The Journal, Chapter 13

By BadMomma

Journal Entry:  5.2.AC216

It's just a little after noon and I've already had a pretty full day.  Today I sent the fifth of my journal entries to my dad.  Since getting up this morning around 9am, I have encrypted my file for privacy, accessed and loaded my message on three separate message servers, run the search program that looks for the reply patterns Trowa and my dad established and run the decryption program to check the few messages that were flagged as possibilities.  Unfortunately, they were all garbage.  No response yet.  I'm trying not to get too discouraged, but it's hard.  I know everyone is right, I can't change in the course of a few months what hasn't changed in 14 years.  It's just so frustrating!!!!!!!!

I guess that despite how hard I tried to convince even myself that I would not get my hopes up, I did.  I guess it's only natural.  I felt an overwhelming power – for lack of a better word – that led me to believe somewhere deep inside that my messages would be the ones to break the self-induced exile my dad found himself in.  What a moron I am.  If his best friends couldn't coax him out of it for all these years, what could I hope to accomplish in a few short months. 

Damnit!  He reached out to me!  Now I'm reaching back and he won't reply.

OK, so maybe he doesn't know that I'm reaching out, we have no way of knowing if he's even checking those accounts anymore.  He may never see my messages unless he feels the need to send Trowa another message, and maybe by the time that happens my messages will have been purged from the server.  God, now there's a depressing thought, I could actually be wasting my time.

Alright, that kind of thinking is going to get me nowhere, I have to keep a positive attitude about all of this.  Both Michael and Katie have repeatedly told me that I can't expect an immediate response and that I shouldn't keep rehashing all of this but I always get so bummed after checking for responses and finding nothing.  Maybe I just need to up the stakes.  I mean it's not like I have anything to threaten him with but there's got to be a better way to get across how badly I want to see or just talk to him.  Shit, I'm thinking in circles again.  I wanna talk to him, I send him an email, I tell him I wanna talk to him, I send another email, and tell him again how I wasn't kidding and that I really wanna talk to him.  No, seriously, really, really wanna talk to him.  Oh, did I mention before that I wanna talk to him.  Well, why yes Helena, I do believe that in your last few journal entries you mentioned that you did indeed want to speak to your father!  OK.

Note to Self:  I think I'm cracking up!!!![1]

Point taken.  Use the journal for other things as well.  I seem to be obsessing here a bit, but I will force myself to think and write of other things.

Mom's sick again.  Nice change of topic there Hel!  She actually never fully recovered from her 'holiday cold' as it were.  So much so, that she finally agreed to go see a doctor about it.  She hates going to the doctor, but thank heavens she did.  The doc placed mom on temporary leave from work – forced – and placed her on a regimen of dietary supplements because her immune system was on the floor; she was running borderline dehydration and was just plain exhausted.  She's been doing quite a bit of traveling over the last few months which means she hasn't been taking care of herself.  It's been kind of weird actually.  It feels like I've only seen her every other week for the past three or four months.  And when the Maxwells came to earth for a visit in March, she was gone half the time.

Oh, did I forget to mention that the clan invaded for about two weeks?  Duo, yet again, managed to schedule a week's worth of meetings, followed by about a week of vacation.  It's a good thing that he's the director of the L2 Cluster Branch of Preventers and can arrange to be away from his office for a few weeks at a time every few months.  I imagine that this'll be the last year they can pull this off, since the boys will not be able to continue missing two weeks of school in the middle of spring every year.  I have to admit I'm going to miss it, it's great having them around - aside from the more obvious reasons.  That whole entire family is a source of never ending energy from the head of the family right down to the youngest of the brood. 

