Page 53 of Rough

Tegan walked in. “Okay. That’s it. I’m going now. Anything else?”

He shook his head and raised his cast. She took his hand in hers, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. “Until tomorrow.”

“See ya, kid.”

She glanced in my direction, smiled, and then headed for the door. I looked away as she walked across the living room, and it wasn’t easy, by any means. She opened the door. I faked a cough and shifted my eyes in her direction. As she pulled the door closed behind her, I lowered my eyes to the floor.

“See? That’s what I’m talking about. That was the sorriest excuse for a fake cough I’ve ever heard. You and that fuckin Navarro think you’re slick, and you can’t even pull the wool over my old eyes. Sorriest excuse for hooligans I’ve ever seen.”

“What exactly is a hooligan?”

“Look in the mirror,” he said. “It’s the opposite of what you see. You wouldn’t make a good pimple for a hooligan’s ass. Sometimes I wonder if they might have switched kids around in the hospital and we ended up with some dip-shit’s kid.”

I didn’t care one bit for his last remark. I narrowed my eyes and turned to face him.

He grabbed for his chest and closed his eyes. “God fucking damn it!”

I jumped up. “You alright, Pop?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said

“Pop…”

He waved his hand between us and opened his eyes. “It’s just indigestion.”

I searched his face for tells, but only saw how the skin beneath his eyes had become thin and translucent. “Don’t look like it.”

“And how the fuck would you know?”

“You look tired, Pop.”

“And you look like grizzly fucking Adams. Clean up your act and shave, why don’t you.”

The door opened and my mother walked in.

“How as your day, dear?” he asked.

“Just fine. How was yours?”

“It was like all the others. Dreadful.”

They kissed.

My mother worked at a safe house for battered women, and I couldn’t decide if she worked because she felt like she was offering a service to the community of women who needed her help, or if she did so to help pay for my father’s extensive medical bills.

They lived in a modest home – the same home I grew up in – but my guess was that in the absence of his bills, they could live in a much better neighborhood.

There wasn’t anything wrong with where they lived, but I always felt like they deserved more.

“Did you see who stopped in to say hi?”

“Well don’t just stand there, Brad. Give your mother a hug,” she said.

I hugged her. She looked me over. “You look thin.”

“Pop said I was fat.”

She glared at my father. “Bradley!”