Previously

“I’ll never be happy, Sue… I don’t deserve to be happy.” She put her head down and began to sob. Susan pulled her close and Hope cried into Susan’s shoulder.
“We don’t deserve a lot of things in our lives, honey, but being at least able to try to be happy…you deserve that…. Shhhh shhhhh….” Susan found herself humming an old song….it came to her that she was being more than a friend, but instead giving Hope that part of herself that everyone needs; a family.
“Shhhh…shhhh….we’ll get through this, Hope… I promise….” Susan took a deep breath and looked skyward in petition; a calm assurance came over her that no matter what transpired it would indeed be okay.

At Marie Chang’s office, several days later….

“Really, Hope, you don’t have to worry. We can work something out if you get a job, but right now the important thing is to see things how they are. You’re so used to being and doing for everyone else…” Marie’s voice trailed off and she bit the inside of her mouth in thought. She paused before leaning forward.

“I’m sorry… let’s back that up a bit. You were saying?”

“I’ve been so selfish for so long,” she sighed. The sound of her voice made her shudder in embarrassment.

“Have you?” Marie of course knew the answer but it was important in the process for Hope to ponder the question.

“Yes….Maybe I was trying too hard to please my father….” She sighed and Marie raised her left eyebrow slightly; her expression seemed to say, ‘but?’

“I knew I was being a jerk…. No… an uncaring bastard. I treated Susan so badly just so…” She shook her head and Marie’s slight head shake in return seemed to agree but only in part.

“Just so?”

“Just so my father…”

“Your father beat you? Isn’t that what we discussed? How could that be so wrong?”

“It was like….I’m sorry…” Hope began to cry. She used the back of her left hand to wipe her face before continuing.

“It was like kick the dog…funny. My dad used that as an illustration in one of his….” She pounded the back of her right hand with her fist twice. Marie was tempted to reach over to touch the girl’s hands, but she held back and nodded; giving the girl a much-needed permission to be angry.

“One of his fucking sermons….you know. You have a bad day and you come home and get angry at your… wife…partner….and by the time it gets to the youngest it’s kick the dog…” She turned away and pounded the arm of the chair.

“But there wasn’t any dog….”

“He would come home from a visitation or some fucking thing with the church, you know? And then he’d look at me and it was like everything he ever….. oh God….” She turned back and faced Marie in near petition.

“Everything he ever hoped for….fuck….Hope….pretty funny, huh? He wanted me to be …. Something I could never be. I’m sorry….” She apologized to Marie as if there was some strange alliance between Pat McKenna and everyone in Hope’s universe.

“Why are you sorry, Hope?” Marie said the name softly.

“I’m sorry I let every one down. My father….my mother… you…”

“We have no expectations here, sweetie. You’re not here to please me or anyone else for that matter. Please… how did you let your father down?”

“I…” a painful wave of realization hit her and she stammered.

“I can’t be what he wants me to be….why can’t he see that?”

“Why do you think he can’t see that?”

“Because he….he doesn’t want to?”

“What do you feel.”

“Like I’m one big fucking disappointment…. Like I can never do anything right?” Even with the inflection, it still was more of a statement than a question.

“Does anyone tell you that?” Marie knew already, but redundancy was imperative in Hope’s process.

“My father tells me…. He told me….” She gasped a sob; holding back something that needed to be heard.

“What did he tell you, Hope?”

“He said…..he…. fuck….” The contrast might have seemed disconcerting with her voice still so much like ‘Tim’s’ in a way. But her demeanor wasn’t one of an arrogant angry boy but a very sad and defeated young woman whose words seemed to belie her name.

“What did he say, Hope?”

“He said I made him sick…. An abomination….what…. who says that to a kid?”

“How old were you, Hope?”

“I ….I was seven…. He caught me in ….” She gasped again and shook her head as a look of pain crossed her face.

“Go ahead…we talked about this….” Mentioning the unmentionable can be quite painful when it really needed to be mentioned all along but for the wall of silence that had been built throughout the McKenna home.

“I…I didn’t mean to…I’m so sorry…” She paused and looked into Marie’s eyes; of course seeing acceptance but struggling so much since disdain and even hatred looked over Marie’s shoulder in contempt.

“I know you’re sorry, Hope. What are you sorry for? What did you do…what did that seven year old do that made your father so angry?”

“I…Heather…she…I…”

“Heather? What about Heather, Hope? What did you do?”

