That last straw.

Sometimes it's a bang, sometimes a whimper

I braced myself against the kitchen counter, iPhone to my ear, and looked out the window on the grey Northern California, late-summer morning. A noisy murder of crows flanked the street, pulling insects out of chunks of moss that grew from cracks in the asphalt. My stomach hurt; I dreaded this call. I couldn’t find headphones; holding iPhones is awkward.

“Nnyeahello?” my father squawked his usual greeting, with his anachronistic delivery that was no doubt very cool-sounding in the 1940s and 50s.

Did I mention I dreaded this call? Back then I got extreme anxiety whenever I said no to an invite (more like a directive) to a family gathering: who would give me shit for skipping it later? What would my father tell everyone?

“Hey Pop. Uhh. Listen. I can’t go to the Italian Catholic Picnic Mass this year. I um, had a miscarriage. I was pregnant. We didn’t tell people because it was too early, but, uh, yeah, I ended up in surgery in the hospital.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry that happened,” he said, in the manner of someone who feels concern.

“Yeah….” I began.

“Listen-” he cut in, that’s ok that you can’t come to the picnic, but I want to hear from you soon because I want you--” here he faltered- “to meet..Lacey.”

“Oh.” I said. “Ok.”

“Nyeahhh?” he prodded.

“Um yeah. Please tell everyone I was sorry I can’t make it.”

“Ok,” he said, sounding already distracted, already past wanting to hang up.

“Bye,” I said. And ended the call.

Lacey is my half-sister that my father had with a woman who was not his wife when he was married to his first wife; who is not my mom. Lacey is about three months older than my brother Jack. Jack is the son of my father and my father’s first wife, but was adopted by my mom after my father’s first wife died. I had known about Lacey since about 2005 (my sister Carla knew about it earlier, when she found DNA test result papers on top of his office desk.) By the time this phone call happened, it was 2012.

I put the phone down on the counter, longing for the satisfactory click that a landline phone would make. A weird floaty feeling buoyed my head, like it was a balloon. One of the crows ran, lunged and pecked at another who had just gotten something juicy from the street.

I’m done, said a voice deep inside me. It wasn’t the worst thing he’d done, nor the most upsetting or heartbreaking. Those moments had already happened: some, long ago and others, recently. This moment, with the noisy murder of crows and the lack of headphones or a receiver that clicks, was simply the moment I decided to stop the bad moments.

Nobody really got it, everyone questioned me and my father was not pleased and tried to break through my resolve quickly and aggressively. I still felt sad and guilty. I didn’t want to have to cut contact, but my mental health was getting worse and worse, interfering with both my chosen family (including a very young toddler) and my ability to do my job.

The idea of letting him stay in my life, treating me the way he treated my sisters, demanding to see my child whenever he wanted to without calling, disrupting the entire house only to leave several minutes later, treating me like a charity case and a servant all in one….

No. My mental health, ability to parent, ability to work and function would be too compromised. It wasn’t just my past with him, it was everything that kept happening into my adult life. It wasn’t just my recent boundary issues with him, it was a house of cards built on a foundation of childhood trauma, and I did not have the resources to deal.

It was him or me. I chose me. And that included giving up on others understanding the choice.

It’s a defining moment when one realizes that something is enough.