My dearest Michelle,
Writing this letter is more difficult than anything I have ever done, but it is also the most important. There are so many things I need to tell you. Not only so that you may know the truth, but perhaps you can avoid my mistakes.
I am not a good man, and I have not lived a good life.
The details aren’t important. What is important is that I have given up that life. Whatever time I have left will be devoted to helping others. That sounds trite, I know, but perhaps in some small way I can atone for what I have done in this world.
I was not a good parent. I told myself that making money was more important than being a part of the family. I did not allow myself to give the unconditional love that every child who enters this hard world deserves. My sweet girl, you are a gem of indescribable purity and splendor. I committed the worst of my many crimes when I did other than treat you as such.
In my life I have called people “friend,” but then tossed them aside when they became inconvenient. Those memories threaten to unman me entirely. Treat your friends as they gold they are.
But my deepest shame is reserved for what your dear, poor mother endured. For years she kept the family together without complaint, while suffering near constant loneliness and my passive emotional abuse. She had the soul of a martyr and the patience of a saint. To this day I have no idea how or why the universe saw fit to bless me with a woman of such simple faith and humble demeanor.
Her passing last year marked me in a way I am still trying to understand. No doubt my neglect wore out her heart. While I now stumble, as if in a haze, I hold onto this: that if she saw something good in me, then there might yet be hope for my withered soul.
While I wish there was more that I could do, more that I could give you, let me leave you with this: as long as there is breath in my body I will be there for you. My dearest hope is that I may finally get to know you, my dearest daughter, as I move through a darkening twilight.
All my love,
Your father
Dear Dad,
Jesus H. Christ on a trike, what the fuck happened to you? You sound like one of those pathetic, palsied old farts at the far end of the bar. Are you going senile? God, I used to like you! Now you’re one of them, just another middle-aged piece of shit. How could you?
I knew my dad wasn’t like other dads. You always said you had a job, but never seemed to have an office to go to. Except when you would leave for a month. What about when you left for a year? You come back with a deep tan, a Smurf tattoo, and a long scar up your arm. “Slipped off a ladder,” I believe was your excuse.
I asked mom, but she would just tilt her head and smile, like a sad version of the woman in that red and white checked cookbook. “Your father is a good provider, we just need to leave him be.”
I hated that about mom, her weakness, and her utter lack of self. At least you had a spine! Or so I thought, before this letter. “Withered soul.” Jesus flying fuck, what a wanker you’ve become.
Anyway, the internet is a wonderful thing, and eventually I figured out how you made your money. And it was cool!
Your work may not have been conventional, but I could tell you took pride in it. More than that, it was a life on the outside, drinking the cream without having to milk the cow. Money, travel, excitement, secrets – being someone who acts, instead of someone who is acted upon. Not a broken old fool, wringing his hands, filled with self-loathing for deeds done so long ago the wind has blown away all traces.
Here’s something I bet you don’t know.
I joined the family business at seventeen. Mia Holmbach was a shoo-in for senior class president. I was dating Todd then, remember him? Probably not, I think you were in Capetown that spring. Anyway, Todd really wanted to be class president, and I knew he’d be much better than that dizzy bitch Mia. Plus he was a sweetie.
Everyone knew that Mia did immoral things (as you would say now, being a self-righteous drool bucket) to her boyfriend when he drove home after the game. I dropped a roofie in his water bottle, then cut across the church field to the quarry. Sure enough his truck was weaving, from the roofie or Mia’s ministrations or both. I let out a blast on an air horn as I jumped out in front of the truck. He was left-handed, and sure enough he swerved left. That monster truck of his climbed right over the railing.
Todd dedicated his presidency to Mia, but I knew how happy he was to be president. Deep down I do the work because I love helping people.
Well, that’s about it. I’m off south of the border, to resolve El-Presidente Fucktardo’s long running dispute with the local coca baron. My friend Yuri (yes, I have friends, and I already know how to keep them) runs a black-market Estonian biolab. He sent me a sample of a new nerve agent to beta test for him in a field trial. Wish me luck!
Are you choking up thinking about your daughter in the family business? Maybe, but it’s probably Yuri’s bio-agent. Once I read your letter I knew I couldn’t afford to have someone like you wobbling around in the world, maybe even deciding to “save” me. Unfortunately the next few minutes will not be pleasant. Oh, but thanks for sending me to college. Chemistry is fascinating!
Your diamond,
Michelle
P.S. Mom didn’t die of a heart attack.
Ralph Benton finally came to his senses after decades of wearing the golden handcuffs of a corporate drone. He fled the frozen peaks of Colorado for the muggy swamps of Florida. Now there is weirdness and mystery all around him. He is much better for it.