To say what I’d known all my life.
In a moment of weakness, I pulled my gaze away from my father. Looking over his shoulder, I saw Micah standing at the sliding glass doors. He looked out at us, a sad and eager look on his freshly shaven face. Everything had happened so quickly, I didn’t even have the chance to notice his hair was gone.
He looked fucking gorgeous.
His eyes, clear and alive, stared into mine, somehow telling me everything would be okay.
Even though I was certain it never would be.
Dad’s hand clamping down on my knee shook me from my daze. “Don’t make me ask. Please,” he begged. “I’m okay with it. As long as you’re happy, I’m okay with anything you tell me. But I can’t ask. It’s—”
“It’s okay, Dad.” I interrupted, hoping to calm his emotions.
But as he shot up from his chair, I realized my words did anything but calm him. “Okay?” he questioned in a rage so hot I wondered what the hell I’d said to set him off.
Especially when he’d just said it was okay. Clearly, we were on two totally different pages.
“How can it be okay when my son doesn’t even want to be around me? Huh,” he spat, spinning around to look at me. “How can it, whatever the heckitis, be okay when you have to clean me up and put me to bed once or twice a week . . . still,” he added for emphasis. “After all these years,” he puffed, defeated. “I thought I’d get over her and the drinking would stop. And I did, you know?” Weighed down by something I hadn’t seen coming, he sank into his chair and let out another deep breath.
One he seemed to have been holding for years.
“I got over her. Years ago I stopped missing her.” He twisted in his seat, his eyes shining with unshed tears, holding mine in a game of emotional chicken. Breaking first, he added, “And then I started missing you.” His voice broke under the pressure of it all.
And so did my heart.
“Dad,” I spoke, but I had no clue where the hell I was going.
“You started college—”
“But I lived at home,” I broke in, feeling the need to defend myself.
He laughed a soft chuckle with no front in hiding his pain. “Lived?” he questioned, rhetorically. “You were never there.” Opening my mouth to defend myself even more, he cut me off with that “dad” look I knew meant business. Despite all his years spent in a drunken stupor, he was still my father, and I owed him that much respect.
He was the only parent I had left. So no matter how much I tried to bury my emotions, they always bubbled to the surface, like hot lava cutting through the crust of the earth, scorching everything in its path.
“I don’t blame you.” He cut through the silence. “I didn’t want to be around me either. That’s why I drank . . . why I drink,” he corrected before adding, “So much.” After another blip of silence, he said, “I know it’s put a strain on us.”
“Ha!” There was no holding back the actual outburst of laughter. “You could say that again.” All the respect I owed him as my father flew out the proverbial window when I asked, “Do you know how many times I cleaned up your puke?”
Looking directly into my eyes, not bothering to hide any of his shame, he said, “More times than I care to recount, Jude.” He closed his eyes tightly as he clamped his hand down on my knee. “I wish I could . . . I mean, I would go back and change it all if I could.” Shocked by his admission, I was stunned by the fact he’d given any sort of credence to his alcoholic tendencies.
After letting out a deep, resigned sigh, I said, “I’d do it all over again, Dad.” He looked up at me, surprised somehow, his face raised at all sorts of awkward angles. “I would,” I clarified, even though he hadn’t asked for it. “Every single night. I’d take care of you all over again. Without even thinking about it.” Reassuring his unspoken concerns was something I was used to, but tonight it was different.
Tears shimmered in his eyes. “I’m sorry, so damn sorry.” His voice, strangled and pained, cut through me, my bleeding heart staining the concrete under my feet. “I didn’t mean . . .”
We let the silence hang over us, heavy like the dark star-lit sky, its weight threatening to crush us. Only we were saved by the tiny rays of light bursting through the pin points of hope dotting the black sky.
“So,” he dragged the word out, and I knew it was my turn up to the plate.
“Dad.” There was a tinge of whining in my voice, as if I was begging him not to make me talk to him. But the vulnerability in his eyes, shining there just as it always had been, broke me. “I love him,” I admitted on a deep, brave breath. Strengthened by my admission and by Micah’s strong frame, standing there in the window, unwavering and stronger than ever, I wasn’t afraid.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t scared.
As I waited for my world to come crashing down, my jaw clenched on its own accord, my teeth feeling as if they’d crack under the pressure of it all. When he spoke, the ground shattered under my feet. “That’s all I needed to hear,” he said, his voice shaking in happiness more than sadness.
Unable to say anything in response, I looked up at my dad, my eyes stinging with so much pent-up emotion, I wasn’t sure I’d know what to do with myself when I didn’t have it to lean on anymore. Lamely, all I could spit out was, “What?”
“I said,” he spoke, his voice clear and steady, “I’m happy for you.” When he added, “both of you,” I was absolutely shocked into silence, so I let him carry on, saying the words he’d probably longed to speak for a long time. “I knew back then. Heard you on more than a few nights, but I didn’t know what to say.” He chuckled, a soft sound, flying out into the evening sky. “I even convinced myself it was just in my head, that I was too drunk to make any sense of it. So I told myself I’d sleep it off and see how things were in the morning. And he was always gone. There it was. It was in my head. Easy peasy,” he dismissed with a thick coat of guilty anger hanging on his confession. “At least that’s what I told myself, but I knew.” Holding my shocked stare in his sad one, he reached for my hands. “He loves you, too.”