And what a little spitfire she is.  Her name is Greta Marie – named after Hilde's grandma and aunt - but her nickname is Cracker.  Yeah, I know, what the hell kind of nickname is that, right?  Well, in all its obscurity it actually defines the entire family.  It's short for Firecracker.  She fell in love with the things last year and constantly asks for them.  As a matter of fact she even asked me for them while sitting on Duo's lap during one of our phone calls a few months ago.  Throughout our whole conversation she kept saying 'ai-oh-ca-ko papa' and he just kept answering, 'yes baby girl, soon'.  When she realized he was brushing her off, she turned a very serious face to me and said 'pees, ai-oh-ca-ko nyenya', and gave me the most sorrowful look.  Heartbroken at the idea of denying her anything, I asked Duo what it meant and he told me.  I laughed so hard I almost peed in my pants.  I promised to show her my ai-oh-ca-kos when they came for a visit and that seemed to pacify her for a while.  Oh, and she asked me for them within minutes of arriving at the house.  Thank God that Duo had the foresight to bring some sparklers with him, he says he never leaves home without them anymore.  Just thinking about it now, I can't imagine what the baggage people at the space port would think if someone were to open their bags and find packs of sparklers in them. 

Anyhow….. now that I've lightened my own mood, perhaps I should catch up on what else has been going on.  You know, now that I think about it, the more I write this thing, the more it takes on the feel of a conversation.  Maybe it's just the knowledge that someone –who will remain unnamed for the balance of this entry – might eventually read this, or maybe not.  I find it flows quite well when I write as if my journal is an entity with whom I'm having a conversation.  And, as the old saying goes 'don't fix what ain't broke'.

Let's see, what else has happened lately…

Wufei got married in February.  It was a very nice, though unusual, ceremony.  It was a combination of Oriental and Western traditions; in essence part Wufei – he was dressed in traditional garb - and part Maribeau – she was in a stellar white dress.  They both looked stunning and the ceremony was sweet and emotional.  The after party lasted forever and all his friends were there to celebrate with him. Sally had flown back to earth just for the event and spent most of the ceremony wiping away tears.  Also there were Duo, Hilde, Trowa, Quatre, Aisha, Lady, Mariemeia and her boyfriend, Lu, Mill, a bunch of Preventers who I've seen but who's names I can never remember and even one of the teachers from my school – apparently a friend of Maribeau's.  All in all it was nice and it was fun and it was a very happy event.

Aside from that my life has been, in a word, school; and I've got less than a month of it left at this point.  I've got two semester papers left to write, and then it's free sailing until the final exams, not that I'm nervous about it or anything.  I've been doing really well in my classes and while they've been very demanding I'm really happy with the teachers I got this year. Thank God Mr. Blair retired last year.  Soon school will be over and I'll just have to worry about taking my college entrance exams and we'll see what happens after that.  I haven't quite decided what I want to do with my life yet, maybe I'll just go with a general Liberal Arts curriculum until I can decide just what I want to do. 

I've talked to mom about maybe going back to L4 for a little while this summer, catch up with Katie for a bit and then head over to L2.  Hilde invited me to come visit again, while the kids are out of school, so we could all hang out together.  I was really looking forward to it, but if mom doesn't start feeling better soon I may put it off.

I guess I should wrap things up now.  I do have other things to do today and I promised mom to take her shopping this afternoon.  Leisurely shopping, since she's not supposed to be taxing herself.  She keeps joking that everyone's treating her as if she were 63 and not 36.  Yesterday I told her that if she didn't take better care of herself she wouldn't make it to 63.  She got a little sad when I said that, and I felt bad for doing it, but then she chuckled and said 'yes, but what a life I've led so far'.  I got to thinking, it's true.  Most people could live to be 100 and never see all the things that she's seen or experience all that she has.  Sometimes I think I envy the fullness of the life she's led, but then I remember the tragedies that she's witnessed and the losses she endured and I couldn't feel more ashamed for thinking that way, or any more proud that she is who she is today and that she is my mother. 

Journal Entry 9.30.AC216

My hands are shaking. I'm short of breath.  Oh hell! Get a grip! I don't know what to do.

