Derrick Schaefer stared at his caller I.D., recognizing the number immediately. It was his estranged father. Even though they hadn’t spoken in over ten years, he still remembered their last conversation like it was yesterday.
Derrick, who was only eighteen at the time, had been summoned by his father, Carl Schaefer, to come have a man-to-man chat in the family room. He immediately dropped what he was doing and made his way there. Carl, who had been lounging like a sloth in his chair, sat up straight as his son entered the room.
“So what are your plans?” he asked Derrick, while popping the top off of a fresh beer.
“Plans?” the confused boy responded.
“Yea, you know what I’m talkin’ about. You gotta find a job, get your own place.”
“But Mom said that I could stay here as long as I was going to college. I’ll get a place when school’s finished.”
“Your mom’s been dead for a month, son. This is my house, my rules. Time for you to be a man. You’ve always been a momma’s boy.”
Derrick watched his father light a cigarette and then guzzle half of the beer that he’d just opened. Hatred filled the boy’s heart as the man, whom he had once called daddy, spoke so nonchalantly about his wonderful mother.
“You’re the reason that she’s dead!” exclaimed Derrick. “You put her through hell.”
Carl sprung from his seat, slapping his son across the face. The stunned boy was knocked to the floor by the vicious hit.
“Who do you think you’re talkin’ to, you little bastard?” Carl growled. “I’ll give you a week to get out of here. You’re not gonna say that shit in my house!”
Derrick grabbed his jaw and ran to his bedroom, as tears flowed freely down his cheeks.
“Don’t be such a pussy, boy. You gotta stand up for yourself sometimes,” Carl yelled out, once again proving to Derrick that he was a mean drunk.
Derrick couldn’t take it any more. He was tired of his Father’s alcohol induced tirades. He crammed as many items as possible into his two suitcases and left the house that night for good. His final words to his father were, “ Fuck you, I hope you rot in that chair!”
It was a tough couple of years for him after that. He moved in with a college friend and continued his education, working two jobs in order to support himself. He graduated, started down a successful career path, and later got married. After buying a nice house in the suburbs, he and his wife had two amazing children. In all of that time, Derrick never once returned to his rural childhood home, or even corresponded with his father in any way. Ten years without contact was about to come to an end.
Derrick picked up the phone on the sixth ring. Curiosity had gotten the best of him.
“Derrick?” a faint voice asked.
“Yea, Carl, what do you want?” he asked in reply, not giving his father enough respect to address him as dad.
“I wanna see you before I die,” Carl Schaefer wheezed.
“We’ve been dead to each other for years, Carl. Why are you interested in seeing me all of a sudden?”
“Cause I really am dying, boy,” he said, followed by a hacking cough. “ I ain’t got much time and I want to share a few things with you.”
“I’m sorry about any health issues that you may have, but I don’t think that there’s anything of yours that I want,” Derrick responded, showing little sympathy.
“I was talkin’ about your mom’s stuff.”
Derrick became emotional at the thought of his mother. He was intrigued by the thought of obtaining her possessions. It was an opportunity that he never expected.
“I’ll come by tomorrow night around sixish. Don’t expect any apologies from me.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow. No apologies expected,” Carl said, trying to catch his breath.
The next twenty four hours were pure hell for Derrick. The thought of being face to face with his old man sickened him. If it hadn’t been for the possibility of acquiring some of his mother’s treasures, he was certain that the meeting would have never happened.
It was ten minutes past six when he stepped up to the front door of his childhood home. It felt strange to once again be at the secluded little farmhouse. After knocking and receiving no reply, he opened the door and stepped inside. A rush of emotion overwhelmed him as he stepped into the living room. Very little had changed in ten years.
He looked across the room and spotted his father. Carl was sitting in the same chair that he sat in the night that Derrick walked out. It was no longer a presentable piece of furniture. There was more duct tape holding it together than upholstery. Carl sat in his usual position, but was frail and much thinner than he’d been ten years earlier. The big round chair almost seemed to swallow him up. An oxygen tank sat on the floor beside him, providing fresh air through the tubes that were clipped to his nose.
“You’ve turned into quite a man,” Carl wheezed at his son.
“No thanks to you,” Derrick responded
“I don’t want to drag up old times, Derrick. I just want you to have a few things when I’m gone.”
“What’s wrong with you, anyway?” Derrick asked.
“Liver’s gone, for one,” Carl answered, picking up a beer can.
Derrick stared at the beer, remembering how his father would often come home drunk and take his frustration out on him and his mother. It wasn’t unusual for one of them to take a beating from the nasty bastard. He thought about how many nights that his poor mother had to cover up her bruised face with makeup and hide her tears with fake smiles. He was just a kid and didn’t know any better. He assumed that it was normal behavior and that all families acted that way.
