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The knock at the door came at perhaps the worst possible time. Simon had dozed off watching rugby with the baby snoozing on his chest, one of his large hands plenty big enough to support her. The man was a notoriously light sleeper, and always vigilant, so it was nice to see him relaxed enough to doze off.
You hurried to the door, hoping against hope the knock didn’t wake the two sleeping beauties. You hadn’t been expecting company, so your secondary hope was that it wasn’t someone who wanted to linger. Upon opening the door, though, you froze, perplexed. Standing before you was someone you’d never seen before.
The man was old, but how old it was hard to say. His clothes were worse-for-wear and he looked like he hadn’t showered in days. The wrinkles in his face betrayed a permanent smirk. He was rough around the edges, not just in appearance but in the way he carried himself. You had half a mind to ask if he was there asking for charity, but the words stuck in your throat. Something about this man made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.
“Can I help you?”
“Dame of the house, I presume?” The words were polite enough on their face, but something about the way he said them grated, as did the way his eyes raked over you as he said them.
“Yes. Can I help you?” you repeated, hoping to speed this interaction along.
“Name’s Lee Riley, here to see my son.”
The name wasn’t familiar, except for the surname. Dumbly, you blinked at the man for a few seconds before realization struck.
Oh.
Oh no.
Simon had inherited his mother’s warm brown eyes, but looking closely you were able to see traces of him in the man’s stature and bone structure. Standing before you wasn’t just any random person, but a monster you had heard about only in stories. You felt sick looking at that smirking face, knowing it was the same face Simon had to look at as a boy facing relentless abuse and terror.
Instinctively, you squeezed the door shut just a bit tighter, as if to barricade yourself in the house and keep him out. The two people you loved most in the world were inside, blissfully unaware of the piece of shit on your doorstep, and you intended to keep it that way.
“Get off my porch and never come back here.” You willed your voice not to betray how uneasy you felt. The man barked a snarling laugh.
“Ha! Mouthy bird my son went and found himself. Just like his old man.”
“He’s nothing like you,” you spat, your voice struggling not to rise alongside your temper. “And there’s nothing for you here, so get -”
A hand on your shoulder stopped you in your tracks. Simon stood behind you, the gurgling baby in his other arm. His eyes were fixed over your shoulder on his father, expression unreadable.
“Take her and go upstairs.” His tone was gentle, not a reproach but a warning to get far away from whatever was about to happen. You hesitated only a moment, silently praying for some way to save Simon from this confrontation. He spent so much of his life fighting against his father, against the beatings and the fear and the expectations that he’d grow up to be just like him. You were desperate, in that moment, to spare him one more fight. But one glance between the two men, at the stare-down they were having, made your shoulders sag in defeat. This was something that had to happen, and you and the baby being in the crossfire would only make it worse.
You lifted your daughter into your arms and made your way upstairs to the nursery. Once safely inside, surrounded by soft pink toys and blankets and baby books, you wanted to cry. Simon never got the opportunity to be soft, never got the tenderness he showed you and your baby. Getting out some blocks to let the baby play, you couldn’t help but wonder what was going on downstairs on the porch.
What you couldn’t see, what no one could see or hear, was the war that was going on inside Simon’s head as he took in the sight before him. The shriveled old man before him had once loomed so tall it seemed impossible to ever escape him. Now, half-bent and coming up to his son’s collarbone, it was almost laughable. This was the tyrant who robbed him and his brother of their childhoods; this was the coward who had beaten his sweet, joyful mother down into a zombie. He had seen her just now in your defensive posture, and something in him had gone scarily quiet. Ready. Eager, even.
He had done it once; bullied the bully and forcibly removed his father from the home, and he was all too ready to do it again. He was ready, in that moment, to do whatever it took to be the wall between this evil on his doorstep and the family he had built, that which he cherished above all else. The nerve of this piece of shit, the gall to show up out of the blue like this and contaminate the doorstep had Simon’s anger rising in a persistent wave.
“Why are you here?” His tone didn’t betray the storm of emotions roiling under his skin; he’d had that trained out of him long ago. He didn’t much care what the answer was. What he was really thinking was Say something. Try something. I dare you. I want you to. Let’s finish this.
“Can’t an old, sentimental man visit his son? The manners of your generation!” The man’s taunting expression and jeering tone were almost enough to get his face flattened into the ground. Almost.
“I’m no son of yours - you said that yourself. Now I suggest you take my wife’s advice and go back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”
“ Wife! Atta boy,” the man cackled, barreling on and completely ignoring him. “And a tyke too. Taking after the old man after all, are we?”
Simon’s knuckles flexed. You were right when you said he was nothing like the man standing before him; he had worked hard to be sure of it. Every therapy session, every time he communicated with you when he was upset, every time he cooled off before arguing, every time he looked at his infant daughter and vowed silently to the universe to only ever show her safety and love, he was making sure of it. Every time he used his strength and brutality - perhaps the only gifts his father ever gave him - for the good and safety of the world and made the decision not to bring it home with him he was making sure of it. Every time he used his pay to pay bills and take care of the house instead of spending it at the pub, he was making sure of it. Every time he nurtured the friendships and brotherhood he had with his teammates, he was making sure of it. Everything he was as a man, as a husband, as a father, was in spite of his upbringing, not because of it. And he would be damned if this man would take credit for any of it.
It was on the tip of his tongue, this acidic rebuttal, when realization struck: he’d won . He’d grown into a man he was proud to be, a man who embodied everything his father had tried to beat out of him. He’d created a home where he and his loved ones felt safe, he’d found a good-hearted woman and built her up rather than draining the life from her, and now she was a great mother to his daughter. His beautiful little daughter who would never know the fear, the hunger, and the confusion that had marked his earliest years.
The realization was shocking and humbling, and he blinked, taking in the scene before him with seemingly new eyes. The dirty, snarling man before him was nothing . Not a challenge, not a threat, nothing more than a nuisance. Not worth the air it would take to explain why he was wrong, and certainly not worth putting his hands on and causing a scene.
Simon let out a long breath, and with it, decades’ worth of something to prove. The man before him wouldn’t hear it, and couldn’t understand it, and that was okay . Because Simon understood it, and you understood it, and one day your daughter would understand too. He could see his future stretching out before him, and there simply was no room for the mean little man on his porch.
“If you ever come back here, you’ll regret it.” He said, finally.
And then he closed the door.