I have to fail. I should be grateful we are even still speaking, but the man I will be harboring in my home in a few month's time has made it perfectly clear that he will never be Edison Sweet and there is nothing I can do about it. I realize now that I should have requested that his mother give him my last name, but at the time I had hoped things would have gone differently and he would have someday wanted to take it for himself. Perhaps I symbolically doomed our relationship from the start.
It hardly matters now as he has discovered my true reasons for leaving. He says he will never take the name of a liar.
Et est mea culpa.
He says he has a girlfriend. Miss Williamson. My relief at their constant bickering is replaced by panic. I try to object to his relationship, another clear mistake on my part. I had hoped he would find someone less prone to trouble, someone that would be a good influence on him. It backfires. The two of them are serious in no time and Eddie is quick to flaunt it in front of me every opportunity he gets. All of my hard work over the years trying to get Patricia on the right track is undone as Eddie's bad habits begin to rub off on her.
I have not only lost my son, but I have lost the young lady I had unintentionally tried to replace him with.
Et est mea culpa.
I see him begin to drift from Patricia just as I did with his mother. His eyes roam far too much onto the new American girl and he does not seem to realize he is crushing the spirit of the spitfire I have grown very fond of. In the moments he does notice her scowl or frown, he does not have a bit of empathy or remorse and I can almost swear I am watching a home movie of myself at 17. Where he inherited his mother's best features, he inherited most of my worst attributes.
He has no respect for women and he does not understand the magnitude of the pain he is causing her.
Et est mea culpa.
I am going to be a grandfather. Eddie's eyes gleam with sick amusement as he makes the announcement for the both of them. It is almost as if he has done this on purpose. As if he somehow wants to hurt me to my very core. The mother, a slightly older young woman from the other side of town, is in tears beside him and I have my doubts as to whether or not he will assume any responsibility beyond this point…
I catch him flirting with Miss Williamson in the hallway at school the next day and when she finally cracks a smile of forgiveness, my hands are tied as Headmaster. I cannot interfere, and she has no idea. My fears are confirmed.
Et est mea culpa.
He broke her heart today, even after she had forgiven him for his life altering secret. And it goes without saying that he crushed what was left of mine along the way.
He has decided that he would rather live his life on his own, as he pleases, as opposed to being tied down to one place. The big announcement comes just as his son is expected any day now. He is already 18 and says he will be glad to be rid of me in all forms. He had once told me he never wanted my guilt money in the first place. Naturally, it surprises me when he says a check will fill the void he will leave in his kid's life just fine.
His flight back to America is set to leave in a few hours. I want to talk some sense into him but I cannot open my mouth because I know that he has learned it all from me, every step of the way.
He scoffs when the tears well in my eyes. He does not believe them, he never has. I cannot stop them from coming any more than I can stop him from leaving.
Et est mea culpa…
And it is my fault.
End.