rest.
“I hate to ask, but do you have anything to eat?” my dad says, like he isn’t perfectly capable of moving to the pantry and finding out himself. I open the refrigerator and prep a plate of meatloaf I made two nights ago.
I set the food in front of him and pull out a chair, hoping he’ll make this easy for both of us, though, if I were to really think about it, my father’s strong suit was never making it easy for anyone. He forks at the meatloaf, pushing it around the edges of his plate, occasionally spooning it in for a morose, thoughtful bite, his jaw working and working and working, as if he could chew forever because then, surely, we wouldn’t have to talk.
Finally, too exhausted to wait much longer, I say simply, “Dad, please, tell me what happened. You’ve been sober for so long.”
He runs a few fingers through his tufted graying hair and shoots out his breath. He’s hesitating, wondering if he can spin this into some tale in which he is the victim, in which the bartender held him down and poured those shots down the back of his throat,while he thrashed around and tried to refuse. Metaphorically at least. My dad, though a former football captain and two-time Westlake businessman of the year, is a portrait of contradictions, the epitome of the adage
Don’t believe what you see
, because what you see of him is often a bluff, a flimsy excuse for what is really happening at his core. Tonight, though, he surprises me.
“Adrianna left me,” he says, eyes casting down at the oak table.
“Timmy Hernandez told me that you told him she was in Mexico. Not that she left you,” I say, confused, disbelieving.
“She is. Now. But she left me three weeks ago. She went down there without me.” He sighs. “We already had the tickets and prepaid for the condo.” He looks so very, very old as he says this, like his joy for living has been vaporized, like he’s ready to call it a day. The creases sink lower around his mouth the circles around his eyes are black holes. I think of the picture from the bottom drawer in my bureau, the one in which our family seemed unbreakable, and even though I’m armed with the map of how he got here, it’s difficult to reconcile the snapshot of that man with the one sitting here now. My father listlessly nudges a chunk of meatloaf, and I rise to get him a glass of water.
“What happened?” I ask, holding the cup under the faucet for too long, distracted by my thoughts. The cold water spills onto my wrist, and I splash it off me, a damp dog after the rain.
He shakes his head. “She was diagnosed with melanoma.”
“What?” I say. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“No, no, it’s not as bad as it sounds. Stage one. Very early. They caught it, she’ll be fine.” Even as he says this, his face turns ashen, his mind casting about for a drink. I wipe the butt of the glass with a paper towel and set it down in front of him. He sips long and deeply, like he’s arid ground grateful for a storm.
“So if she’s going to be fine, what’s the problem?”
“I just …” He stumbles, looking for any sort of reasonable way to explain how far he’s fallen. His eyes burn red, his lashes batting furiously. “I just couldn’t accept it. That it was fixable. With your mother … it happened so quickly with her, and when Adie told me this … I couldn’t accept that she’d be okay.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I thought I could handle it. And Adie just wanted to deal with it and be done with it, move on like it wasn’t a big deal.” He waves his fork in the air, as if informing me that his girlfriend has cancer would have been a nuisance. “Anyway … I picked up a beer one night to relax, thinking it would be just one. And then it was more than one, and then it was the next night …” He drops his head. “And so on.”
“And Adie?”
“You know she has a zero-tolerance policy,” he says, his voice weighted in guilt. Adie’s first husband was a
“I hate to ask, but do you have anything to eat?” my dad says, like he isn’t perfectly capable of moving to the pantry and finding out himself. I open the refrigerator and prep a plate of meatloaf I made two nights ago.
I set the food in front of him and pull out a chair, hoping he’ll make this easy for both of us, though, if I were to really think about it, my father’s strong suit was never making it easy for anyone. He forks at the meatloaf, pushing it around the edges of his plate, occasionally spooning it in for a morose, thoughtful bite, his jaw working and working and working, as if he could chew forever because then, surely, we wouldn’t have to talk.
Finally, too exhausted to wait much longer, I say simply, “Dad, please, tell me what happened. You’ve been sober for so long.”
He runs a few fingers through his tufted graying hair and shoots out his breath. He’s hesitating, wondering if he can spin this into some tale in which he is the victim, in which the bartender held him down and poured those shots down the back of his throat,while he thrashed around and tried to refuse. Metaphorically at least. My dad, though a former football captain and two-time Westlake businessman of the year, is a portrait of contradictions, the epitome of the adage
Don’t believe what you see
, because what you see of him is often a bluff, a flimsy excuse for what is really happening at his core. Tonight, though, he surprises me.
“Adrianna left me,” he says, eyes casting down at the oak table.
“Timmy Hernandez told me that you told him she was in Mexico. Not that she left you,” I say, confused, disbelieving.
“She is. Now. But she left me three weeks ago. She went down there without me.” He sighs. “We already had the tickets and prepaid for the condo.” He looks so very, very old as he says this, like his joy for living has been vaporized, like he’s ready to call it a day. The creases sink lower around his mouth the circles around his eyes are black holes. I think of the picture from the bottom drawer in my bureau, the one in which our family seemed unbreakable, and even though I’m armed with the map of how he got here, it’s difficult to reconcile the snapshot of that man with the one sitting here now. My father listlessly nudges a chunk of meatloaf, and I rise to get him a glass of water.
“What happened?” I ask, holding the cup under the faucet for too long, distracted by my thoughts. The cold water spills onto my wrist, and I splash it off me, a damp dog after the rain.
He shakes his head. “She was diagnosed with melanoma.”
“What?” I say. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“No, no, it’s not as bad as it sounds. Stage one. Very early. They caught it, she’ll be fine.” Even as he says this, his face turns ashen, his mind casting about for a drink. I wipe the butt of the glass with a paper towel and set it down in front of him. He sips long and deeply, like he’s arid ground grateful for a storm.
“So if she’s going to be fine, what’s the problem?”
“I just …” He stumbles, looking for any sort of reasonable way to explain how far he’s fallen. His eyes burn red, his lashes batting furiously. “I just couldn’t accept it. That it was fixable. With your mother … it happened so quickly with her, and when Adie told me this … I couldn’t accept that she’d be okay.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I thought I could handle it. And Adie just wanted to deal with it and be done with it, move on like it wasn’t a big deal.” He waves his fork in the air, as if informing me that his girlfriend has cancer would have been a nuisance. “Anyway … I picked up a beer one night to relax, thinking it would be just one. And then it was more than one, and then it was the next night …” He drops his head. “And so on.”
“And Adie?”
“You know she has a zero-tolerance policy,” he says, his voice weighted in guilt. Adie’s first husband was a
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