“Are you surprised, Carl? You probably kept a few beer companies in business all by yourself.”
“I don’t need no I told you so’s. I also have the cancer in my lungs. That’s gonna get me before the liver.”
Derrick noticed the pack of Marlboros on the table, alongside a full ashtray. He looked down at his own forearm, rubbing his hand over the faded scars of the cigarette burns that had been inflicted upon him as a child.
“I guess quitting now would be kind of pointless, huh?” he asked.
“Yea, it would,” Carl gasped.
“Look, Carl, let’s get this over with. Why am I here? What do you want from me?”
“All I want from you is for you to have my things, son. I want you to have all that’s in this house. I want you to pass them down to your children and for them to pass them on also. I don’t want the world to forget me.”
Derrick didn’t know how to respond. He had hated the man in front of him for so many years, but still felt some emotion within his heart.
“I can’t make any promises, Carl. I’m not sure what I should do.”
“Sunday they are moving me to a nursing home at my request. I have it set up with the lawyers to turn this house and everything in it over to you. When I die, you don’t need to do anything. All of the arrangements have been made. As of Monday, this is your house. Do whatever you want with it. I guess this is the best I'm sorry that you’re gonna get, son.”
“I will take the house for sentimental reasons, but I can’t find it in my heart to accept any apology. Maybe someday I can. That’s the best that I can give you, Dad.”
Carl looked away, trying to hide his watery eyes. He coughed violently, and then handed Derrick a house key.
“Welcome home, Derrick,” he whispered, trying not to cough again.
Derrick took the key and walked away, never saying goodbye. He remembered the comment to his father about hoping that he rotted in that chair and suddenly felt a bit of guilt arise within himself. He went back into the room to express a final thought.
“Be at peace, Dad. Pray to God to forgive your sins. If he’ll forgive you, then one day I can, too.”
“I already have, son. I pray every day.”
They said their goodbyes and Derrick went home. There was still resentment within him, but also an ounce of forgiveness. They had broken through a wall that he never had imagined could be penetrated.
Carl Schaefer died two days after his son left him that night. He never made it to the nursing home. Derrick attended the funeral alone, standing in the back row of a small turnout of people. There was no family present, just a few of his father’s drinking buddies from years gone by. No one even recognized that Derrick was Carl’s son. The lack of friends and family was more depressing to him than the fact that his father was dead.
One week later, Derrick took his wife and two children out to the house where he grew up. He told the kids stories about the good times that he had as a child, and he revealed some dark secrets to his wife. She cried as he enlightened her on the abusive nature of his upbringing. He had never opened up that much to her before about his past. Getting that burden off of his chest felt good to him.
As the kids played in the yard, he and his wife went through the entire house, deciding what to keep and what to dispose of. When all was said and done, they ended up with three piles. One pile contained items that they wanted to keep, which consisted mostly of Derrick’s mother’s belongings and his childhood memorabilia. Another pile consisted of items that could be donated to charity. The last group was the largest of the three. It was everything that involved Carl Schaefer. Derrick even picked his dad’s images out of the family photo albums. He decided that he wanted to dispose of the items by starting a fire in the back yard and burning them. His wife tried to talk him out of it, but the memories of the abuse suffered by Derrick and his mother had once again brought out the bitterness in him.
He spent hours moving the items into the back yard and then lit a large fire, making use of Carl’s remaining firewood. Once the flames were burning hot, he began to throw his father’s personal effects in one at a time, having horrible flashbacks with almost every toss. His goal was to erase all memories of the abusive man. One of the last items to go into the fire was Carl’s chair. Derrick cried as the site of so many drunken rants went up in flames. The only thing that remained to burn was a box of photographs. As he got ready to make the final toss, his young daughter, Sara, appeared from behind him.
“Are you okay, Daddy?” she asked.
“I’m fine, sweetheart,” he replied, setting the box on the ground and picking her up.
“Daddy, who are those pictures of?” she asked him, pointing down to the box. “That man looks like you.”
It was at that moment that Derrick realized that wiping out the memory of Carl Schaefer was unfair and selfish. His family had a right to know about their past, no matter how painful the truth might be. Maybe they could learn life lessons from the evil doings of an abusive man.
“That was Grandpa Carl. He was my daddy,” he answered, setting her back down.
“Was he nice like you?” she asked, grabbing one of the pictures.
Derrick took the picture from her and put it back with the others. He put the box under his arm and grabbed Sara’s hand, walking away from the fire and toward the house.
“He was different, Sara. One day when you are a little older maybe we can talk about him some more. Right now all that I can tell you is that he was your grandfather.”
Derrick had almost wiped the slate clean of Carl Schaefer, but in the end, he granted his father his dying wish. He gave him a legacy, not that it was something to be proud of.
