“Running a few hours a day does not make you a trained athlete.”
I couldn’t help but gasp. “A few hours? What? You were probably running slowly for my sake too!”
He paused for a moment and I prepared myself for his smartass response, but instead he said, “What were we arguing about again? I’m not sure if I’m proving or contradicting my point anymore.”
I thought about too and then laughed. “Fine, let’s go back. Okay?”
“You’re my friend and family so you can talk to me about your…memories. I’m not a judger.”
“Everyone’s a judger.”
“Okay, but I’m nice about it. So tell me what you were feeling.”
“I forgot that too.”
I groaned. It was like he was trying to forget. “Fine, I can be stubborn too. I have questions.”
“What type of questions?”
“Therapist type questions.”
“That sounds judgy.”
“Malachi.” I took a deep breath. It was like I was playing a never ending game of chess with him and I could feel my hair slowly going gray.
He grabbed the water jug from the center of the table and filled his cup which was a shocker on its own. “Ask away, friend. But do know I’m not a fan of criers.”
“You don’t need to be a fan. You just have to have tissues on hand. First question,” I tried to think of where to start. He had so much knowledge about so many things. I was curious about him and I really wanted to get into his head. “That scar, how did you get it? And is that when your memories came back?”
“When I was eight.” I wasn’t sure what look I had on my face right now. But whatever it was made him nod. “Yes, I’ve been like this for a little over twenty-two years.”
That was my whole life.
He’d been suffering like this for my whole life.
“My father was a cop in the St. James Parish, Louisiana, which is where I ironically died in another life. He was the man of the town and everyone loved him after he saved some kids from a burning church. Everyone thought he was the second coming of Christ. Handsome, upstanding, a law enforcer, with a loving wife he physically, emotionally, and sexually abused, and a proud son he liked to beat on after a stressful day of being a hero.
“One day he used his beer bottle as a bat and my face was the ball. I woke up three days later and I had all of my memories back. And then he wasn’t so scary anymore. I didn’t fear him. I’d seen worse. A few months later I was able to convince my mother to leave him and together we ran away.”
“I’m sorry about your father.” I really was. How much could one person suffer? “Did it hurt when all the memories came back?”
“No.” He shook his head sounding surprised. “It didn’t then. It was like I’d watched a movie.”
“So what happened?”
“I moved to New York with my mother and I’m guessing that I was too close to wherever Li-Mei was at that time,” he whispered. Normally he’d refer to her as her or she but this was only the second time I’d heard him call her by name. “But each time it would happen my mother would rush me to the hospital and soon enough the bills were beginning to pile up. So I forced myself to stop thinking about it and I started trying to hide my black outs. I did it for her sake, but then she died…she killed herself, but I’m sure your grandfather already told you that part of the story.”
“He did but only because I was jealous, remember? I wondered why he always had to see you. You were already a teenager then. I might have wished you harm…sorry.” Jeez, I was such a terrible and jealous person.
“Don’t be. I understand.” He took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair, his plate now sitting empty in front of him. “You had no one else, right? I at least had my father.”
“You went back to that S.O.B?”
The wide smile that formed across his face was as genuine as I’d ever seen. “No. We haven’t spoken since I left Louisiana. But Alfred got me a lawyer and sued him for back child support and threatened him with jail time for abuse. Once I was sixteen I became emancipated. I lived on my own in a small apartment in Brooklyn. Alfred tried to get me something better though I refused. I didn’t like the thought of being so in debt to him.”
“In debt…to him?” That didn’t make sense to me. “I thought he was in debt to you. That’s always how he made it sound.”
He shook his head. “Alfred…my mom...it wasn’t his fault. There was nothing he could do. The night she was to perform as Fantine in Les Miserables she didn’t get drunk. She was drugged by the back-up who thought it wasn’t fair that a nobody had gotten the leading role. My mother didn’t realize what had happened and was so overwhelmed and angry that she killed herself.