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Sixty-eight
Henley
I don’t see Conner again.
Even though I knew I wouldn’t, it didn’t stop me from hoping.
I see Kaitlyn every day. She’s a nurse at Sojourn, which explains how she and Conner became involved. She’s never anything but kind to me. Smiles at me when I walk in to see Ryan in the morning, waves goodbye to me when I leave after Ryan’s therapist comes to take him for his session in the afternoon. Even though she knows who I am, she’s nice but I guess she can afford to be.
She’s the one who gets to have coffee with Conner. Gets to hand him screwdrivers and laugh at his jokes.
Ryan tells me to leave every morning. Tells me he doesn’t want me here. I tell him if he wants me to leave, he’s going to have to get up and physically throw me out.
That usually shuts him up.
Finally, on my last day here, he breaks. “She fucked us up, pretty good, didn’t she, Hen?”
I nod slowly, pretending to study the checker board between us when what I’m really doing is trying to close the gaping wound he just cleaved into my chest. “I don’t think she wanted us to know how to love people. What it felt like to have people love us back.” I push one of my checker pieces across the board. “I think she knew we’d be stronger if we did.” I look up from the board to find him looking at me. “But we don’t have to let her win.”
He looks out the window. Something he does when things get to be too much for him. When we were kids, he’d just leave. Stay gone. Avoid the mess. Leave me to deal with it. Not because he didn’t care but because he didn’t know how.
Yeah. She fucked us up pretty good.
“I love you, Ryan.”
I watch his throat work, bobbing against the torrent of emotion that seems to be drowning him.
Finally, he turns and looks at me, his mouth open, on the verge of saying something when an orderly comes in to take him to his therapy session. Whatever he was about to say, it’s too late.
Time for me to go.
I find the place on my own and when I walk in, the only person who pays me any attention is the bartender. Same guy as before and when he sees me, he automatically looks toward the door like he’s waiting for Conner to follow me through it. When he doesn’t, the bartender’s relief is palpable. Jerking his chin at a corner booth, he goes back to ignoring his customers.
That’s where I find him, sleeping it off, his head wedged into the corner of where the back of the booth meets the wall. Tipped back, mouth open.
Sliding into the booth across from him, I watch him sleep for a moment. Try to remember the steps. What it was like to live with a drunk. It comes back way too easily.
“Dad.” The word snags on the back of my throat and I clear it. “Dad, I need you to wake up.”
I ain’t your dad, Henley Rose. I never was.
“Jack.” It feels wrong calling him that. Disrespectful somehow. “Wake up, Jack.” Reaching across the table, I give his shoulder a rough shake before pulling back quickly.
As soon as I make contact, he jerks awake, head snapping up with a start to stare at me with wide, panicked eyes. That’s when I realize I look nothing like him. I always thought we had the same chin. Maybe the same eye-shape, but we don’t. I don’t look like my mother either. She’s naturally beautiful. Perfectly-shaped nose. Full mouth. Flawless skin. Ryan is the perfect blend of Jack and Lydia O’Connell, but not me. I don’t look like anyone.
“What are you doing here?” He slumps back in his seat, like the bartender, he looks around for Conner, seems confused when he doesn’t magically appear. “Where’s the kid?” Thankfully, he seems mostly sober.
“I came alone.” I press my hands flat on the table between us. “I need to tell you something.”
“Is this about last time?” He scowls at me. “I know it was—”
“I forgive you.” I cut him off because I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want him to pretend to be concerned. To care. I just want to say what I need to say and get out. “I forgive you, Dad.” I call him dad because good or bad, that’s what he was. He’s the only father I knew for a very long time.
He just sits there and looks at me, like he can’t figure out why I’m here. Why I keep showing up, uninvited. Unwanted.
“I—” I clear my throat and nod, starting to scoot my way across the bench seat. “Okay—well, I just wanted you to know that. I’ll leave—”
“I was a shit father. To both of you.” His words pin me down. Freeze me in place. “Never gave you what you needed. Was never there for you. Drunk all the time. Let your mom…” I hear the rasp of his hand, passing over his face. “I was glad when she took you. Not because I don’t love you, but because I wanted more for you than a lifetime of cleanin’ up after some drunk old man.” He smiles at me, pats the back of my hand. “You and Ryan… you turned out good. Better than you had a right to.” His smile fades, his jaundiced gaze finding mine. “I know that ain’t because of me, but I’m proud just the same.”
I sit here, stunned for a moment before I know what to do. Sliding out of the booth I lean over the table and kiss his cheek. “Bye, Dad.” I give his hand one last squeeze before I let him go