Jen's Journal

The silence was the only thing Diana heard going back into the house. She Walked into the living room and everyone was sitting quietly. Alison was biting her nails, Jade was twirling her hair, and Lily was staring intently at a spot on her shorts. Her little brother was off somewhere, probably hanging out with his friends. Diana took a few deep breaths before speaking. 

“So… I just…” Her voice shook before she could finish her sentence. Why does this keep happening? She thought to herself. She tried to remember the last day she went without crying about something. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, then breathed out. She read in some magazine that if you press your thumb in the spot your middle finger lies when you fold your fingers if you just press your thumb to it as hard as you can to keep from crying.

So she tried it and it seemed to help enough for her to continue, “I just met my brother.”

They all looked at her in confusion but were hesitant to ask questions. Finally, Alison said, “What?”

Diana pressed her thumb to her palm harder and said, “My older brother, He’s my dad’s son.”

That’s all Diana was able to get out before she burst into tears. It was at this moment that she was able to accept that she was going through a hard time. It was okay to cry and Diana felt a huge pressure lifted off her shoulder because she finally let herself go. 

No one said anything. No one moved a muscle. They just let Diana cry. In some ways, they understood that Diana needed to cry on her own sometimes, without someone feeling they have to come and comfort her.

When she calmed down enough it was Jade who spoke next, “He had a son? Alison, did you know about this?”

Alison stopped biting her nails at this question and said, “He might have mentioned it once; he was so drunk though that I thought he was saying it just to hurt me. I guess drunks do tell the truth though.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Diana whispered. 

“…I was ashamed.” She ran her fingers through her hair and continued, “In some ways I guess I always hoped it wasn’t true.”

Diana felt guilty for ever blaming her mother. Alison was never easy to live with. She could not count how many times she was beaten by Alison. Alison was the one who yelled. Her father was the one she could talk to about anything. She swallowed a knot in her throat when she thought of how the only person she wanted to talk to about this was buried six feet under. She witnessed it herself just yesterday. 

She figured the only thing she could do is apologize to her mother, “I’m sorry Mom. All this time, I thought I blamed you for dad leaving. I just didn’t want to admit that it was also his fault somehow.”

Alison started crying. It was strange seeing her mother cry. She only heard it once or twice in her life when the lights were off or she thought she was alone. Her father, on the other hand, cried all the time. He cried mostly when he was drunk, which was most of the time. 

Diana hugged her mother and she felt Alison tighten her arms around her. It was not her intention to make her cry, but she was also relieved that she got the news out of the way. When she met Jason just a few moments ago she realized how little she knew her father. When he lived here he worked two full-time jobs, five, sometimes six days a week. She wondered then what else she didn’t know. What was his favorite color? His favorite movie? What were his dreams and aspirations? What was his biggest fear? She couldn’t answer any of those questions and it hurt that she will never be able to. He was flawed, but he was still her father.