What if your perp dies?
Thursday, June 29th, 2006This is for you, brandiecobb:
Here are pages 124-126:
Two years later
Life is weird. I’m sitting here reading over the forgiveness email I sent to my dad and the phone rings and it’s the Anonymous Angela Shelton. I’m excited to hear from her actually but once she begins speaking I realize she’s drunk again. I guess sobriety didn’t stick too well. I wonder if she’s a mirror for me. I look at the copy of the email I just sent my dad and wonder if I do forgive him.
“I can’t believe you’re calling me right now. I just sent my dad an email,” I tell her and she laughs. She sounds really drunk. I decide not to mention it. “You want me to read it to you?”
“Sure,” she peeps.
“’Hello Dad,’’ I read. “’It’s another year and another Father’s Day and I’m writing to wish you a good one and let you know that I lead a life I truly love every minute of. I am the happiest I have ever been in my life and I plan on staying that way. I smile, I laugh, I tell the truth and I write things that have a positive effect on the world. I forgive you as well as myself for everything goes back to ourselves. We are truly the only ones who will never leave us and who we will never leave. If we can’t face ourselves then we can face no one and I happen to truly enjoy myself and I thought you’d like to know that. Love, Angela.’”
“That was great,” Angela Shelton says and I wonder if she’s right. I’m not so sure I’m there yet. “Did he respond?”
“I just sent it awhile ago so I don’t know yet. It kind of doesn’t matter really.” Angela laughs again. “Are you drunk?” I ask her.
“Oh yeah,” she says like that is the silliest question to ask. She pauses and then continues after a moment.
“My dad’s getting ready to die,” Angela Shelton whispers.
“Do you think that sort of lets him off the hook?” I ask but she isn’t really listening, she has run off down memory lane.
“He loved to brush my hair,” she mumbles. “He was always in the bedroom, demanding or telling us what we had to do.”
“And what would you have to do?” I ask because she has never given me any details before. She doesn’t answer but starts crying instead.
“He fucked my mind,” she lets out after a moment. Then there is a long silence. “My dad hurt me like you would not believe,” she says almost in a whisper like she’s afraid she’ll be discovered.
“What did he do?” I ask.
“I’ll never tell you.”
“How come?”
“Because I cannot speak about it,” she whispers. “I’m doing his laundry,” she says.
“Yeah, that’s for sure. His dirty laundry,” I say, amazed at how we have to pick up the pieces when someone else shatters the glass.
“No, I’m really doing his laundry,” she corrects me.
“Oh,” I say and she laughs. “So you still see him?”
“Yeah. That’s just perfect, huh?”
“Have you ever mentioned anything to him?”
“Oh no,” she says quickly.
“What would you say to him if you could?” I ask.
“What would I say to my father?” She asks like it is the craziest idea ever. “Oh gosh.” She lights a cigarette and I listen, wanting one. “That I wish he would’ve respected my mother and loved her like he should’ve,” she says slowly. “That’s what I want. My mother was the most loving and my father abused her horribly, horribly…” she trails off as if stepping into an old memory. “Don’t hurt me, okay? Don’t hurt me,” she says quietly like she’s a little girl.
“Angela?” I say, checking to make sure she’s all right.
“He hurt my mother and he hurt me,” she says and then becomes quiet. I can hear her sipping her beer. “So what did you really think of me when you met me?” She asks, changing the subject.
“I thought you were adorable,” I say because it is true.
“You’re so full of shit,” she says and then laughs.
“It’s true,” I say. I want her to talk about her past. I want to know more. I want the full story. “You know, we’ll never be able to have relationships that work until we deal with the first one with our mother and father,” I say just to see what she’ll say. She is quiet. I listen to her take a few swigs and drags.
“I guess that’s what my alcoholism is, it’s the total blanket I’m hiding under,” Angela Shelton says, phrasing it so well.
“Because you’re able to say things when you’re drunk?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to use alcohol to help yourself talk, you know. Ultimately there is a way out of that addiction,” I say and realize I’m a hypocrite. She has her alcohol and I beat myself up. Both are secrets that we hide so well. I start searching around ashtrays for a butt long enough to light. “And it doesn’t matter if he’s dead or not, Angela. Confronting him and forgiving him and all of that, it’s for you, not him. He kind of has nothing to do with it. It’s how we relate to the abuse. They don’t give a crap on so many levels. It’s what we’re going to do to turn it all around in our lives and take our lives back,” I tell her. Damn, I’m good. I wish I took my own advice.
“No, I have to be drunk,” Angela tells me matter-of-factly. “I’m not pretty or intelligent or artistic,” she says. “That’s why I’m attracted to people like you,” she adds. I feel like telling her that I’m just as messed up as she is but I don’t.
“I met you and I think you’re adorable,” I tell her instead. She huffs.
“I’m not smart.”
“It sounds like you’re keeping yourself down, nobody is doing it but you. It must make you feel comfortable or something,” I say and want to smack myself for how ridiculous I sound. I’m keeping myself down too. I don’t think I’m smart enough to edit my own movie or to be any kind of leader. I have all the same issues that she does.
“You know, I’d love to talk to you if you ever do another documentary,” Angela throws out there.
“And be on camera?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she sighs as a half laugh.
“Well, I have a new editor recutting the whole movie right now and you’re in it a lot more than the last version.”
“I am? From all the times we talked on the phone?” She asks.
“Yeah, all the time I spent talking to you, I was really talking to myself,” I explain.
“Angela Sheltons,” she says quietly like she is letting her own name sink in for the first time.
“It’s pretty amazing that so many of the Angelas have been victims of abuse. I could have picked any name. But the amazing thing is that almost every single one has surpassed it, left abusive relationships, dealt with it, started their own businesses, put themselves through school, which is so inspiring.”
“We still have a long way to go,” Angela says and I don’t know whether to be grateful or insulted because I know she’s right.
“Yeah, we still have a long way to go but if the Angela Sheltons can do it, we can too.”
