My name is Conner… with an ER, not sure how I went from aspiring soccer player/Dino Thunder red power ranger to family man, but that's honestly not important, what is important is this story…
It got off to a start I'm neither proud of nor ashamed of, just me and my wife, Krista sitting down at the dinner table in our apartment late at night, talking about my past; our daughter, Calista was in her room possibly working on whatever it is one does to get into the college of one's dreams these days… or so I thought.
"Ah, so that's what you meant when you said there's a lot more going on in your life." Krista said with a smirk. "All these years ago and would anyone have guessed?"
"Well, at least you understand." I said with relief. "Our daughter is adopted so I'm not sure what she will think."
"What do you mean?" Krista asked, her smirk dropping.
"It's something in my past as a ranger that has came back to haunt me a few years ago… and it has kept coming back ever since." I said with this pit forming in my stomach. "It has more to do with how I reacted to a revelation about the team's white ranger, I was ignorant about his reasons behind his "so called" betrayal." I think I still was at that moment… until it happened.
We heard a shocked scoff, Krista and I both looked in the direction of the kitchen doorway, and saw our daughter clad in her favorite pink cloud pajamas, she had her blood glucose monitor in her hand and had an expression on her face that I felt like I wore years before.
"Uh oh!" Krista exclaimed, watching Calista storm out of the kitchen with me stumbling behind.
"Sweetheart, I can explain." I said, half way through the hallway. "Calista, he made a promise to the team, he told us 'no more secrets', but then he kept one secret from us…"
She turned to face me, a look of anger and hurt in her eye. "Oh, so grandma and grandpa not knowing about your ranger-capades was all fine and dandy, but no one on the team knowing about White ranger's father being the bad guy was not?" Calista asked, each syllable sounding increasingly enraged until she reached a capacity no parent can fathom. "What the locker of Davy Jones is there to even explain?"
With a nervous chuckle, I attempted to speak. "Now now, let's not point fingers…" I could not finish that sentence.
"Oh, like how you never did when the truth came out?" Calista sarcastically sneered, Any comeback I might've had died on my lips Before I could remember what I was gonna say. "Exactly what I thought, you acted as if the white ranger was responsible for his father being the baddie."
To this day, it still seems like I was far too young to have that cross my mind.
Nonetheless, I was getting frustrated, it almost seemed like she wasn't listening. "Now just a minute young lady, that was vital information that could've been useful in a fight against the forces of evil." And in my frustration, I had to open the McKnight family big mouth that my genetics had oh so generously passed down from my father.
"You guys were the most hypocritical team on earth, when you weren't the ones not being sold out." Calista literally shoved me away. "I can't believe this." She stormed into her room and slammed the door in my face, by the time I understood the damage I've done, it seemed like it was too late.
I gently knocked on her salmon bedroom door. "Calista, please!" I pleaded with an ever tightening knot in my chest where my heart used to be, a few tears escaped my eyes, blurring my vision. "If there's anything I can do to make it up to you or anyone you think I need to…"
"Drop dead, McKnight *sniffle* I hate you." Calista loudly sobbed, I felt like I could just wither away.
With such words of angst ringing in my ears and at a loss for words of my own, I turned my back to the door, collapsed against it, slid to the floor, curled up in a fetal position and semi-controllably sobbed into my knees.
Did either of us even have a heart anymore, mine felt like it was smashed to dust, Marissa was right, my daughter would deem me not worth her loyalty, not worth her attention, not worth her respect, not even worth her pity… What the hell have I done? I know it's been years but still.
"On the one hand I agree with our daughter." I heard Krista say, the stream of tears flowing from my eyes practically turned into a river, hearing what I heard just now, I'd be banished to the couch for sure. "But on the other hand it's been years, i'm pretty sure this white ranger let it go a long time ago." A spiteful groan seeped through Calista's door, indicating that she heard her mother. "Let's get to bed, we can all talk about this in the morning." For ill or for good, I can at least trust my wife to understand.
All I could muster was a pained sob, as Krista slung my arm around her shoulders, wrapped her own arms around my torso, lifted me up to my feet and carried/dragged me into our room.
Our bedroom was all too much of a bedroom, no décor because what exactly would be the point of decorating a bedroom if it's supposed to be private and no one else can admire your work? The only things we had were just generic dressers on either side of the bed, a closet full of our formalwear and linens, even the bed was more cozy than fancy.
"What am I going to do?" I asked myself, the sinking feeling in my chest echoing my sitting on the bed's edge.
I probably wasn't all that quiet because…"You sleep or die trying, we cannot deal with this problem if you're deprived of it." Krista answered, she makes a good point as always.
I lethargically swung my legs onto the bed and draped myself over the covers. "Okay, goodnight." I said, a few more tears escaping my eyes, I silently cried myself to sleep.