I get email...

It isn't nearly as deranged or interesting as the stuff PZ gets, but it's deluded in its own way.

Hey David, how have you been? We've missed you. We have been wondering what we have done for you to not talk with us or your dad, for so long. Could you possibly call your dad sometime soon, and fix things ?
He talks about you often and wonders what he did for you to not talk to him.
We sold the condo last year and we got your grandmothers house. We moved in June 27th. Can't believe it's a year tomorrow.
Are you teaching anywhere?
Are you dating anyone now?
What are you doing this summer, if your still a teacher?
Do you come up to NY often?
We would really love to hear from you soon
Love Dee

Wow, where to start... So this is my step-mother, who I've met perhaps 5 times. She's playing the step-motherly peacemaker role, which I can understand. What bemuses me is that she, and more so my father, fail to understand why I don't speak with him. I'll preface this next bit of vitriol with the fact that she and my step-sisters don't know me well enough to have done anything to me... therefore this is not aimed at them. Rather they're being ignored by proxy.

The man who physically and emotionally abused me doesn't grasp why it is that I won't talk to him. I find that both comical and sad... Does he honestly think I'd want to? By way of apology, he once said "Sometimes I feel like I didn't do a very good job with you." Awesome. Try for some actual remorse, and we might have somewhere to begin. In all reality, I'm not sure that a sobbing, legitimate apology would elicit anything other than disgust on my part at this point in my life. There are things for which I can forgive, but forgetting and moving into a normal father-son relationship isn't going to happen. So there lies the crux of this issue. No, Dee I can't call and fix things, that's well out of my hands, and out of the question.

The rest of this is step-motherly (faux?) concern banter. They don't miss me, as they don't know me. The search for information is awkward, as some of these questions have answers they can easily surmise: No, I don't go to NY often, I haven't since I left. Painting herself and my father as the victims is an interesting twist on a guilt trip, but doesn't make it any more likely to work.

There's something a bit ghoulish about living in the house in which you grew up after your parents have died and left it, at least to me. It's a situation I'll never face, as neither of those houses are the property of my family now, but I still find it odd that my father (or anyone) would choose to do that. He must have really wanted out of that condo.

At least they're reading the nephew I didn't know I had fairy tales, she states on her Facebook that she's "teaching him about the love of Jesus".