“Son, I know you miss Erica, but I don’t know that I truly understood how you felt until recently,” he admitted. I tried to suck in a breath, but it was as if there was a weight on my chest keeping my lungs from expanding. Noticing my near panic attack, Dad shook his head and reached out for my arm. “I’m sorry, son. That didn’t come out right. Your mother is fine, but every day this crap she’s dealing with hangs, it on worries me. As much as I try to tell myself it’s nothing and that the doctors know what they’re doing, I can’t keep my mind from rushing to the worst possible scenarios.”
He needed to talk faster because I was seriously about ready to lose my damn mind. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and tried to find a way to dig deeper that wouldn’t come across as me second-guessing the doctors. Although Dad was proud of me for going as far as I had, he was quick to point out that they did something I hadn’t. They stuck through to graduation and went through their residency programs. They were doctors, where I was a med school dropout.
“For now, we’ll have to take their word that it was something viral,” he continued, not helping my mental state at all. “I just wanted to apologize to you. I was too harsh on you when I told you that you needed to get over losing her. You will, but it has to happen in your own time.”
“I think I’m ready,” I blurted out without thinking about the implications. If he was still worrying about Mom, he didn’t need me weighing on his mind as well.
“That’s good to hear, son.” He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his barrel chest. “Have you met someone special, or is this something you’re saying to try and make me feel better?”
I debated how to answer. I didn’t want to lie to him, I hated doing that, but I didn’t want to jinx myself, either. And if I told him there was someone I thought might be strong enough to carry me when I faltered, he’d want to know more. I decided to keep going with my trend of half-truths since it had worked so far. And it was more palatable than blatantly lying.
“There might be someone, but I’m not ready to talk about it,” I told him. “All I know is I’ve done a lot of thinking lately, and Jagger deserves better than I’ve been giving him, and part of that is not being lonely forever.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he praised me. Dad helped himself to another cup of coffee and brought back that bottom container I’d forgotten about. It was my mom’s fresh blueberry bread. My favorite for as long as I could remember. Seeing that told me she’d done this on purpose. I could almost imagine her listening to Dad’s side of the conversation this morning and putting the plan into motion to have him bring the bread as a way to get me to talk. “You’ve had a tough go of it. It’s time to stop scratching back like a chicken.”
I wondered if he’d say the same once he knew what I was contemplating. Would he be so eager to see me move on if he knew it might be with a man rather than a woman? That was a bridge we’d have to cross eventually, but not yet. For all I knew, I’d tell Dax how I felt and he’d say it wasn’t worth risking a friendship for me to see if I really wanted to be with a man. And that was a real possibility I was ready to face. He had as much on the line as I did, if his assumptions about how the community would feel about an openly gay teacher were correct. I liked to think we were a bit more progressive than that around here, but I couldn’t be certain.
Dad and I spent the next hour talking about nothing in particular. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed sitting around with him on Saturdays when Mom was off doing her shopping. We used to be closer than most of my friends were with their parents. Those quiet weekends had become less frequent when I went off to college, and the tradition died completely after Erica and I got married. As I watched him, taking in just how much he’d aged over the years, I couldn’t help but wonder when he’d gotten so old. Or how many of those gray hairs and worry lines on his face were because of me.