I got a response.  deep breath, in, out

Yes, my father responded.  in, out

I went to post my 10th journal entry today and did the same things I always do.  Encrypt the file, load at server 1, run the search program, download possible replies, load at server 2, run the search program, download possible replies, load at server 3, run the search program, download possible replies, run the decryption, sit back and wait. in, out

Only today, there was more than just garbage.

How to sum up what he said?  It wasn't that much, I guess I could just paraphrase.  He's sorry to have caused me so much pain in the last year or two.  He never realized how much I was agonizing over all of this.  He still doesn't want to be found, but he understands that I have a lot of questions and he's willing to answer some of them.  Hm, some of them.  I wonder why not all?  Well it doesn't matter.  He's offering and I'm taking.  Who the hell cares what he'll agree to answer and what he won't, right now I don't think I can think straight.  What the hell am I writing anyway?  Just keep writing.  Read it later and make some sense of it after.  He'll talk to me. Damn, he already did – in a way. 

I guess number nine was a real doozy, must've hit him hard.  I'll have to reread that one, I haven't even been paying attention to what I wrote back then, I've just been loading the entries in the order they were written.  OK.  Now, what to do about this?  See he also said he doesn't really want anyone to know yet that he's been in touch with me.  Might be kind of hard since the uncles ask every time we talk.  Mostly I just talk to Duo, so I guess I'll just have to be creative without actually outright lying to him.  I don't want to lie, and dad doesn't want me to either.  So, what now?  I wonder if he'll agree to direct contact, maybe we can email each other.  It would cut down on the lag time between posting to the server and waiting for a response, I  wonder if he'd agree to that.  Can't hurt to try.  Right.  I'll ask. 

What else?  Oh shit! Trowa checks the servers too.  What if he finds out, I'll have to tell dad.  Don't want him to think I reneged on a promise.  Actually, that might make it easier to convince him on the more direct approach.  If we're not talking over the server, then the guys won't ever see it.  Secrecy, that's the key here.  I wonder if it's OK to tell Michael.  Shit, shit, shit  I really need to talk to him, but dad doesn't want anyone to know.  It's not like Michael will run and tell everyone if I ask him to keep quiet, not like he's the one that talks to the guys anyway. So I guess that might be alright.  I'll have to ask.  OK, gotta go.  Need to make sure I respond right away so that we can avoid any possible misunderstandings.

Journal Entry 10.3.AC216

He's agreed to the direct email. I've been checking the damn server three times a day for the last three days and finally something came in this afternoon.  

OK, he's gonna take care of deleting the last two communiqués, he's already deleted the previous one.  He says he knew that Trowa was checking the message servers too and that since I always post my messages at either the very end or the very beginning of the month, he knew when to post his message and when to take it down.  Sneaky little bastard isn't he.  He's good, gotta give him that.  Now as for the how, when and where. 

He's going to email me within the next couple of days, then he'll take any questions that I have for him.  So, aside from why'd you leave and why won't you come back, I really need to sit down and figure out what I want to say.  He did agree that it was OK for me to talk to Michael about it, but nobody else, not even Katie.  He even knew who Michael was, and I must say that was kind of freaky.  I guess he really has been keeping close tabs on me. 

Gotta go, need to talk to Michael.  I'm so excited, and nervous, and I feel like I'm gonna throw up! So many questions, so little time.

God please help me!  I want him back.

Journal Entry 12.22.AC216

Deflection.  I've become very good at deflection.  I now answer any questions about the success of my efforts with comments like:

1. He's still out there somewhere and not here with me, right?

2. There were no messages from him on the server this morning/afternoon/evening (depending on the time of day I'm asked).

3. I don't know where he is any more today than I did a year ago.

And the most popular reply lately,

4. Nothing's changed since yesterday.

Technically, those are all truthful and accurate answers.  Of course I also happen to neglect to mention that I have been in contact with him via email going on two months now.  I realize that this is splitting hairs, but as Duo taught me long ago, as long as the statement, in and of itself, is in fact true, then it can't be a lie.  You see:  My dad IS out there somewhere and not with me right now.  That is a true statement.  There HAVEN'T been any messages from him on the server lately, not since the last one he sent at the beginning of October, and nobody asked me back then, so that too IS true.  And I am still loading my journal entries at the servers, wouldn't want to give a wrong impression either.  I really DON'T know where he is today, any more than anyone has in a long time.  He knows where he is, but he hasn't told me where that is.  So, not a lie. 