“Dad….I was in Heather’s room and I….” Marie nodded in welcome and warmth; a hopeful remedy to the stark frigid hurt that wrapped itself around the girl.

“I always liked… He found me lying on her bed….I was wearing her pajamas and holding her baby doll.”

“Just like she would have….if….?” Marie half-smiled but inside she was grimacing in anticipation for what was to come.

“I wanted to be just…. Just like her, Marie. And when she d…. Daddy saw me in her bed he just looked at me. It…it was worse than any time he ever hit me…”

“It hurt so much, didn’t it, Hope?”

“We….we weren’t allowed to talk about her…. Like we … it was God’s will that she died….” She bit her tongue and snuffled before shaking her head; more emphatically as tears literally flew off her face.

“She was hit by a fucking drunk driver. How is that God’s will. She wasn’t just my sister, but my best friend. Why would God take her away like that?”

“I don’ t know, hope…I can’t answer that for you. I wish I could.” Marie sighed. Even in the best of circumstances with the best of training, even she struggled; not only with the question but the emotions of being unable to provide answers for herself, much less anyone else.

“Do you think it was God’s will?”

“Ye…no….no. It just happened….She didn’t do anything to deserve that….”

“But your father made you feel that way?” We don’t have the capacity to make anyone feel anything, but we can certainly machinate in such a way as to bend others to our way of thinking. Pat had become very good at that.

“He told me I …. I made him sick….that I was ….” She gasped and put her hand across her face in shame.

“You were what, Hope?”

“I stained her memory….He said I stained her memory….that I could never be….”

“Be what, Hope?”

“As good as her…that I was….He said I was hopeless.” Marie wanted so much to embrace the girl, but in seeking her own solace it would have been to Hope’s detriment.

“He said….he pointed to my jeans and shirt on the chair next to the bed….’This is who you are, Tim. Never forget it!’” She shook her head before turning away.

“He never let you forget It….but what did he forget?”

“It was like…. There are people in church who don’t even know I had a sister….My mom…she…”

“She never talks about Heather?”

“No…and…” Hope turned once again toward Marie and closed her eyes as tears flowed all-too freely; shameful and sad.

“When I told her she just looked at me. ‘It’s for the best, Tim….you’ll see.’ She said…but it was like she didn’t believe it her self.’

“She didn’t believe you were.. I know you didn’t have the name then, but she didn’t believe you were Hope?” The girl’s eyes widened a bit and she shook her head slightly.

“No…it was like she didn’t believe what she was telling me. It wasn’t for the best, Marie… she knew it wasn’t the best for me to just …. She knew I wasn’t Tim when I was seven but she never said a word to Daddy….why do I even call him that. How stupid is that?”

“Why is that stupid, Hope? What makes calling your father ‘Daddy’ stupid?”

“Because…I don’t know… I just started…I mean…what the fuck…” The words again seemed oddly dissonant; not for the content but for the contrast in demeanor. Her shoulders sagged as she seemed to retreat into the chair. She looked up with pleading eyes.

“I’m sorry….I feel so….”

“How do you feel?”

“Like if I say some things I’m still stuck ….like I’m still Tim….”

“What things, Hope?”

“Like when I…just now….I keep saying stuff like that…”

“You sound like you’re really conflicted.”

“Yes…that’s…. I feel like I’m being pulled apart…. But…. Oh fuck….Oh..” She grimaced at the word and put her head down again.

“Hope? It’s okay to be angry and upset….it’s okay to feel the way you do. You’ve been trying for so long to fit in and be what was expected.

“I don’t want to be Tim….I’m not Tim, Marie. Why can’t he see that?” A return to the one thing that drove everything else.

“Are you Tim? Who are you?”

“I’m …. I don’t know what I am.”

“Not what, honey. Who? Who are you?”

“My name… I’m Hope…”

“And he doesn’t see who you are…. He chooses not to see who you are because?”

“I think…. I feel hurt that he won’t accept me. It’s like Heather all over again.”

“How so, Hope?” Marie knew that Hope understood, but to speak it was a confession of sorts; perhaps painful at first but freeing nonetheless.

“When Hope died…” She paused and her face grew red in needless embarrassment over the truth that lay just below the surface of her word. She looked at Marie and the woman nodded with a half-smile; knowing and understanding.

“When Heather died she was buried…like put away. And….”

“When she died…when your family chose to put away her memories…. What happened, Hope?”

“When my mom agreed with him…it was like….oh fuck….”

