AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Want a drink?” my dad asks. “I got coke. Diet. Susan says I eat too much sugar, so she’s switched me to the stuff. Don’t taste the same though.”
Another thing Susan’s replaced. She’s taken all the liquor and switched it out with diet soft drinks. Definitely not the house I grew up in.
“Sure, Coke’s fine.” I take a seat at the table as he hands me a can. “Place… looks good.”
“Yeah,” he says awkwardly. “All Susan. She… fixed it. Made it right.”
Maybe she fixed my father too, madehimright. He’s not like I remember either. His dark hair’s gotten greyer, his face older, but he looks less run down, the bags under his eyes smaller, the red blotching on his nose and cheeks gone. He still sports his dark mustache and wears what he’s always worn—dark blue pants and a button up plaid shirt.
A silence falls between us, and for some reason I’m not quite sure what to do with my hands, like I’ve only just noticed they exist and haven’t been living with them glued to my arms for the last twenty-six years. What do I usually do with my hands?
“Heard the, uh, the Mitchell girl’s gettin’ married.”
I still, that tight feeling once again straining against my chest. “Yeah. Yeah, I, uh, I heard that too.”
He inclines his head. “That why you’re here?”
A good question. Why am I here? I’d switched my flight, gotten on that plane, and now here I am, the place I said I wouldn’t come back. Wheresheis. Where she’s built a life with someone else.
I pull at the roots of my hair but don’t answer, and my father just nods and sits back in his chair, nursing his can of coke. “I called. Couple times.”
“I know.”
He sighs. “I wanted to make amends.”
My shoulders tense.Amends. What do those look like, I wonder, from a man like him. A man who spent most of my childhood so drunk off his ass he forgot he had a kid.
“Then make them,” I bite. I expect a reaction to my tone, for him to snap back, but he just levels me a stare and takes another sip from his can.
“You know, son, you were an angry kid. Angry as they come. And I don’t blame you. Between your mom and I, we didn’t do you any favours. But when she left, wasn’t quite sure what to do with an eleven-year-old kid, you know? Couldn’t understand you, your interests, that… that thing you do with the paint. Didn’t know how to be a father to you James, and I’m sorry for that. I wish”—he pauses, his eyes shifting to the front door, to my luggage still sitting in the entrance—“I wish it could have been different, that I could have been better. But I want you to know, I haven’t touched the bottle in almost four years. And I know that don’t make up for much, but I really wish you’d visit more often. That we could… fix things. Make it right.”
I stare at him, unsure of what to say, because I’ve hated this man for so long that it’s become a feeling I’ve grown almost comfortable with. “Dad—”
“You don’t got to say anything right now, alright? We can talk later.” He pushes up from his chair and treads over to the fridge to grab another diet Coke. “If it’s worth anything to you, I was talking to Deb Mitchell the other day and she mentioned her girl was doing something for that art gallery downtown. Some exhibition of sorts. Tonight, I think. Maybe you’d… want to go. Since you’re in town and all.”
Nodding, I say, “Yeah, alright. Got somewhere for me to crash? Haven’t slept.”
“Your old room’s still how you left it. Had to take the posters down though. Susan didn’t like all the… women.”
I snort. “Sounds fair. And dad? Uh, thanks.”
“Sure James,” he says, tilting his head. “You should shower. You smell like a liquor store. Your girl won’t want to see you like that.”
My girl.
Not my girl. Not anymore. But that’s why I came here, isn’t? I can lie to myself and say I’m here to make sure she’s happy, to make sure this guy she’s with is good enough for her. That would make me the better man, the man I am when I’m with Kate. But I haven’t been with Kate in a really long time, and the parts of me that aren’t so good tend to overshadow the rest when I’ve been without her for too long. The dark parts, the bad parts, the selfish parts.
I came back here to take what’s mine. Kate.
I have no intention of leaving this city without her. Six weeks and she’ll be marrying someone else, but I’ve never been the type to respect something that’salmost.Almost there, almost ready, almost married. Doesn’t matter to me until it’s done.
And so I shower, and I sleep, and I wear the leather jacket she bought me, and I don’t shave my face because I know she likes it when I’ve got a little scruff.
“It suits you,” she’d said once, “gives you that look. You know the one.”
“You girls always like the bad ones,” I’d teased, and she’d laughed. That fucking beautiful laugh.
“And I like what it feels like on my skin.”
