Please Ignore Vera Dietz (Page 39)

Please Ignore Vera Dietz(39)
Author: A.S. King

DAD: I never call you stupid!

DR. B: Mr. Dietz. (Holds hand out.)

ME: Like I was saying, one day you will see how stupid and silly this is. It’s simple.

DAD: What’s simple about my having to work a full-time job while I’m a senior?

ME: You’ll thank me for that job when you’re older. (Eyebrows in serious knot, doing best Ken impersonation.)

DAD: (In annoyingly girly voice.) The only reason I even like my job is because of James! I love him!

ME: (Rolls eyes.) You don’t know anything about love yet, Vera. If you did, you’d see that I grounded you this month out of real love. I’m concerned that you’re throwing your life away.

DAD: It’s all your fault, Dad. I would never be doing this if you really gave a shit.

ME: You have to learn how to give a shit about yourself, Vera. You’re eighteen. You’re soon going to go out on your own. I’m only teaching you responsibility.

DAD: I already know responsibility, Dad! Remember? The kid who keeps straight A’s and a full-time job? The one who has always helped around the house? The one who helped you get over Mom?

ME: (Noticing twitch in Dad’s eyes when he says “Mom.”) You never helped me get over Mom, Vera. I’m still not over Mom.

The room goes silent and Dr. B can see that Dad and I are realizing something. We are realizing, simultaneously, that we have never dealt with Mom leaving. We pretended—like role-playing—but we never really did anything about it.

DAD: Well, I am. I’m completely over Mom.

ME: You are?

DAD: Aren’t you?

ME: (Confused.) Hold on. Are we role-playing or not, now?

Silence. Dad still has a twitch in his eyes.

DAD: I’m not sure.

DR. B: How about for next week, you both write me a little something about Mom? I think this might be something we need to work on.

We both nod and don’t say anything. Because we know he’s right.

When we leave the office, part of me feels like holding Dad’s hand and acting like I’m ten again. Like going back in time and remembering the warm love we used to have will help us. But then I remember I hate him now.

A BRIEF WORD FROM KEN DIETZ (VERA’S HATEFUL DAD)

Vera thinks I’m a self-help book and a room full of crystals. She thinks I’m a yoga mat and a bowl of granola and fresh fruit. She’s trying to figure out if I’m worth her time or not—a trustworthy grown-up, and not just some worn-out old alcoholic who wasn’t good enough for her mother. Or who drove her mother away. Or whatever. It’s all related to Cindy Sindy. But I guess that’s fair. Losing your mother at twelve probably isn’t easy. But whose relationship with their mother is easy?

I only discovered the truth about my mother at her funeral.

We were lined up in the receiving line—Caleb to my left, Jack to my right—and the people came through. Most of the people had known us since we were kids, but a bunch of people came up from Arkansas, where Mom had lived in a retirement village until she died. They’d tell Caleb how sorry they were. They’d make their way toward Jack, shake his hand, say something nice about Mom, and then move on to the buffet. They skipped over me like I was a space between words.

It wasn’t until her best friend and neighbor from the Arkansas retirement complex came through that we figured out what was going on.

“Caleb,” she said. “I’m so sorry to hear about your muthah. You were such a good boy to her.”

He wasn’t. To the last month, he was pinching from her Social Security checks.

She waltzed right past me to Jack. “I’ve heard so much about you. She was so proud.”

That’s true. Jack lives in London. He’s an international banker. She was very proud. Bragged about him every chance she could. He’s the family favorite—even though he hasn’t been around since 1986.

Caleb kindly nodded to me, and she looked me up and down and said, “Now, who’s this?”

“It’s Ken,” Caleb said.

“Who’s Ken?”

“Our youngest brother.”

“She had two boys. You and Jack.”

“No. She had three. Me, Jack, and Ken.”

“You boys are crazy with grief. Kitty had two sons, and I know it because we talked all the time. Why are you trying to confuse me on the day of her funeral?”

It hit Jack first. I saw his heart break for me.

“Mrs.—uh—ma’am,” he said quietly. “I think you should move on now. The line is backing up.”

Caleb figured it out then, and though he was always a total hard-ass, he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. She denied me. For all those years, as I paid her medical bills, as I filled in her 1040s and helped her with her Medicare paperwork and her will. As I bought her a hospital bed, an oxygen machine, and paid for the nurse who helped her at the very end. Even as I arranged to have her cremated—her final wish—she denied me.

I think I can safely say that finding out that my mother never told her Arkansas friends about me was worse than her dying. It was probably worse than Cindy Sindy leaving, too, which coincidentally happened earlier that same year. I stood in the line shaking the occasional hand for another fifteen minutes, keeping an eye on Vera as she sat talking with Caleb’s daughter in the funeral home folding chairs, realizing that if my mother had denied me, then she had denied Vera, too.

Most people don’t think past themselves. I know that. But I want Vera to see other people. To respect other people. To realize that the whole world is not here for her. I want her to see her duty to the world, not the other way around. Caleb let his girl walk all over him and gave her something for nothing her whole life. Now she expects him to pay for college when he has a sole-proprietor business and Kate’s a receptionist at the car parts place.

When I was a teenager, my mother let me do whatever I wanted. Let me stay out all night. Let me smoke pot in her house. Let me drink openly as early as twelve years old, because she figured I’d outgrow it, which didn’t really happen. But when she realized I was in trouble, rather than help me again my mother kicked me out and made me solve my own problems. Now, strange as it may sound, I see that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Well, that, AA, and Vera.

KEN DIETZ’S SPOILED KID FLOW CHART

HISTORY I’D RATHER FORGET—AGE SEVENTEEN—SPRING

During March, Charlie avoided me and I avoided Charlie. He was tied up with a Vo-Tech project and I was determined to stop loving him. He never explained why he sent me the flowers and I never asked why he took me up to the pagoda. He was getting detention again—weekly—for smoking and other rebellious acts, and hanging out full-time with the Detentionheads when he wasn’t busy becoming his father.