Page 46 of Good Days Bad Days

Charlie

Present Day

“Dad!” I call out, entering the house without knocking, clutching my phone, the screen still open to an image Cam sent me.

The inspector’s truck was gone when I pulled up to the house and so was Ian’s car.

I paused to check my email in the driveway and read through an update from the inspector and a recap of the meeting from Ian.

A handful of items need to be addressed before the next cleaning phase begins, and Ian’s message promised me he was on it.

Then, Cam’s text came through. A picture of a marriage certificate from 1971 with my mother’s name on it. 1971, not 1976. I was already determined to have a word with my dad, and with this additional piece of information, I’m even more resolute.

“Dad! Where are you?” I shout, listening for a response. Papers rattle in the corner, likely rodents, and I follow the now familiar goat path to my parents’ room. His car is parked outside. He’s either trapped beneath a collapsed tower of belongings or he’s hiding from me.

The back and side yard, only viewable through narrow slats of exposed window, show no signs of life.

I’d easily hear anyone upstairs through the old floor and creaking support beams. He’s not there.

When I break into the bedroom, the Tiffany-style lamp over my parents’ bed is on, and I can finally see the impact of our weeks of work.

Though we’ve only made it through about three of the six feet of stacked items lining the perimeter of the wall, the room now seems vast compared to when I first entered it.

The newest layer is made up primarily of scrapbooks.

I’ve started to look through the articles and handwritten letters pasted onto pages with recipes, book suggestions, and crafting instructions, like a Pinterest page in physical form.

Now I know what they were for—my mom’s show and her book. Why didn’t he just tell me?

“Hello, Lottie,” my dad says from behind the bookshelves to the right of the doorway. The house phone is plugged in there, and I can tell by the stony look on his face when he emerges from the cavern he’s had a call from Shore Path and he’s not happy about it.

“There you are.” I reflect his expression.

“Whose blood is that?” He points at the stained shirt I forgot was still around my waist.

“Mom’s.” No reason to lie. “She’s fine. There was a little misunderstanding.”

“I heard,” he says, his posture slumped, thumbs threaded through his belt loops. “Lottie, I appreciate your help but . . .” An exquisite pain expands in my chest realizing what’s about to happen. Rejection. Again. He doesn’t want me. Again. He’s picking her over me—again.

“You better not be mad at me,” I say defensively before he can finish disowning me—again. “When will you see that I’m not the problem, Dad?”

“I’m not saying you’re the problem, Lottie. But your mom isn’t in a good place right now.”

“Mom? You think I’m saying Mom is the ‘problem’?” I put air quotes around problem. “No. I’m not the problem and neither is Mom. You, Dad. You are the problem.” I spit out the allegation that’s become clearer to me the longer I’ve been here.

“I’m certainly not perfect and you have every right to be upset, but . . .”

“No buts. None. Mom was sick, is sick, but you—you chose to get rid of me. And you’re doing it again.”

“I’m not trying to get rid of you, Lottie. I just think it’s better for your mother if you keep your distance. You keep insisting on pushing, pushing, pushing. It’s upsetting to her.”

He crosses his arms, standing to his full height, a rare sight.

Defending my mom—that’s my dad’s greatest talent.

He could have been a famous musician or photographer or expanded his business beyond the small main street of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

He could have been a father and grandfather, but he was too busy being my mother’s keeper, protector, enabler.

“You’re right. It is.” I untie the stained shirt and toss it on the bed, queasy at the thought of wearing it any longer. “And I don’t want to upset her anymore, but you know what I realized?”

He looks at me blankly, and I point the phone I’m still holding in his direction.

“You’re the reason we had an incident today.

You could’ve answered at least some of my questions without playing little games, dodging the real answers.

But you let me keep collecting my breadcrumbs and taking them to Mom for dead end after dead end.

You let me find answers on the internet and in libraries and courthouses instead of telling me yourself.

I’m not the reason Mom is upset. You are. ”

I repeat my accusation, and my dad shakes his head, deflating after his very brief moment of puffed-up defensiveness.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, a deep sadness in his voice, but I’m not in a place of compassion.

“Exactly. I don’t know. So tell me. Tell me about Janesville and WQRX and that damn show and”—I wrestle the picture out of the waistband of my yoga pants and drop it on the bed—“who the hell she married in 1971, ’cause I know it wasn’t you.

