At first.
Right? I mean, yes—that was my father looking like the dictionary definition ofdespair.
But I couldn’tstop! Right?! I was smack in the middle of the mad dash of a lifetime!
But then, my dad decided to get up from his barstool. And I guess that wasn’t his first bourbon of the night. I saw him rise, take a step—and then lose his balance and collapse to the floor.
Gah. Couldn’t not stop for that.
It’s a big thing when a large man falls to the floor. A collapsing human makes athudsound that’s really unlike anything else. Despite the bar music and human chatter and ambient noise, the sound of the impact cut through it all.
“Dad!” I called out, stopping for just a second before rerouting over to him.
I kneeled over him as I arrived—expecting him to be choking, or unconscious, or mid–heart attack, at least. But as he rolled onto his back and I got a look at his face, he was laughing.
“You’re laughing?” I demanded.
“Mostly out of humiliation,” my dad said.
“Are you hurt?”
“Just drunk, I think.”
“Did you break anything?” I asked. “Did you hit your head?”
“I think my body broke my fall,” he said.
“Let’s get you up,” I said as the bartender came around to help.
We each took an arm and maneuvered my dad toward a captain’s chair at a low table nearby. Once we had him positioned, the bartender and I watched him for a minute, like he might tumble back out, but he didn’t.
“I’ve never seen you drunk before,” I said next, taking the chair across from him.
My dad met my eyes with a little wince before pulling it together enough to say, “She said no.”
“Mom?” I don’t know who elseshewould’ve been.
My dad nodded.
“To what? To taking you back?”
He nodded again.
“But…” I was so flabbergasted. “Did you tell her all that stuff you told me?”
The bartender showed up with some water in a pint glass, and my dad waited until he was gone.
“I tried to,” he said. “But I panicked.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“You know that I’m a man of few words, right?”
“Yes,” I said. If there was one thing any of us knew about him, it was that.
“Well,” he said. “In that moment, I was a man offewerwords.”
“Did you panic?” I asked. “Or did you choke?”
