Learning How to Bend

December 3

//I feel like death thanks to a terrible cold, but HERE, HAVE WORDS//

I did not go to the office the rest of the week, although I did work from my apartment.  I had to do something to keep me occupied, otherwise I would burst into tears again.  I did not leave my apartment until Friday morning, which was when Thaddeus and I were flying to Houston.  Until then, I worked.  I slept.  I ate only because I knew I needed to, not because I was hungry.  I just felt terrible.  I could not get that last conversation with my father out of my mind.  There were so many things I could have and should have said, but instead I was rude and insensitive.  I always told myself I would never be like my dad, but when it mattered most...I was just like him.  I had not listened.  I had not given him a chance to rectify our relationship.  Instead, I had dismissed him.  I had thought the worst, and now I was going to pay for it for the rest of my life.

When Thaddeus came to pick me up that Friday morning, it was snowing, and the windows were covered in a thin coating of ice.  I did not answer the door when he rang the doorbell because I did not hear it.  Instead, he let himself in to find me sitting on the couch and staring at the wall.  Chelise was sitting next to me, her head in my lap, while my small rolling suitcase was standing up at the end of the sofa.  Thaddeus moved Chelise off the furniture so he could sit next to me.  He put a hand on top of both of mine, which were clasped in my lap.  I jumped at the touch, blinking several times and turning my face to point in his direction.  I did not say anything, simply stared at where I thought his face was before leaning over to put head on his shoulder.

"The plane is waiting," he said softly.

I nodded.

He stood up, taking my hand in his to pull me up immediately afterward. "Are you taking Chelise?"

"I wasn't sure if you wanted her on your plane," I said. My voice sounded foreign to my own ears; I had not spoken a word since Joe and Kat had left two days ago.

"She's fine," Thaddeus said.

I nodded again.

"Do you have a bag for her packed?"

"There's a bag for her in the pantry that I always keep prepared." I cleared my throat to try to clear my hoarseness.

He opened the pantry and pulled out the bag from beside the trash can.  After closing the door, Thaddeus slipped Chelise into her harness himself then put my hand on the bar.  He held onto the handle of my rolling suitcase himself while I put the strap of the other bag on my shoulder in an almost mechanical fashion.  I set the alarm and locked the door before Thaddeus and I rode the elevator down to Mike's waiting vehicle.  Mike did not say anything to me, but I did not want him to.  I would not have known what to say anyway.  We drove to the airport in silence.  Our bags were loaded onto the plane, and I climbed up the stairs with Chelise beside me and Thaddeus behind.

I hated planes.  It was why I never traveled anywhere.  They were terribly confining, and I hated how my head felt swollen.  I also could not hear quite as well.  Considering how much I depended on my ears, that fact scared me probably most of all.  As I entered the company jet, though, I felt...better.  I clicked when I reached the top of the stairs.  There were not nearly as many seats as on an economy flight.  Not only that, the seats were wider and made out of soft leather.  Some were facing forward, but there were a couple that resembled couches up against the walls of the plane.

The flight to Houston took a little over three and a half hours.  Thaddeus mostly left me to my thoughts, for which I was thankful.  I did not feel like talking.  I still had no idea what I was going to say in my eulogy, as I had little nice I could say about my father.  I never would have expected his death to affect me as much as it was.  Maybe if things were different, I would not feel the way I now did.