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“What was he into?”
“Gambling, more or less. But as time went on, it seemed like he stopped being so independent, and got involved with other, bigger, players.”
I remembered that weird, flip-flopping sensation in my belly when, one night when I was sixteen, I snuck out after him, followed him across town, and watched as he met with a bunch of guys in fancy suits with guns on their hips.
You’re never really prepared for the day when you realize your father, someone you always sort of hero-worshipped, was not necessarily the ‘good guy’ you always made him out to be in your mind.
Especially when I saw one of those men again randomly while out with friends one night, beating the hell out of a man on his knees in an alley, begging for mercy.
He didn’t get any.
And those were the types of men my father was associated with.
“But the past… I don’t know three or four years, he’s been… different,” I told Silvano, only realizing after I said it that I was putting him in the present tense still.
“Different how?”
“Erratic, I guess. Paranoid for sure. He moved constantly. Each time I showed up to see him, I couldn’t get in because he added new locks or more security. I was honestly starting to worry that he was losing his mind.”
I knew that his own father had struggled with dementia for many years before he finally passed. And, sure, my father was young for that, but some research told me that some people just got unlucky and developed it at a younger age.
I’d been looking into things like getting guardianship over him, trying to figure how much it would cost to hire him full-time help, so I didn’t have to put him in a nursing home and really limit his world.
Hell, the past few months, I’d been wondering if I should give up the apartment I’d just started to make my own, and move back in with him to keep an eye on him. Make sure he wasn’t wandering at night or leaving the stove on.
“But he wasn’t losing it?” Silvano asked, his hand landing on my thigh, just a heavy, reassuring presence.
“No,” I admitted, sighing hard.
“How’d you find out?”
I’d been on my way over to visit one night, bringing a supply of deli meat and bread, wanting to limit how much he was using the stove if he was becoming paranoid or forgetful.
I’d been practicing my speech as I walked down the street toward his building. A big lie I’d concocted about how I was struggling financially, about how I might need to move back with him until I got back on my feet.
I knew my father.
He would always let me come home if I needed to.
Hell, he’d never wanted me to leave.
I’d needed to give him a speech about how we both needed space, and I needed to learn how to pay bills and be an adult.
The truth was, I’d been seeing someone. And we needed somewhere to hang out that didn’t have my father’s prying eyes around all the time.
But I’d been ready to give that freedom up to take care of him.
But as I’d rounded the corner near his building, I’d seen him burst out of the front door, his head on a swivel, his eyes huge, worried.
My heart had deflated in my chest, thinking I was getting more confirmation of his decline in mental health.
I’d tucked the bags of food inside the front door of the building, wanting to follow him to make sure he wasn’t going to get himself hurt or something like that.
I’d kept my distance, moving with him down the streets and back alleys until, finally, he stopped.
At a detached garage behind a rundown car repair shop.
My brows had pinched as I slunk away into the shadows, watching as he used several keys to open the lock.
