Turn Your Face

Well, I'm not quite sure how to start these letters anymore as I haven't written one to you in months. How do you even make a letter sound genuine when you're writing to someone that you know will never read it? I don't even know why I thought this was a good idea. I guess I figured that you'd have no choice but to listen and maybe give me some advice through the spaces between my words.

I think the hesitancy comes from writing to someone who has already passed away. I know you'll never get this. I know you'll never read this, but I know that you will care about this letter more than anyone else in my life will. That's the sad part. That's the hesitancy. How do you reconcile with the fact that the only person you want to speak to in a time like this has gone before you needed them most?

Maybe that's the hesitancy. Not being able to tell you how much you meant to me before you were gone. I'm sure you knew. But, I never told you. I never got to say 'I love you' or even a deep, sincere 'Thank you.' But I know you saw it. You'd had to have seen it.

So, then I guess this letter makes sense. You know I sought your guidance. You know I yearned for your expertise. You know I desired your approval. But more than that, you know I love your daughter. You know that Emily was woven through every fiber of our conversations. Yeah, this makes sense; asking for your help again makes all the sense in the world.

I'm sure you saw it. Our fight. I guess you've seen all of it. I guess you've been a part of all of it. Hanna calling me out of desperation. Me doubting all of the strange events of the past month. Emily choosing to start up again, I guess. Her finding the bottle in the cabinet. The dropping of your cologne. Her motivation to clear the counter in the first place.

If that's true, then I have to believe you're also part of the solution. That you have already foreseen every potentiality of our relationship from here on out. That you've found a way to etch the other back into ourselves. That you're guiding her back to me when the time is right. That you motivated me to start this letter in the first place.

I know that so many times during our conversations, I had the desire to be right. I think that happened today. I went into a blind fury from being dragged by the balls of my feet back to a past that I had long ago swept behind me. I let my past cloud my present. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry, Mr. Fields.

No. Calling you 'Mr. Fields' doesn't feel right.

You were always so formal, and for the longest time, you only called me Alison despite the flurry of nicknames Emily spoke around you. But I did catch you during that last conversation hesitate over the rest of my name. For a brief second, I was Ali. I was as equal in your eyes to your daughter. To Emmy.

She was the only person that when you described her, you would tear up. I could watch you describe her all day because you treated her with grace and compassion. You took her faults and painted a canvas of her that dripped with love. I wonder how you spoke to Emily and your wife about me. Did you treat me as delicately as your own daughter? Were your words laced with kindness and care?

Was my canvas as bright as hers?

So no, Mr. Fields doesn't feel right. Wayne is wrong, too. I would never call you that. It's too forward. Too... military.

I would have loved to call you Dad. It was my dream to someday be your daughter-in-law. But in the midst of this argument, I think it's too cruel to Emily. She's the one who lost a dad.

I just lost you.

I lost the mold of the man I had wished for from the time I was old enough to realize that my own father would never cut it. I lost the role model I intended to mimic to raise our children. I lost the hope of Emily and I having one man to walk us down the aisle. In you, I lost so much of what I imagined of our future.