Page 152 of Still

I get my coat and I get in the car.

I sit in the driveway for a moment — engine on this time, heat running, hands on the wheel — and I look at the front door and I think about walking back in there and saying the thing I drove two and a half hours to say and didn't.

I sat in the hard chair and I answered questions about hockey and then I waited to be dismissed and I was dismissed and I got my coat and I got in the car.

I didn't say it, though. The one question I wanted to ask.

Why couldn't you love me?

The way fathers are supposed to.

The way you loved hockey.

What was so wrong with me?

I used to lie awake at night and try to figure it out.

Maybe if I worked harder.

Maybe if I played better.

Maybe if I got stronger.

Maybe if I stopped being whatever it was you saw when you looked at me.

Maybe if I fixed all of the things you said were wrong with me.

Maybe then.

Maybe then you'd look at me and see your son instead of a problem.

I spent years trying to become someone easier to love.

Years.

And none of it mattered.

Because it was never about how hard I worked.

Or how good I was.

It was me.

Just me.

Was it really that bad?

What I was?

I did exactly what you wanted.

Every time I stood there and took the beating because I thought if I could just survive long enough you'd eventually see me.

Was it really enough to make you stop loving me?

Or worse—

Did you ever love me at all?