Page 22 of Ebbing Tides

They were.

CHAPTER FIVE

TUESDAY

“What time is it?” Dad asked, strained and immediately angry.

Marcella looked up from washing his feet and glanced in the direction of the wooden wallclock. “It's two in the afternoon, Mr. Tailor.”

It'd been nine months since he'd been discharged from the hospital. Stage four lung cancer, they'd said. Nothing they could do to stop it, they’d said. Days to weeks left, they'd said.

But those doctors and nurses hadn't known my stubborn bastard of a father, and now, lying half naked in his hospital bed and looking more and more like a zombie by the day, he was still breathing.

I'd been aware of how unfair life was, but the fact that he'd managed to cling to life for the amount of time Laura should've been pregnant with our son was a real stab in the gut. But I wouldn't wish for him to have any less time than he was allowed. I might not have been a good man, but I wasn't a fucking monster.

“What are you doing in here then?” Dad sneered in my direction. “Aren't you supposed to be sleeping the day away?”

“I'm going out,” I told him, taking the notebook we used to keep track of his medication to write down instructions for Grace, who was arriving at any moment.

“Out?” Dad spit like I had some nerve. “What do you mean, you're going out?”

Marcella worked the soapy, damp washcloth up Dad's leg as she said, “Max looks nice, doesn't he, Mr. Tailor?”

Before I could lay my pen to the paper, I glanced at my clothes. Did I look nice? I wasn't sure, but I hoped so. It wasn't like I had much in my wardrobe to choose from, but I tried to make do with a black sweater I'd gotten from Lucy for Christmas a few years back and my least worn pair of jeans.

“He does,” Dad muttered. But he hadn’t said it as a compliment. He was suspicious.

“Grace is coming by in just a little while,” I told both of them as I scribbled down the meds Dad would need later, what he'd need done before she left for the night, and everything I'd need her to do for Lido.

I didn't like the idea of keeping him here all night while I was gone, but I wasn't sure I'd have enough time after my date—or whatever it was—with Melanie to pick him up before work.

“You shouldn't be relying on your sisters,” Dad scolded. “They have enough going on.”

I stifled a groan. He wasn't entirely wrong. They had kids. They had households to run. It was one of the reasons why I'd agreed to become Dad's primary caregiver. But it didn't seem unreasonable to ask my sisters for help every now and then, apart from the brief visits they paid him when they had a few moments to spare. But I wouldn’t dare say that to him. I knew he'd only disagree.

“Lido is going to stay—”

“Absolutely not.”

Marcella smiled kindly at my father. “It might do you some good to spend time with him. He's such a nice dog.”

“Nice dog.” Dad snickered before pretending to spit. “Remember that dog you kids had, Maxwell? What was its name?”

My hand tensed around the pen as I stared at my scrawled handwriting. “Smoky.”

“Ah, that's right. And what happened to good ol'Smoky? Do you remember?”

I glanced at the clock. Where the hell was Grace? She’d said she'd be here by now.

“Do you want to tell Miss Marcella what you did to that dog, Maxwell?”

He was speaking like I was an eight-year-old boy and not a forty-eight-year-old man, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, I was letting his words have an effect. My cheeks burned with shame, my fingers clenched tight around the pen until my hand shook, and the breath held in my lungs threatened to combust.

I killed that dog. The confession sat at the tip of my tongue.You took him away, you got rid of him, but it was me who’d made you do it. It wasme.

“Maxwell was averyirresponsible boy,” Dad continued, realizing I wasn't going to say anything. “He had promised to take care of the dog, but he didn't.”

Marcella uttered a sympathetic, “Ah.”