FD:Did that concern you?
LT:What concerned me was the sneaking. I remember one day—he must’ve been, what, eight or so—I ran out to do some errands and when I get back—it’s Saturday, you know? I’m fucking tired and hungry and just wanna sit down and have a beer, and I’m lugging this propane tank upstairs from the garage in one hand, I got groceries in the other, and I’m calling out for Emmett to give me a hand. I get up there and he’s nowhere to be found. I thought,Where the fuck is he?Kid spent most of his time playing that fucking Pokémon game, so I know he didn’t go out. I think he’s pranking me, and I’m getting pissed off, right? I’m running around, checking closets and looking under the beds, and I’m like,Quit fucking around. I’m not fucking playing no more, you know? Then I hear him in the kitchen. I open the pantry and there’s Emmett, white as a sheet. His face is covered in chocolate, and he fucking bursts out crying. “I’m sorry, I’msorry, please don’t get mad.” Like that. He’s holding a fucking half gallon of rocky road to his chest. It’s fucking empty, and he’s saying, “It was an accident, I’ll never do it again, I promise.”
FD:As in, I won’t eat when I’m not supposed to?
LT:Fucking broke my heart. The fear in his eyes, over a few bites of ice cream? So I call his mom and I tell her, “Hey, what the fuck is going on in that house? Why’s my kid so terrified to be found eating that he’s hiding in the fucking closet?”
FD:How’d she respond?
LT:The bitch says, “Maybe if he didn’t have a raging alcoholic for a father, he wouldn’t have to eat his feelings away.” She says he’s been running to her complaining for years, saying he hates coming to my house, that he’s scared of me.
FD:That must’ve been hard to hear.
LT:Blew a hole through my chest. I did everything for that kid, and he was talking shit? Fuck that.
FD:I’m guessing you never mentioned it to him.
LT:You bet your ass I did. Found him upstairs and said, “Fuck you, you ungrateful little shit. That’s the last time I go to bat for you. You think I’m a drunk asshole, you can stay at your mom’s. You think it’s so great over there, you can deal with Hank yourself.”
FD:And did he deal with Hank? As far as you know?
LT:Things got better after that, I think. Least, he never came running to me again.
CHAPTER 20
The restaurant was loud and crowded, hardly anywhere to sit, so Emmett and Lizette took their food out to the covered patio and squeezed in at a small table paved with the same chipped Talavera-style tiles that had been there as long as Emmett could remember.
There was more to Cotija’s for him than just the food. The taco shop stood across the street from the condo complex where his dad had lived for years. From where he sat, he could see it rising like a ridge of white stucco and brown roofs behind a low-slung strip of shops.
Coming here with his father—for a breakfast burrito to start the day, or a bean and cheese burrito after Tourmaline Beach—was the happy, uncomplicated part of his time at Dad’s, punctuated by frequent explosions of rage.
Lou Truesdale was a loving father and generous friend, but he wasn’t an easy man. He had a famously short fuse and would fly off the handle at the smallest inconvenience. His needs had to be anticipated to prevent a detonation. Road rage was a given. One of Emmett’s most terrifying childhood memories was of the day he asked his dad if they could have McDonald’s for lunch. He saw immediately he’d said the wrong thing. But rather than suggest something else, Lou gritted his teeth and dropped F-bombs under his breath as he drove. The sixteen-year-old at the drive-thru gave him the wrong soda. Emmett’s fries were missing and they had to double back. By the time they got it right, Lou’s anger was at a ten. He gunned it away from the drive-thru window and slammed the brakes as they reached the road, sending Emmett’s orange soda flying from his hand and exploding against the footwell, drenching the freshly shampooed carpets.
Staying with Dad was always a minefield, but Emmett’s time there was mostly carefree compared to life with Hank. Cupboards full of snacks. Days spent splashing around the pool or playing Game Boy on the couch without being sneered at.
Most nights were spent watching a movie on demand with a bowl of microwave popcorn or Fig Newtons spread with cream cheese. They were Dad’s guilty pleasure, but he rarely managed to get through more than a handful. After a bottle or two of wine, his head would bob toward his chest and he’d be snoring in his recliner, Emmett prodding him and whispering, “Wake up. You’re missing the movie.”
That Dad was such a heavy sleeper had its benefits, though. It meant he never stirred to the sound of Emmett reopening the Fig Newtons or, inevitably, pushing the empty package down to the bottom of the kitchen trash, hoping his dad never asked where they’d gone.
Emmett sometimes felt sad and lonely at Dad’s, but he didn’t overthink it. Dad drank like all men drank, and he fell asleep because he was tired.
His mother seemed to see things differently. “He didn’t fall asleep, he passed out,” she’d say. “My mom had a drinking problem too. She tried to quit when Abby was born, but once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.”
Emmett struggled with that word,alcoholic. It didn’t fit with the image of the hale, hardworking, successful father he knew.
“Believe it,” she said. “That’s why he hates McDonald’s so much—because they don’t serve beer.”
When Emmett turned thirteen and started looking for reasons to hate his dad, this seemed as good an excuse as any.Yeah, fuck that alcoholic asshole, he thought, throwing it in his face whenever they argued. At those moments, Emmett could scream as loud as his dad, could throw just as many glasses at the wall.
But the truth was, Emmett had never especially cared about the drinking. Mostly he resented his dad’s anger, which he feared he’d inherited; and was sad and confused about why Lou, as much as he clearly loved his son, had never protected him from Hank. He’d known what was happening—some of it, at least—so why hadn’t he stepped in before things got really bad? What had Emmett done to deserve his apathy?
As he sat on the patio of Cotija’s eating his California burrito—carne asada, crispy French fries, cheese, pico, and guac—he noticed Lizette staring at him. “What?” he sniped through a mouthful of steak, his Pavlovian response to being watched eating.
“Nothing, you just—you’ve lost so much weight.”
“Oh. Thanks.” He posed cutely, as if he hadn’t just barked at her.
“I’m not saying it as a compliment—”
