Randall Lee Holton

I grabbed Chris's arm and showed him my phone. ‘Randall Lee Holton’ flashed across my screen. I had warned him a few minutes ago that this might happen, but I hadn’t expected it so soon.

“It’s okay.” He reassured me as I took a deep breath.

“Hello.”

“Hey, what are you doing?" Randall greeted me.

“Hanging out.” I was shaking. I don’t know how, but I knew this conversation would be bad.

“Did Chris ever get that job?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Oh good, what’s he doing?” I hesitated to respond. I didn’t want to be confrontational by withholding information. I also wasn’t interested in telling him anything about my personal life.

“Security…at a casino,” I said, rolling my eyes at myself. I hate that I wanted to be vague, but I tacked on the last part to make sure he knew it was a job I was proud of. “He’s excited; we’re both excited,” I said, leaving it at that.

“Does he get to shoot people?" was his dumb response while laughing at himself.

“I mean, if he has to.”

After an uncomfortable silence, he said, “So what was that thing you sent me all about?” Ah yes, there it is, the real reason he called.

I started writing to process through experiences in my life that I wasn’t able to at the time. When those events happened, I was more focused on surviving. I started that a few weeks ago once I realized it forced me to feel the pain I felt in those moments and let it out. Yet, for the past few days, I’d felt stagnant. I needed a place to start writing a story: the story of my dad, Randall Lee Holton. I didn’t know this phone call would be the flame I needed to carry my torch.

“My writing?” I asked, knowing full well what he was talking about. When he said yes, I asked, “You want to know what my writing is about?” I wanted him to ask a specific question.

“Well, I read some of it.”

“Oh, cool.” I refused to ask what he thought as I didn’t care. I was curious to see what direction this conversation would take. I had published a story of abuse from my past as well as a story that serves as my official coming out. I was curious to see how he would react to either of those new pieces of information.

“Are those true stories?”

"Yes, all the published ones."

“About your life?”

“Yes.”

“What made you do that?”

“Well, I’ve always written.”

“But why now?”

I chuckled. "Well, they laid me off two months ago," I said. "So I have the opportunity.”

“Do you have someone helping you with this? I don't understand how it all works.”

“Well, I have a friend helping with editing, but the website is mine; I did it myself. And I’m submitting my writing for publishing as well.”

“Publishing where?” As he was interrogating me, it became clear to me what this phone call was about. Fear that his name would show up in these stories. It explained the “I’m not being hostile, I’m being curious” tone. But a curious dad would ask about the abuse. He wouldn't question the logistics of my new writing career.

“Everywhere. "I'm submitting everywhere. I assume a smaller site will pick me up first, before the bigger ones." I barely knew what I was talking about, but I wanted him to sense my power, my lack of fear.

“And where did you come up with the name for your site?” Ooh, a curveball. I hadn’t thought about getting to tell him my new name.

“It’s what I changed my name to.”

“Legally?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I filed paperwork.”

“So I can’t call you Jenna anymore?”

“Well, my name is Honey, so…”

“How did you come up with Honey?”

“It was a personal choice.” I glowed with pride at this mature answer. What I wanted to say was, "Fuck you, I'm not giving you that vulnerability right now."

This seemed to be the end of the interrogation about my writing, which surprised me. I expected him to ask if I planned to write about him.

“So, what about those pictures you sent me the other day?” He was referring to some images I had sent him.

They were text images.

'Signs you were parented through unhealed wounds.'

'If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you probably thought this was normal.'

I sent these images about two weeks ago. A few days before that, I sent a text about my brother going to this year’s family reunion. These messages were ignored until yesterday. Then, he texted, asking if I still planned to go to the reunion.

I planned to go to have real talks with my family about our histories. After reflecting, I realized my real reason for going. It was to avoid guilt and shame. I wanted to escape the thoughts of, "She's going to write about us, and she can't even visit us?" I resolved not to care about people who haven't contacted me in almost 20 years.

When he asked if I was still going, I had meant to ignore him as he had ignored me. But I wasn't doing that anymore.

I replied with, "No, I’m working on my writing,” with a link to the website. Now he had time for a phone call within 24 hours.

"I thought you might want to understand what I've been working on," I replied to his inquiry about the photos.

After another uncomfortable silence, “Is it helping?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Oh yeah, I would say I’m a happy and whole person now.”

“Well, that’s good.” Randall and I are old pros at awkward pauses by this time, even with as little as we do talk. “You sent those with no explanation, and it made me think you were blaming me for all that.”

