“What would you use it for?”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, the pain helping me to keep my emotions under control. “I could never fully decide what time I’d go back to. There were lots of possibilities. When you had your first drink, and I could tell you not to do it. When you drank so much you lost your job. That first unsuccessful stint in rehab. The first time you stole to get money for drink. Eventually, I decided that none of it would make the slightest bit of difference, that you would have drunk, regardless. I stopped dreaming about it at that point and vowed to get on with my life.” It sounded so harsh when I said it out loud, like I’d given up on him. Which, for all intents and purposes, was exactly what had happened.
“You’re right. None of those would have made any difference.” A long pause followed. “There’s only one thing that would have done.”
“What?”
“If doctors had diagnosed your mother earlier, she might have lived. If you’re going to get hold of a time machine, that’s where I’d suggest going.” I closed my eyes against the pain talking about my mother always evoked. “I only started drinking, so Ididn’t have to think about it. About her. And do you know what the worst thing is?”
I didn’t, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “What?”
“If she saw me now, she’d be so disappointed.” When I glanced at my father this time, there were tears in his eyes.
I turned to face him, the lump in my throat feeling like a beach ball. “No, she wouldn’t. If there was one person who’d understand, it would be her. She always saw the good in people.”
“Your mother was an angel.”
A tear slipped down my cheek, and I scrubbed it away with my sleeve. “She was. Far better than you or me.”
“Getting drunk was the only way I could deal with not having her by my side anymore. I can’t even describe how much it hurt. Alcohol numbed it to a degree. Only… when I sobered up, it all came rushing back. So before I knew it, the periods of sobriety became less and less.” My father let out a shuddering sigh. “In many ways, it feels like my life ended the day she breathed her last, and I know it’s not fair to you to say that. When I look back now, I think I probably should have just ended my life. It would have been easier on you.”
Shock rendered me speechless for a few seconds. Hot on the heels of that emotion came anger. It wasn’t anger at him, though. It was anger at myself. “That’s crap! Losing two parents instead of one wouldn’t have made it easier.”
“But you lost me, anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“I haven’t lost you. You’re still here.” I punctuated my statement by pressing my hand to my father’s chest, his heart thudding beneath my palm. I shook my head, my skull jam-packed full of whirling thoughts and regrets.Maybe if I’d done this. Maybe if I’d done that. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.“We should have talked about her before.”
My father pressed his hand over mine. “I couldn’t, and you didn’t want to.”
“No. But we both needed to. We both missed her, and rather than finding comfort in each other, we…” I couldn’t even describe what we’d become. The sniping. The digs. The resentment. It had all been there, growing exponentially year by year until a tiny pebble had become a boulder large enough to block any cave entrance.
A tear trickled its way down my father’s cheek and I realized I was crying, too. “I miss you,” I said. “I know you’re here and that sounds crazy, but I do.”
“It doesn’t sound crazy. You miss the man I used to be.”
I looked at my father. I really looked at him for the first time in as long as I could remember. “Is he gone?”
My father let out a slow breath. “I don’t know.”
I pulled him in for a hug, the physical distance between us suddenly feeling like a gaping chasm. “I’ve changed as well, and not for the better. I’ve kept people at arm’s length. I’ve surrounded myself with people who need something from me, so they’re too caught up in their own crap to look too closely at me. I’ve built an emotional wall around myself and controlled which parts of me I let people see.” It didn’t escape my attention that I was basically repeating everything Mac had said about me.
My father held on tight, neither of us seeming to want to let go. “I’m sorry to hear that, son.” There was a slight pause before he corrected himself. “I mean, Laurent. And if that’s my fault, I’m truly sorry.”
“You’re too thin,” I said. “I worry about you. I know it doesn’t seem like I do, but I do. I worry about how much longer you’re going to be around. That’s why I was so angry when you were hospitalized for something preventable. What possessed you to stay somewhere where you had to climb through a second-story window?”
“Squats don’t grow on trees.”
“No, I don’t suppose they do.” The pause this time was longer, the only sound my father’s breathing. I pulled back from him so I could see his face. “I wish…” The thing I wanted to say shriveled up and died in my throat. There was such a thing as being too honest. Especially to the man himself. He might not laugh, but him being unable to give it to me would be just as crushing.
“You wish what?” he asked. I shook my head. “Say it.”
I held his gaze. “I wish you could beat this thing so I could have my father back. The father I used to have. I want us to meet up for lunch on a Sunday. I want to go to you when I have a problem. I want to not panic every time my phone rings that it’s someone calling to tell me I have to plan a funeral. I want to answer questions about my parents without forensically examining every word I say. I want to feel I can introduce you to someone special in my life without warning them first.” The words rushed out of me like water from a waterfall, leaving me feeling drained in their wake.
My father’s throat bobbed. “I want all of that, too. So badly. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” He jerked his gaze from mine and focused on the wall. “I want to try rehab again, and I want to make it work this time.”
His words lit a fire in me. After the previous two stints had failed, he’d shown zero interest in ever trying again, so this was huge. Forcing the spark of optimism down, I tried to think more logically about the situation. “Why would it work this time when it never has before?”
“I need to talk about things, about your mother. I’ve always refused to do that. I’m ready now.”
