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I fluttered my eyelashes.

“Well.” His jaw tightened, and I smiled wider.

“Morning, Daddy.”

My father looked older than the last time I’d seen him. Silver had taken over the sides of his hair, and the deep lines beside his mouth had settled permanently into his scowling face. He was still handsome. Everybody always said that.

Pastor Carter looked distinguished.

Pastor Carter had such a commanding presence.

Pastor Carter spoke with authority.

Pastor Carter could fill a church.

Hah! Well, so can fucking smoke. But nobody congratulated a house fire.

“What are you wearing?” he asked.

I looked down again. “Clothes?”

His nostrils flared and there was that tiny twitch in his mouth. The warning I remembered better than bedtime stories. My body remembered too. Apparently it didn’t give a damn that I was a grown man now.

My shoulders pulled inward before I caught them. My fingers curled around the plastic handles of the pom-poms. And then, suddenly, I was fourteen again. Standing in our kitchen. Pink polish on one thumbnail. His hand around my wrist.

“What is this?”

“It’s nothing.”

“What is this?”

“Dad—”

The bottle hit the wall. Glass exploded. My mother stared at the floor. His fingers tightened more and then my hand was burning from the outside in. Penance for daring to exist in a way he didn’t see fit. The stove top was smoldering red-hot. He used it as a reminder that the pain and fire of hell was real.

He just didn’t realize back then, I guess, that HE was that hell for me. Fire and brimstone sounded like hot rocks at a massage parlor compared to the man in front of me.

“You will not bring this sickness into my house!”

I forced my shoulders back, returning to the present and reminding myself I was fucking Alvin Carter.

My father looked towards the campers. “Perhaps we should speak privately.”

“No thanks. And we’re actually in the middle of an activity… if ya don’t mind.” I gave the pom-pom a little shake in his direction.

“This camp receives substantial funding from our congregation.”

“And?”

“And I would like to understand what exactly is being taught here.”

“Teamwork makes the dream work, Daddy,” I said. A girl snorted, and I pointed at her. “Do not undermine me, Madison.”

She covered her mouth and continued the snickers.

My father’s mouth hardened—I knew that look too. I had spent my entire childhood cataloging his expressions the way other children learned multiplication tables. Disappointment. Humiliation. Anger. The one on his face now? Yeah, that was fantastical disgust. Familiar territory.

“We were told you and Mr. D’Angelo would be overseeing traditional summer programming.”