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Rafael

Mom’s wailing morphed from appalled to apoplectic with the octave acrobatics of a seasoned soprano. If this were an aria, it would mark the climactic moment when a woman scorned screamed to the heavens with one thing on her mind: death.

Presumably mine.

My body sank deeper into the mattress beneath me, and I buried my head under a pillow. I had no recollection of what happened the night prior, but it must have been epic from the bellowing exiting Mom’s mouth.

She screeched again, the sound piercing my eardrums like a rocket and exploding somewhere between my eyes and brain. For a moment, I thought that maybe Mom hired a hitman to plant a bomb in my head. I felt my pulse in my temples like a clock counting the final moments before my noggin turned to mashed potatoes. I wouldn’t put it past her. I hadn’t exactly been an angel for the past couple of years.

I knew it wasn’t an actual bomb—it was a hangover of massive proportions.

Her voice traveled through the heating shaft and into my room. “I can’t do this anymore, Hank. He’s out of control. I need help.”

Uh oh. Whatever I did must have been bad. Mom did everything in her power not to call Hank , my father.

Mom continued, “When? The school year is over. You’d know that if you spent even a second of your life being a goddamn father to him.”

She’s got a point there. I hadn’t spoken to Hank since he married Jill. I may have caused a bit of drama during the wedding. Truth be told, the invitation shocked the shit out of me. I wanted to go to that wedding like I wanted to stick a hot poker up my ass. Hank must have called Mom about it because they, in a rare act of unification, agreed that I had to go.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t walk into a situation with the premeditated intention of destroying the moment. I had every intention of being a good little boy and just going through the motions of watching my absent father marry a woman ten years younger than my Mom. It wouldn’t be the worst thing that happened in my life.

I arrived the day before the wedding. The clichéd house, complete with a white picket fence, stood in its All-American glory at the end of a picturesque street. Kitchy trinkets filled the home. An honest-to-God welcome sign constructed of dried roses and thistles adorned the foyer, and the scent of vanilla-scented candles permeated the space. It was so unlike Hank.

I called him Hank because Dad is what you call someone who actually sticks around to raise you, and Hank bailed on us to live out some fucked up Leave it to Beaver fantasy. At first, I thought it was funny. What an idiotic house.

Then I saw him . Cody. My stepbrother. If a movie needed two dudes to play the angel and the devil of the main character’s conscience, you could cast the two of us, and I already told you I’m no angel. He stood just an inch shorter than I. The blush on his pale skin shimmered under the annoying overhead lighting. I looked at him and knew I hated him with a fire that could burn a city block to ash. I wanted to rip every strand of blond hair right out of his fucking head. I prepared myself to meet Mom’s replacement, but not mine. The combination of Cody and Jill being the complete opposite of Mom and me was the nail in the coffin. Hank ran away from his real wife and son and replaced them with polar opposite versions.

Consequently, I did what any angsty teen does right before his dad remarries. I swiped a bottle of cognac from their liquor cabinet and pregamed before the ceremony. I didn’t even wait for the reception. I’d never tried cognac before, and my motto in life has always been to try new things . So, I tried it by drinking three-quarters of the bottle in the bathroom before hopping into the limo that drove us to the church. Go big or go home, baby.

Things got a little fuzzy right after my new stepbrother sat next to me on the pew—the touching of our knees further intensified the combustion of rage consuming my body. We had a whole pew. Why sit so close?

That’s when it all goes black. The day after the wedding, I woke up on the floor at the foot of the bed in their guestroom. So close. It also felt like someone had karate-chopped my throat.

The eerie silence foreboded that the wedding may not have gone off without a hitch. It also wasn’t a good sign that I couldn’t remember a damn thing from the night before. That’s when I usually put on a show for the ages.

I nearly tumbled down the stairs to find my father and his new family staring up at me with the scorn reserved for a dude who flashed a group of old ladies.

That’s when Hank informed me that I expressed my “objections” during the ceremony and then made a speech about how this, and I quote, “Douchedoodle of a man was bailing on his real family and replacing his wife and son with a Stepford wife and one of the kids from Children of the Damned .” I had to hand it myself on the Douchedoodle jab. Where’d I even come up with that? Had the presence of the Holy Spirit rerouted my impulse to call my father a fucking douchebag, and I somehow landed on a Disney channel version? It was almost poetic.

Needless to say, my relationship with Hank after that was distant. Since Mattie’s death four years prior, I could count the number of times I’ve spoken to Hank on one hand.

Mom was still jabbering on the phone, and the sound of her voice nauseated me more than the massive hangover consuming my body.

I braced myself on an elbow, rolled out of bed, and clattered to the floor. It’s too bright.

My head felt as heavy as an anvil. I practically army crawled to the window, gripped the ledge, and pulled myself up while trying to close the curtains and save myself from the blinding light of a new day when my sight landed on our Honda Civic, enjoying a lovely morning parked on our gazebo. Did I do that? Oopsy daisy.

