Essence of Her
By
Alyson Grant
Sadie
"It hurt so much when I saw that friendly girlish handwriting."
"What was supposed to be my present, my get-Sadie-out-of-her-slump gift rapidly turned into a curse. You wrecked everything. My entire year."
"My last year of high school was supposed to be all about the good times, not me worrying about my father's affair with his travel rep. and his silent suggestion to keep it a secret from my mother. Because when you said nothing to either of us except more lies to me as if I were imagining things and nothing at all to her, that's exactly what you did."
"Without even saying the words."
"How could you bring me to that woman's office and then pretend like everything was great when in reality all it was, was just a lie? How could you cheat on Mom and expect me to lie about it and keep quiet about your secret?"
"A lie by omission is still a lie Dad," she said in a hard tone.
"How could you let that go on for months? How could you keep on seeing her even after I found out?"
Nearly everything she felt tumbled and rushed out of her like a waterfall, not peacefully like you'd assume you'd see at first sight but with hints of rage, anger, power and intensity that was just beneath an attractive surface.
She kept on asking and asking, bombarding her father with the truly tough questions that she'd wondered about for months and had been dealing with for the most part on her own.
She'd gone over and over them by herself, tossing the thoughts into the air like a juggler would balls of frustration transformed into devilish angst.
In her silent months of inner turmoil and anger she'd never gotten her answers and now this was her chance.
She didn't have to look down to what she written to express how she felt. She remembered it nearly word for word, each sentiment coming straight from the heart, straight from the emotional hell she'd been living in.
This was the opening for all the simple questions that didn't have easy explanations. They should have had easy explanations though.
The actions that should have been taken seemed effortless and obvious.
Easy almost. Two steps away from simple.
Everything that should have been done seemed right. So why didn't he do them? Why did he let her and the rest of her family down continually?
Why was it that the people who loved you ended up hurting you the most?
Because they could?
Because they had the key to that part of your heart?
And the ability to twist what was inside and make it bleed?
The face of her mild mannered father, who was easy going and loved music nearly as much as he did his daughters, seemed to change into something she didn't easily recognize over the past few months. For all her sassy actions, fierce expressions combined with equally biting accusations, bold statements and the conflicting emotions that she felt, he was still her father and that was a fact she couldn't easily forget.
She kept on asking and asking but didn't give him a chance to answer.
Maybe that was the point.
To just be heard.
And she was heard as her questions tripped over themselves like the rambunctious children she and her younger sister used to be.
She was heard loud and clear, as the heated words kept sliding down one after another like cool rain falling from the sky or a waterfall cascading down jagged rocks.
But there wasn't anything peaceful about it.
"Or do you really expect me to believe that the one night Jude saw you with her
In Our House
was the first time you'd seen her since that day?"