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26
Jewel
We startle awake hours later to a pounding on the door.
It’s strange, isn’t it? How I know exactly who it is by the sound his fist makes against wood? Not strange, I guess, since I know the things I know. The things I learned as I listened to him lose his temper every other day when he was drinking.
I don’t have to wake up Vince. He’s awake and on his feet, pulling me up into his arms and carrying me back to the bedroom. It feels like he’s doing it all on instinct, almost like he’s still asleep.
“Stay here,” he says through gritted teeth, as if he somehow knows who it is too.
I scramble around the room to dress myself while explaining things. “Babe, it’s my dad…”
He holds up a hand to say he knows. “Let me handle it. I know everything.”
I gape back at him. “How?”
“Remember the part about me having my PI license? Trust me, I might know more than you. I hate that I am telling you this now, in this way, but there it is.”
He disappears around the corner before I can tell him it’s fine that he’s been looking into the case. I’m glad he knows. I’m glad he was checking up on things and never told me. He’s given me the gift of enjoying our relationship without the case weighing both of us down. But from now on, we are going to carry things together.
I dress quickly and go into the living room, where Vince is blocking an old man from entering my apartment door.
“You can’t be here, you need to leave. She doesn’t want you in her life.”
The old man, who looks barely like the person I remember being taken into custody so many years ago, has unkempt hair and a face the color of ash.
“That’s my daughter in there and I have a right to be here.”
The attitude is the only thing I recognize. I see he’s not chosen to better himself during his time behind bars.
“Vince, I need to say something.”
The man laughs, and it’s the familiar, ingratiating kind of laugh that he used to give to my mom and us girls whenever he wanted to come back home after a night of drinking and putting his fist through a wall. Or pushing my mom around. It’s the sound of someone who thinks he’s blessing you by letting you forgive him.
“John,” I say.
“That’s some way to address your dad. Tell this meathead to get out of the way. You and I have things to talk about.”
I think for a moment, and I realize I’m not afraid.
“Let him in, Vince.”
“No fucking way.”
“Vince. Are you going to let him lay a hand on me?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then let him in.”
I can see Vince is wavering between what I want and what he wants, and eventually he gives in to me. He lets John in and backs away, cursing under his breath. I love that he’s so protective of me.
John sits down. I go over and sit across from the man who fathered me, fold my hands, and say, “John. I’m calling you John because you may have contributed to my conception, but you are not my father. And I’m going to tell you this once. Just because I can maybe, possibly, one day find a way to forgive you for what you did to my mom, it doesn’t mean you get to be a part of my life.”
“That’s a fine way to greet me, when I never did anything to anybody.”
“John. Let’s pretend for a moment that you didn’t get drunk, argue with her, and then bash in her skull with a pipe wrench after she went to sleep. That she did not die at the hands of her drunk, violent husband but at the hands of an impossibly random burglary in our gated neighborhood. Let’s pretend that’s real. Even without all that, you still made her life a living hell. And for that, you have not paid the price, because you’re not sorry. I know you don’t understand a word I’m saying but maybe someday you will. But your entitlement runs deep, so maybe you’ll understand this. Here.”
