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“Sorry!” Sal says halfheartedly, throwing up a wave over his shoulder without even bothering to stop as he zips into the store at full throttle.
Fucking hell.
Propping my foot out in front of myself, I inspect the damage to my favorite pair of black dress shoes. They’re Italian leather, and I researched online for three months before I bought them.
There’s a smudge of a dirty tire track over the toe, but when I reach down with my hand to see how bad it is, it wipes off with no more than a brush of my thumb.
Well, at least my fucking shoes are still intact.
My current mental state, on the other hand? That’s a whole other story.
I know somewhere deep down inside that the state of my shoes, even if they were ruined, is a minor inconvenience, but on top of all the other frustrations of the last few days, and the current, tattered state of my mental health while trying to juggle a heavy workload and a cantankerous father, finding out there’s no permanent damage from his reckless driving is the news I need to keep from exploding.
By the time I finish inspecting my shoe and move to follow him, he’s completely out of sight, and if I had to guess, charging through the store like a wild man.
Oh well. It’s probably not the worst thing for either of us if we get a little space.
Five days of family time is nearly enough for anyone, but for Sal and me? It’s been like the Olympic Games of visits. Marathon squabbling over meals and drinking hours and noise level while I’m trying to work, hurdles over personal space and light usage—and by God, the crumbs the man leaves at the table could feed Joey Chestnut for a year. And don’t worry, I’m surprised I know who the world champion hot dog eater is too.
I blame it on my friend Brandon. He’s a walking, talking bullshitter if I’ve ever met one, and knowing random details about the world is part of his skill. He uses them to fill in gaps and weave tales, and honestly, as much as it’s the exact opposite of my personality, I’m almost in awe of how good he is at it.
One time, he sent me and two of our other friends a text message with a link to a giveaway for a major department store, and all three of us replied to ask if it was a scam. When he said no, all three of us googled it just in case, unable to take his word for it for fear that it was a scheme he’d concocted to siphon money out of our bank accounts to use on his favorite sports betting website.
If that doesn’t paint a picture, I don’t know what does.
I follow the signs toward the pharmacy on the left end of the store, passing by the personal hygiene and medication sections to get there.
There’s a line of people waiting their turn to get to the counter—mostly over the age of seventy—but what there isn’t is any sight of my father.
Where in the hell did he go?
I look behind me, to the left and the right, and then finally, shrug my shoulders and sigh.
Who knows where he went or what he’s gotten up to, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to go chasing him around the whole fucking store.
I’ll stay here, get in line, and he’ll find me eventually.
I grab my phone out of my pocket and start scrolling through emails. It takes nearly ten minutes of waiting, but I finally make it to the pharmacy desk and give my dad’s name to the pharmacist.
He types on the computer for a minute, but after scrolling around with the mouse a couple times, his eyebrows pull together.
“Is there a problem?” I ask, leaning into the counter.
He smiles encouragingly and then swings the computer screen around for me to see it.
“Oh, yes. It’s fine. It’s just…your father’s prescription says he shouldn’t be due for more of this medication for another twenty days.”
“Twenty days?” I question pointedly.
The pharmacist nods, just as a scooter bumps into the back of my heels like I’m being given a flat tire in middle school all over again.
Given the ratio of elderly patrons in the store, I can’t automatically assume it’s my dad, but when I turn around to check, I confirm it’s him.
“Dad, have you been taking too many pills?”
“What?” he asks with a scoff. “No.”
“Dad, this is serious. They’re saying you should have twenty pills left, and you said you have zero. If you’ve accidentally taken extra, you need to tell me now.”
“I haven’t been taking extra pills,” he snaps with a wave of nonchalance. “I probably just looked at the wrong bottle.”
I shake my head. This is too big of a deal. Maybe I need to go back home and check.