“What did it feel like, Hope?”

“It felt….oh God…it felt like I died and got put away just like her….”

“Hidden….the word….”

“What?” Hope tilted her head, her name and the moment fused together.

“I’m not a scholar, but I know that the root words are the same…buried and hidden… like you were hidden away for no one to see? Did it feel that way, Hope? That somehow you and Heather….”

“They forgot me and her…. Like we never existed.”

“But you were there all the time, weren’t you? Struggling to be heard? To be seen? To be what, Hope?”

“They…didn’t love me…they loved what they wanted to see but they didn’t see me to love me…How could they do that…. How could they not see me?”

“I remember an old saying…it goes something like …there are none so blind as those who choose not to see. You’ve been there all along, Hope, no matter what role you were playing.”

“What do I do now, Marie? How….how can I get them to see me?”

“By being exactly the same person you’ve always been, Hope. That’s all any of us can do.”

“It hurts…. She apologized once again with a head shake and downcast eyes.

“I know it hurts, but there’s nothing wrong with you for feeling that pain. Nothing wrong at all, Hope.

“What if they don’t accept me? I don’t know if I can live with that.”

“You’ve lived all of your life with that, Hope and you’re strong… and brave.” Hope’s face reddened; a mixture of embarrassment and guilt.

“Brave? Look how I treated Susan. I wasn’t brave then.”

“We can be so many things in our lives that are good even if we do things that aren’t so good. What does Susan say?

“She forgives…she forgave me.” Another head shake in complete disagreement quickly replaced by a calm resignation as Marie smiled.

“If she forgives you…since she’s chosen to see you….” Almost a much an homage to Avatar as to the girl’s faith, the choice to see Hope was important.

“She sees everything about you…all the things you’ve been to her, both good and bad, and she still forgives you. Your father….has he ever seen you? Your mother?”

“My Mom…it’s like she chose to look away…like she couldn’t bear to see what Daddy was doing…oh fuck…” The word ‘Daddy’ once again evoked a wince.

“You wanted her to see you and she chose to look away. And your father looked right at you and ?”

“I was right there….I was right in front of him and it was like he looked right through me….like I wasn’t there. Like I didn’t exist.”

“And your friend…your best friend? She knows all about you and what you’ve said and done and she’s what, Hope?”

“She’s still my friend.”

“So whom should you believe? The Daddy who doesn’t see you? Your Mom, who chose to look away, or Susan?”

Marie almost expected a sheepish reply; a question rather than a statement. But Hope surprised even herself as she declared with a calm smile,

“Susan.”

“The forgiveness extended without condition; that enduring love you’ve needed since you were born, is that about right?” Hope nodded.

“Then if Susan can extend forgiveness to you, who do you suppose needs to forgive next and whom shall they forgive. This time the reply was hesitant, as if by answering Hope would somehow feel affirmed. Nothing at that moment could affirm Hope more than her own words, however; something she would learn by speaking. She took a deep breath and spoke.

“I need to forgive myself.” At the mention of her own forgiveness, Hope’s shoulders relaxed and even in the midst of it all she began to weep; in the most profound understanding of her own faith as she continued her movement from self-hatred to self acceptance. She smiled weakly; not from a lack of conviction but from the sheer release of all the shame and guilt that washed away as she wept harder in that single moment than at any other time in her life.

Rosedale Cemetery, Linden, New Jersey...

Liz McKenna stared at the plain looking brass plaque at her feet.

"Heather Anne McKenna ... beloved daughter...." Her voice trailed off as she tried without success to stifle a sob.

"I'm so sorry...please...baby? Forgive me?" It would have seemed that Liz was asking for Heather's forgiveness but for the picture in her hand. Laminating barely kept the old photo intact, but it remained a treasure. She blinked back tears as her eyes struggled to focus on the two figures in the picture.

"We'll make this right, okay, honey?" Her eyes darted between two little girls; alike enough as to be almost twins. Heather was six and her sister had just turned five.

"I would have...I should have called you by name." She stared at the younger of the two.

"If....maybe we can use your name for a middle name?" Her words were halting and apologetic and long overdue. Two little girls; separated by death and by the missteps of their mother and the willful ignorance of their father. Heather Anne McKenna - age six. And her sister. She didn't have a name then but she would have one now.

Liz kissed the picture and spoke through halting tears.

"My babies...Heather Anne...and Hope...Hope Timothea McKenna.

Next: Love Hopes