The first thing I notice is how rested he looks. I’d even go so far as to use the word healthy. His eyes aren’t bloodshot, there’s color to his face, and he appears steady on his feet as he stands, greeting me with a drop of his head.
“Son.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, ignoring the bullshit title he’s just given me. I do a quick take of the waiting room to make sure we’re alone. If I have to lay into this asshole, I don’t want anyone else to hear it.
His eyes trail down the front of me, and he smiles. “You’re in a suit. It’s been a long time since I saw you dressed up.”
“Yeah. Twelve years at Mom’s funeral. I’m surprised you even looked at me that day.”
“I looked at you, Son,” he replies, lifting his chin and squaring off with me. “I just couldn’t deal with your pain and mine at the same time.”
“What do you want?” I’m losing my patience, and it’s evident in my tone as I try and hurry this conversation along.
He sticks his hand into the front pocket of his shirt and retrieves something, which he flips at me. I catch it out of instinct, letting my fingers fall open to reveal the blue chip.
“Ten days sober,” he says proudly. “I know it ain’t much, but it’s more than I’ve had in a long time.”
I study the chip, letting my thumb glide over the engravings, rolling it between my fingers like I did with the one I took from his cigar box. I don’t realize he’s moved closer to me until I feel a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m not gonna lie. That doctor scared the shit outta me. After you left when he told us both I needed to stop drinking or I’d kill myself, I kept thinking about your mom and how she would’ve looked at me. How she would’ve hated me for what I was doing.”
“I’ve told you that for years,” I grunt out, shrugging his hand off my shoulder and looking up at him with nothing but resentment. All the shit he put me through, and all it took was hearing from a fucking doctor that he was going to end up drinking himself to death for him to listen? “You never even flinched when I brought it up.”
“Drunks can’t be reasoned with, Son. We care about one thing, and one thing only. Anything you tried to say to me when I was drinking?” He shakes his head with a grimace. “Waste of your time.”
I toss the chip at his chest. “You know what else is a waste of time? You, driving six hours to show me you’ve finally decided to man up to your shit. You’re too late. I don’t care what you do anymore.”
“I didn’t just come here to show you that. I came to give you this too.” His hand not clutching the chip produces a set of keys out of his pocket. He forces them into my hand, and I look down, recognizing them immediately.
“Your house keys?”
“It’s hard for me to be there,” he explains, his voice shifting into a tone I haven’t heard him use since I was a kid. “I want to drink, every day. Right now, I want to drink, and it’ll always be like that. That shit doesn’t go away, and being in that house doesn’t help me. My sobriety has to be number one. I found a small apartment in town. I’m gonna stay there. The house is yours if you want to sell it, or do whatever you want with it.”
I look up at him. “I thought you were already selling it ’cause you needed money for booze?”
“Booze? No. I left you a message telling you why I was selling it. Didn’t you listen to it?”
I shrug. “Few seconds of it.”
He tucks the blue chip into his pocket, giving the panel a gentle pat. A smile twists across his mouth. “You know I can’t work computers for shit. Your mom was always better at that stuff.” His eyes fall to a space between us. “The first rehab center I found online was gonna cost me fifty grand. I figured they all cost that much these days, and I don’t have that kind of money. I’ve dipped into your mom’s life insurance policy a bit, but the rest of it I put away for you.”
My eyes widen.
He studies my response with a steady look of assurance. “I’ve known I’ve had a problem for a long time. I made it so I couldn’t touch that money, sober or not. It’s yours when you want it. I called a realtor to put the house up for sale to pay for that rehab center, but then that little spit-fire of yours came to see me.”
There’s a lot of information I should be taking in right now. My dad’s sober, I’m holding keys to the house I never thought I’d step foot in again, but that last thing he just said to me seems to be the only thing I’ve heard.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, wanting for the first time in years to hear what he has to say.
His smile grows to a full on grin now. “The redhead. She’s a feisty thing. Reminded me of your mom a bit.”
My heart knocks against my ribs, hard enough to crack several. “Tessa? She came to see you? When?” I feel myself moving closer, needing this information more than I need to breathe. “Hello? Fucking talk!”
He backs up, holding his hands up in surrender with a laugh. “Jesus. Relax, will ya? She came by…” He looks up at the ceiling for a few seconds, and I think I might actually die before he figures this out. I’m so close to beating the information out of him, but what the hell good would that do me?
He nods decisively, and a loud gush of air leaves my lungs as he comes to his conclusion.
“The day after you gave me my chip back, she came to see me. I’m not really sure what brought her there, but she had these pamphlets with her. Treatment programs for addicts that are run through the hospital. It’s great, and it’s free. I have a ton of support. I can meet with doctors if I’m having problems…”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s great. What did she say?”
He chuckles through his grin, reaching up and scratching along his jaw. “She laid into me a little bit. A lot, actually. Said some shit you’ve said to me, but it felt different coming from her. It was like she was protecting you or something.”
My mouth goes dry, making swallowing near impossible. “I don’t understand why she would bring you anything. She doesn’t know you. I never talked about you with her.”
He shoves his hands into his pockets, his smile fading. “That doesn’t surprise me. I can’t say anything I’ve done over the past twelve years deserved to be talked about, and I get keeping her out of all that. I do. But women, they figure shit out on their own, Son. Your mom was the same way. When they’re determined, good fucking luck keeping them in the dark about stuff.” He shakes his head through a laugh. “That girl of yours, I like her. She doesn’t take no shit. That’s a good quality to have in a woman.”
“I don’t have her anymore,” I reply.
“Then that’s your choice, not hers. ’Cause she sure as hell didn’t come to that hospital for me.” He pulls his hands out of his pockets, and grabs my shoulders, firmly holding my attention. I see the regret weighing heavy on his face, deepening his frown.
“I should’ve been better. You deserved better.”
“It’s a little late for an apology,” I say, trying to step back out of his grasp. His hands tighten their hold, and he steps closer.