Parked might not have been the right word—crashed was more like it. That poor car looked like I’d driven it to the top of a mountain, used it to fight a yeti, and then careened it into my mother’s beautiful backyard sanctuary.

What was I even doing last night? Oh yeah! Bucky threw a party, and who was I to turn down an invitation to a good party? Especially one thrown by the Buckster, complete with cocaine, a bag of Percocet, and enough vodka to kill a horse—a Russian horse at that.

Better go down and face the music.

The marble floor of the McMansion my parents bought, when we were a vision of familial bliss, pressed against my bare feet as I descended the winding staircase. A ray of sunshine streamed through the picture window, reflecting off the chandelier and creating a rainbow of sparkles that dappled the floor. The bright grandeur of a home encasing the saddest family you’d ever seen was too on the nose for me. I hated that house. There wasn’t a room in it that didn’t ignite a stream of memories that made the waters of despair threaten to drown me.

That house never felt like home to me. My true home was on the ice—my only refuge in life. When I raced for the puck, everything else vanished; the sting of loss faded into a distant memory as I focused on the game. It was the one place where the dark thunderclouds finally parted to reveal a glimmer of sunshine.

Mother paced in the kitchen as she continued her beratement of my father. I sauntered to the entertainment room, making sure to step lightly. Who was I to interrupt her barrage of venom? Especially when not directed at me. Yet.

Her pace slowed, and she reached the kitchen island and tapped her perfectly manicured fingers on the marble countertop. “What’s the alternative?” She paused, listening intently to Hank’s reply. “All right. Yes, I agree. I’ll tell him now. When are you coming?”

Fuck! He’s coming? Are they taking me to rehab or something? My mind spun with the possibilities. My parents hadn’t been in the same room for years. I’d fucked up before—this was by no means the first time Mom called Hank to bemoan my shenanigans—but he’d never actually gotten off his ass to visit. He’d been perfectly content pretending he never had a family before Jill and Cody. Cody. What a stupid fucking name. It’s the name you give a Golden Retriever rescued from a shelter. Fetch, Cody! Fetch, Cody! Gooood boy, Cody!!!

Mom slammed her cell phone on the counter—not even a goodbye.

She strode out of the kitchen on her way to march upstairs—no doubt to rouse me from my peaceful slumber—until I scared the ever-loving shit out of her as she passed the entertainment room.

“Good morning, Mother! Do I smell pancakes? You shouldn’t have!”

She screamed and clutched at her chest, gripping her turquoise cashmere sweater. “ You!” She took a breath and steadied her features. Rage wafted off her body in heaps, filling the room with tension, but Mom knew how to school her features and lock her emotions away in that ironclad box she called a heart. “I just got off the phone with your father.”

I feigned surprise. “Daddy’s alive? The ship wasn’t lost at sea?”

She closed the distance between us, her eyes narrowing, conveying her desire to choke the life out of me. “You have two options: you either pack your things right now and spend your senior year with him—”

I bolted out of my seat, but my throbbing head knocked me back down. I pressed the heel of my hand to my right eye, which I was pretty sure just exploded. “Nuh-uh. No. Not happening. I’m not living with him and his poster family for the Aryan Nation. Not when—”

My mother held up her hand, stopping my rampage. “ —or, you go to military school. Those are your options.”

Fucking military school? Sure, I turned the gazebo into a carport, but military school? I was expecting rehab—I could handle that.

Mom continued, “And there will be no hockey whatsoever if you go to military school.”

Bitch! She’s good. I narrowed my left eye at my mother, the right still throbbing under my hand. “You can’t be serious.”

She huffed a laugh and crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, I’ve never been more serious in my life. Those are your options. Your father is on his way, but if you prefer military school, let me know. I’ll tell him to stay put.”

Wow. Should I suggest rehab ? Did I need rehab? No. I didn’t need alcohol, I just preferred to live life in a medicated state—better than actually feeling things. Perhaps she knew that. Damn her insightfulness! Rehab would have been so much easier. I’d go through the motions of a ninety-day program, come out, and return home in time to spend my senior year getting obliterated with Bucky.

I hated my dad. When Mattie died, Mom blamed him. He never said it, but I knew he blamed me. I know that’s why he left. The idea of spending the next year of my life in his new home with his new family made my gut coil.

Then again, a military school with no hockey sounded worse. All I cared about was hockey. The ice was the only thing other than drugs and alcohol that calmed the storm in my mind.

Plus, if I lived with Hank, I could make his life miserable for at least a year, not to mention an absolute nightmare for Jill and Cody. That sounded like a hell of a lot of fun.

Mom stood there, waiting for my response. I shrugged and replied, “Nothing like some father-son bonding.”