In May, my grandfather had an aneurysm while driving down the street. A vein in his head exploded, causing him to crash his truck. He was conscious but critical. My mom called me with the news while I was walking to pick up my daughter from school. I, unable to focus after hearing what she'd said, almost got hit by a car. The driver honked and yelled at me. He might die. He is probably going to die. His brain exploded. He's dying. I informed the lady who almost hit me with her car that she was a rude ass bitch and picked up my daughter from school like nothing had happened.
I didn't cry. I didn't tell my mom that I was sad or sorry for her. I didn't tell her I was elated. None of those things would have been the truth for me. I felt numb. I felt scared. My heart pounded. I felt anxious. I felt nervous. It was almost over.
My life until this point had been much like waiting in line at Magic Mountain, I was terrified but certain that the payoff at the end was worth it. For 18 years, I'd waited in this line, patiently. I had stopped complaining years earlier. Stopped fighting, stopped arguing and stopped insisting. I, instead, waited for the payoff. Waited for this moment. Waited for his confession. I'd believed that no one would die with that weight on their chest. No one would inflict this amount of pain on someone for no reason. No one could be that selfish. Basically, I was fucking stupid.
After a few days of no news of change in his condition, I began to pray. I woke up every morning and went to bed every night crying to God, the Universe, the Source, the One Powerful Creator to please make him confess. Please make him confess what he did to me before he leaves. Please don't let him leave me like this. Please make him confess, God. Please make him.
I read my sisters updates on Facebook. They told about driving to Fresno together to visit him in the hospital and being able to kiss him goodbye, like this was fucking sister bonding time. I wanted to throw up. All alone, driven out, kept in secret, I cried in revulsion. I wondered why their loyalties would lye with him when no one in my family had ever been especially close to him. I wonder why they would choose now, the moment of his death, to love him. I assumed it was his money. I wanted to drive to Fresno, too and hold a gun to his fucking head and force the confession from his dying mouth. I wanted everyone to hear what the mouth they were kissing had done. And then I wanted to cut off his dick and shove it into his liar mouth, down into his liar throat.
But I didn't. I waited patiently for his confession. It was coming. God was fair. It had to come. I posted on Facebook to what I assumed was a closed support group about my situation and how betrayed I felt by my family. How I felt my family had betrayed me for his money. Friends offered their support but the anxiety never went away. I kept praying. It was coming, it had to come.
A week later I got a text from my sister. It read simply "Grampy died. Thought you might want to know."
And then the shit hit the fan.
I was driving to LA with my husband and kids at the time and asked my husband to pull over at the next stop so I could properly medicate myself behind a gas station. I shook all over. I felt sick to my stomach. He hadn't told. I pulled out my iPhone and at the bottom of the list of comments on the earlier post, I said simply "he just died." I waited for the outpouring of support as we drove to LA, and it came. However, along with it, one of my friends who was not part of the closed group texted me about the post.
Fuck.
That was my first thought when I read her text.
Fuck.
I realized the post had been copied to my wall since I commented on it. I'd spend 15 years working with computer and software and web design and I'd just made a huge technical mistake. I shook even harder and asked my husband to pull over a second time to re-medicate. A few minutes later I read a status update from my brother in law which made it very clear that he had read my post. And I knew if he had, my sister had. And if my sister had, my whole nosy, gossipy, judgmental family had read it as well. I spent the rest of the drive to LA blocking every family member on my profile, however I did not delete the post. I thought about it, but decided against it. Yes, my family had read it. Yes, they were offended. Yes, it made them sound like terrible people.
But it was true. And I was tired of hiding the truth to save their asses. That's what had gotten me into this whole mess to begin with.
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