And how all of this happened.” I reference the remaining hoard that towers above and around us.

My dad looks at the picture on the bed and then looks away immediately, like the image causes him pain. When he responded that way before, I thought it was because he found it excruciating to see my mother at a wedding she didn’t remember anymore. But after Cam’s text, I know that’s not why.

“Who is Donald Hollinger?”

Letting out a weighty sigh, his knees crumple, making him slump onto the bed, head in his hands.

“I know it’s hard to understand, but there are some things your mother wants to remain”—he clears his throat, looking at me through the crook of his arm—“personal.”

“What could be so important that you need to hide it even now? From me?” I clear a spot next to him and sit. My nerves are still prickling with anger and frustration, but a full-on attack will get me nowhere.

“Aren’t there things you don’t tell your daughter?” His question hits home. Of course there are things I’ve kept from Olivia—this house is one of them, her grandparents, the problems with Ian.

“She’s too young . . .”

“Is she?”

I think of my beautiful daughter, her first steps, her first heartbreak, her first time driving, her graduation cap, her prom dress, her dorm room, her face when she showed up here chasing the secrets of my life.

“It’s different.”

“Is it, though?” he asks, hands on his knees, looking at me and nodding slowly.

“All right, then. Don Hollinger was the man your mother married before me. We met at WQRX and Don was our boss. He died suddenly a few years later, and your mother never fully recovered from that loss. I loved her so much that I thought I was helping her, and things got . . . out of control in the house. I never wanted to lose you, Lottie. I love you, but after a while I realized your life would be better without us in it. I couldn’t abandon your mom, and this house was no place for a child.

And then everything happened with your career, and I thought it was proof I was right. ”

“You weren’t right, Dad. I needed you. I mean, I needed Mom, too, but if I couldn’t have both a mom and a dad, I at least needed you.”

His head bobs, and he pushes off of the bed, clearing a shelf of old books and placing them in a large cardboard box for sorting.

“Life is always easier when looked at backward, I guess.”

“It’s not over—life, that is. You don’t have to lie down in your grave and erase the past just because Mom is sick. I’m still here. Olivia and Ian’s boys are amazing kids. You’d love them. It doesn’t have to be like this anymore.”

Greg clears another shelf, picking a few papers out of the cover of one of the books and placing them in the “save” pile.

“You’re a wise one, Lottie Laramie. Always thought you were an old soul,” he says, which is kind to say but also a handy way to avoid engaging in the confrontation.

“And for now, how about we let your mom rest up? No more visits for a bit, huh?” He places another line of dusty books in the cardboard box.

The seemingly friendly suggestion sends a flash of heat up my neck.

He wants to stop me from seeing my mother after I’ve spent the past thirty-odd years without one.

I sit in my feelings of rejection as he continues to putter around the room.

He’s not asking me to leave or halting the next phase of our renovation.

He didn’t immediately step up and become the father I need after witnessing my much-rehearsed confrontation, but he did say he loves me.

I can keep pushing, screaming, fighting and get nowhere, or I can endure my father’s avoidance and finish at least some of what we’ve started.

I guess I can live off breadcrumbs for now.

“I’ll stay away,” I say to his back as he leafs through a stack of papers inside a collection of manila folders. “From Mom. I’ll give her some space.”

He thanks me and says over his shoulder, “I’m sure she’ll be eager to see you again soon enough.”

Irritated but resolved to hold my tongue, I roll my eyes at the back of his head, stand, retrieve my sweatshirt and the picture on the bed, and put my phone in my pocket.

“I’d better go change and check on Olivia.

I’ll be here bright and early tomorrow for phase two.

” I stop at the foot of the bed when he says his goodbyes as though we hadn’t just had an argument.

He’s cooled off from the protective anger I walked into, and I’m sure my ban won’t last very long.

His forgiving nature is something I definitely didn’t inherit.

I consider asking him to join us for dinner, but a force field of resentment stops me, and I walk out of the room instead.

And as I exit the house, slamming the old door closed hard enough to shake the support beams, I remember why I’m not passive like my dad.

There’s something dangerous about being too forgiving.

I’ll follow his rules, I’ll play nice, I’ll let him love me in his flawed, distant way, but why should I let him into my life when he keeps me out of his? No. Tonight he can eat alone.