38: The Last Supper

November 25, 2011

On the Friday evening after Thanksgiving, I was drinking coffee while Gabriela ate dinner. Then Cody arrived. He appeared to be unhappy about something. He muttered a greeting to Gabriela as he pulled up a chair and positioned it so his back would be toward me.

He leaned back uncomfortably in his chair, and sat without saying a word.

Gabriela tried to engage him in conversation, but all she could get out of him were singleword responses. Cody didn’t make eye contact with Gabriela, and completely ignored anything I said. He was present but made it clear he didn’t want to be there at all.

About five minutes into Cody’s visit, Gabriela leaned toward him and whispered, “Dad, if it’s okay I think I would like you to leave a little early tonight. I need to talk privately with Mom. Okay?”

Cody’s response was a slight nod of his head.

Cody sat silently. I couldn’t figure out what had happened that had made him so angry, but it was clear that it had something to do with me.

Gabriela’s tolerance for her father’s behavior lasted only a few more minutes before she leaned in toward him and whispered, “Why don’t you leave now?”

Cody got up and left without a word.

Neither Gabriela or I needed to talk about what had just happened. We were both so accustomed to this type of behavior from Cody. We knew that something had set him off, and that it was probably something small, but he felt the need to punish me with his silence and it didn’t matter that he was subjecting Gabriela to it, as well.

Shortly after Cody left, I received a text message from him: “Keep her on your insurance.”

I responded: “Yes, I think that’s better because we would never know when you would just cancel her coverage like you did last time.”

Cody’s last response was “I’m done.”

That was it, the proof of the pudding.

This could have been a blow to Gabriela, but she hadn’t had any relationship to speak of with her father since she was about eight.  He knew nothing about her, nor had he taken the time to get to know her.

I did find out from Claire that evening the probable reason for Cody’s anger. Claire had said one evening as we drove to visit Gabriela that she was shocked Cody had told both of us he wanted a divorce in the same way.  I didn’t say anything, but the look on my face must have been puzzling, so Claire clarified: “He called you from the platform and told you he wanted a divorce. Right?”

“No,” I responded, and told Claire the story of how I had asked for a divorce on Independence Day. She was mad as hell and had brought it up with him just two nights before.

This was the last visit from Cody while Gabriela was in the hospital, and he never even called to find out how she was doing for the rest of her stay. It would be an understatement to say that fatherhood didn’t come naturally to Cody.

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