AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dad’s entire body tensed visibly, and he stared without blinking before shaking his head.
“Skylar. Honey. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”
Dad didn’t say anything. Finally, he looked at the open door. “So, what’s the agreement this time?”
“Brandon gave him the first payment, and we’ll get the rest by the end of the month. He said as long as we did that, he’d leave you alone.”
The wrinkles on Dad’s forehead became even more pronounced as he pondered my statement. “But…where are you getting the rest of the money?”
I sighed. “I’m not going to lie. Bubbe’ll need to refinance the house for some of it. I don’t have enough left in my trust to cover it all and pay for a rehabilitation program.”
His head jerked back at my last words, his eyelids blinking rapidly. “What? Honey, I really don’t think I need that—”
“It’s non-negotiable, Dad,” I interrupted quietly.
I patted his leg. Dad just swallowed loudly. When he looked back at me, clearly prepared to mount another weak argument, I just shook my head.
“Non-negotiable,” I repeated.
“Skylar—” he tried again.
“No,” I said, this time more forcefully. “You have a problem. Your liver is busted. Your hand is completely smashed—it’s going to take months for you to even be able to start thinking about the piano again. I don’t know how many times you’ve gotten into trouble with these kinds of people—I couldn’t possibly count them all—but this is now the second time I’ve personally had to pay off your debts to some shitty loan shark, which means that I am now involved in illegal activities, something that could cost me my career too. This is the last time we’re doing this. Do you hear me, Dad? The last!”
My voice was shaking by the end, even though my volume hadn’t risen a bit. He watched me carefully as I spoke, his lips clenched as he fought tears. He felt terrible about it—that much was obvious. But I wasn’t going to let him continue an even more terrible cycle.
“You’re going to rehab,” I said definitively. “Because if you don’t, I’m turning you in for illegal gambling and for aiding and abetting known criminals.”
“Now, wait a second—”
“NO!” I finally stood up from my chair, unable to keep my cool any longer. I paced toward the door. Across the hall, a flurry of nurses at the station looked up. I turned on my heel. “You-you can’t keep doing this to us, Daddy!” I cried, my voice cracking on the last word.
I hadn’t called him Daddy in years, but somehow it slipped out now. He had always been my hero, even when I knew things weren’t completely right. Even when I knew he was a fundamentally weak man—the kind of man who took back a woman who continued to emotionally abuse him, the kind of man who couldn’t say no to a good game of cards. He had only ever been strong in two ways: his music and his love for me. I wanted so badly for him to extend those strengths to other parts of his life—to be the man I knew he could be.
I sat back down heavily in the chair, the metal leg screeching loudly across the floor. I laid my head on his leg, and before I could stop them, a cascade of tears poured into the thin fabric of his pants as I let out the years of pain, anguish, worry that his addiction had caused Bubbe and me. The sobs wracked my body. Once they lessened, I registered the feel of a hand stroking my head, combing through my hair the way he used to when I was a kid.
“Shh,” Dad intoned.
I turned into his touch and looked up to see him gazing down at me, with several streams of tears also falling. He sniffed as a few caught in his mustache, but kept his good hand where it was. We stayed where we were as our mutual tears dried up. Then I sat up slowly.
“Oh, Pips,” Dad said softly. He looked down at his cast, then back up at me. “Okay, Pips,” he croaked. “I’ll go.”
Before I could reply, a knock on the open door interrupted our conversation. Dad pulled his hand out of my grasp to wipe the tears away while I turned to greet our guest.
“Mr. Crosby?”
A man who couldn’t have been much older than me stepped into the room and hovered with his hand still on the doorknob.
“Can we help you?” I asked, turning awkwardly in my chair.
“I’m Matthew Zola. I work at the Brooklyn D.A.’s office. I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time.”
I glanced back at Dad, who clenched his blanket with his good hand. Zola openly assessed the nose brace, the bandaging over his hand, and the rainbow of bruises. I appraised Zola right back and raised my eyebrow.
“What is it you need?” I asked sharply.
“It’s probably best that it stays between me and Mr. Crosby, miss,” Zola said in that same placating tone Kieran used every time she spoke with a client’s family member who was ignorant of the legal situation.