“Well, what I mean is I thought you might want to understand what I’m undoing from my childhood. And if you wanted an explanation, why didn’t you respond to that or to the text about Cameron?”

“What do you want me to do about Cameron? He didn’t have the time off; I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

He almost got me to engage, but I would not. “I’m not interested in talking to you about that now; I wanted to talk about it two weeks ago.”

“Can I tell you what I think?”

“Yes, of course!” I said, genuinely enthusiastic.

“I think you keep blaming me and blaming me and blaming me, and I can’t take the blame anymore! You have to take some of the blame, too.”

“Okay, for what?”

"I don’t want a relationship anymore." I had anticipated this. A year and three months ago, I tried to have a conversation with my dad. He told me I was wrong, that those things didn't happen, and that I was dramatizing things. I held a boundary. I would never hear those things again. So I said I couldn’t have a relationship anymore. That was my truth at that time. I would not talk to him if he could not acknowledge my experience without invalidating it.

For about a year I didn’t talk to him. Things shifted this year when I truly forgave him for myself. I picked up the phone and told him that he won; we’ll forgive and forget, but I wanted it to be better moving forward. That was my new boundary.

Nothing got better, as seen by his ignoring difficult texts for weeks.

“What was that said in response to?” I didn’t give him a chance to say anything. “Was it that I tried to have a conversation and you told me I was wrong, I was crazy, I remembered wrong? Then you came back the next day and said, 'Cameron validated one thing but I can't speak for the others.' Because my brother validated one of my complaints, he believed that. Once again, at 30, I experienced what I did my entire childhood: my word alone is not enough. I need proof.

Well, now, at 30, I have the experience to say, “You wouldn’t need proof if you weren’t so drunk all the time. I mean, I asked you a few weeks ago for our babysitters' names that we had for one to two years, and you didn’t remember that.” These were inside thoughts this time, though.

His response to me dripped with the disdain I knew he always felt for me. “I think you need to take some of the blame, too.”

“What did I do to you?”

“What did I do to you?!” His voice rose. My heart thumped in my chest; I sat up in my chair, putting Chris on alert. Heat began to rise in my body.

I went back in our texts and started to read from what I sent him weeks ago. “It felt like nothing was ever good enough. You were hard to connect with, like pushing me away when I went for a hug, but embracing Cameron. Boundaries were not allowed or respected, shown by kicking down unlocked doors. You used the parent role to dominate. Your needs took priority over mine, over everyone’s. Do I need to keep going?”

“Go ahead.” He challenged.

“I’m reading what I sent you weeks ago.”

“I didn’t even read it; I stopped—"

“So what did I do to you?” I interrupted. I wasn’t letting him escape this question.

“You’re not perfect.”

“Okay, so what did the imperfect four-year-old do to you for you to push her away when she wanted a hug?”

“It’s a two-way street.” That was it. I shot up from my seat. Chris tried to pull me back and I yanked my arm away. My rage, held in for years, swelled up from my core. A lifetime of a clogged throat burst open like a dam. For a year and three months, I had kept that rage bottled for the sake of trying to bring him into the light. For the sliver of hope that if I tried hard enough, he'd be a person capable of love. And in this moment, clear white-hot clarity hit me. This man doesn’t love me. He never did. He’s blaming a four-year-old for his inability to love her. After he chose to sign the papers to promise to give her “a happy and healthy home” by his own mother’s words. This man doesn’t even deserve to speak. It’s that four-year-old's turn.

I put the parent in me to the side and let little Honey speak. “IT’S A TWO-WAY STREET FOR A FOUR-YEAR-OLD TO NOT GET A HUG?! YOU CAN BLAME A CHILD—" Honey was screaming.

“Alright, Jenna, I’m done. I’m not interested in this.”

Parent Honey stepped back in and responded, “That’s all I needed to know.” Before I could get the words out, the call ended. He hung up.

I was shaking, overheated, and overwhelmed. I went to chuck my phone across the room, but I gathered myself and tossed it on the couch. I walked into my room and punched the bed, screaming.

“I hate you, I hate you! I wish you were dead, I wish you had died before I ever met you!” I screamed a few more times, pounding the bed. Then, I turned to see Chris. He was standing, waiting to embrace me when I was ready. I collapsed into him and felt overwhelmed by a sense of freedom.

“It’s over. I no longer have to feel scared. He can’t hurt me anymore. I get to say his name.”

I grabbed my phone and shot a quick text before blocking Randall Lee Holton out of my life forever.

“Goodbye. Don’t ever ask me to take your name out of my writing.”