And finally what has become my favorite answer of late, recently nothing HAS changed from the previous day, we're still emailing each other every few days, exchanging little tidbits of information about ourselves, and slowly getting to know each other a little better.  I have, at Michael's suggestion, asked a lot of the questions I had about the things he'd written in his journals, and what I'd seen on the vid disks he left behind.  I asked him to tell me more about what he'd seen and done, how he felt about where his life had taken him, things like that.  He even helped me out with some research I was doing for one of my school assignments; I'd jokingly asked in one of my emails if he knew anything about the Neo-Impressionist Movement in the AC Era and he replied a few days later with several websites that I should look at.  Shocked the hell out of me that he would be into that kind of stuff, but then again I don't really know him all that well.  He surprised me even more when he sent a gift basket on my birthday; it included a small arrangement of my favorite flowers, a teddy bear with a blue ribbon at the neck and a small pendant in the shape of angel wings.  I was so touched that I cried like an idiot until just before mom got home that day.  I think everyone assumes that Michael sent the gifts, and since no one's asked me directly I haven't felt the need to correct them.  Of course Michael knows who sent it, so for now it's our little secret.

There have been two areas of discussion that have rather obviously been avoided, his recent past and his reason for leaving.  Well, that's about to change.  Actually, I don't really care about getting the scoop on what he's been doing lately – aside from spying on us – what I really want to know is why won't he come back.  The more I talk to him the more it bugs me.  I don't want to drive him away, but I really want to know.  I know I'm treading on thin ice here, he might just decide it's not worth it to continue our discussions, such as they are; he might think me ungrateful for demanding the information when I know he's avoiding it.  But I watched the whole video he sent to mom, I saw the letter he left for Duo, I've read his goodbye message.  I think I deserve to know why.  And I'm going to tell him so. 

I can't help but feel a little strange about all this.  See, it's weird having these discussions with him about all sorts of stuff and avoiding those two issues.  We both know they're out there, we both know I want to know.  I have been rereading the journal entries I'm posting and it's quite clear that the need to get to know him better and the need to know why he did what he did has been driving me nuts for a while.  And how long can we stick to what, in the end, amounts to small talk.  If our relationship isn't going to move forward than I'd rather not keep this up, it's really not fair to me.  I want my father IN my life, not in the shadows, not some specter on the computer who will only allow emails but won't agree to meet me face to face – it's not like he can't.  I don't want to keep this a secret for the rest of my life.  I want to share what I have, what I know. 

I've been thinking about this for a few days now.  I think what I'm gonna do is tell him outright what I want.  I want to know why he left and I want him to meet me, face to face, at least once.  I just want to see him, touch him, hug him, tell him I love him – in the flesh.  And then we'll see if he can turn away again. 

Is it fair to put him on the spot like that.  Maybe, but then again, life's not fair and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something[2].  Is it a form of emotional blackmail?  Definitely.  Am I really gonna go through with it?

Oh yes, I'm definitely going to tell him. 

~~ to be continued ~~

[1] Hehehe!  GreenDay quote J

[2] Hehehe2!  Quote from the Princess Bride (by S. Morgan Stern… or is that Rob Reiner?)

NOTES:  Thanks for hanging in there with me, everyone.  This time we are truly coming to the end, just a little later than I expected (again!).  Just one more probably, but I promise to make it worth the wait.  Thanks DruidKeep for beta-reading for me and don't worry; I'm writing, I'm writing!!!!   Feel free to let me know what you think:  BadMomma64@aol.com

Later!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that they don't belong to me! (a.k.a. The Disclaimer)