HE’D BEEN GONE for two days. Forty-eight hours and not a single word from him. Not that I made any effort to call him. But his radio silence spoke volumes to me.
He’d chosen them. He’d returned to his old life, leaving me here to pick up the pieces of my broken one.
Before I could wallow in my sorrows any longer, the phone rang, and damn it to all hell, hope sprang to life in my chest. “Hello?” I answered excitedly.
“Jude,” my father greeted. “How are you?” His voice was clear, no slurring, no stuttering.
“Are you sober?” I asked, completely mystified.
“What kind of question is that?” he asked, slightly offended.
“Uh, I’d say it’s a reasonable one, given your history.”
He laughed, saying, “Yeah I guess you’re right.” He sounded happy, and it surprised the hell out of me, as if it was the most unusual of things to happen.
“So what’s up?” I asked, wondering to what I owed the pleasure of him calling.
I figured he’d run out of beer or needed more groceries, so when he asked, “I wanted to make you boys something for dinner tomorrow, but I wasn’t sure what you’d want. Does Micah like pot roast?”
Damn it. So much for not wanting to deal with this. “Uh, actually, it’ll just be me. Micah went home.” The line was silent for a minute.
“Why?” he asked finally.
“Not sure, Dad. I really don’t know. Did you need me to come by? I’m really just not feeling up to much of anything.” I hated having to bail, but I simply didn’t feel like driving there and having to take care of him.
I didn’t feel like taking care of anyone. All I felt like doing was curling in a ball, licking my wounds, and sleeping the day away.
He sighed before saying, “Of course, I’ll be okay. There’s a meeting tomorrow night I can go to.”
“A meeting?”
“I was going to wait until I saw you in person to tell you, but yeah, I started going to the local AA meetings.”
Dead. Silence.
“What?” I was simply too shocked to come up with anything else.
The sound of him flopping into his old recliner filtered into the line. He huffed, and said, “It’s something I should have done a long time ago, and then with you . . . Well, let’s just say it was my time.”
“With me what?” He’d piqued my curiosity. What had changed so suddenly that in all the years he should’ve been taking care of me he’d never been motivated to do this before.
“And Micah. You were happy and there was a future. I know it was your future, but . . . no, it’s okay. Never mind,” he tried to dismiss the conversation. “I’ll talk to you dur—”
“And you felt like you had a little bit of a future, too, didn’t you?” I filled in the blanks for him.
“Maybe,” he admitted, his voice low.
I could deal with my own heartache, or at least that was the lie I was going to continue telling myself, but taking his on as well, that was the breaking point.
We ended the call, deciding I would stop out there at some point during the week. Between the thoughts running through my head, and now carrying the burden of my dad’s sadness, I was nothing more than a ball of nervous energy.
I needed to run. I needed my lungs to burn on each breath, my legs to ache with each step. I needed the bite of the physical pain so that the emotional turmoil was lessened somehow. An eight-mile trek was exactly what I needed.
The hot shower didn’t hurt either.
A few hours later, as afternoon turned to night, there was a knock on the door, rousing me from what would have been a terribly timed nap. When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Brandon, a six-pack in each hand, standing on the porch. “You shouldn’t have,” I joked, taking the beer from him. “But what are you going to drink?”
“Funny.” He faked a laugh as he closed the door behind him. “The real question is what are you going to make me to eat?”
