But sometime in the past couple of years his age has started to show in the stoop of his shoulders, the sag of the skin under his chin, and the bags under his eyes. The man beneath the failing body hasn’t softened, though. I can see it in the hard set to his mouth and the ice in his eyes.
Instinctively I brace myself for what’s to come. He and I have been playing the same game for a while now. He sends a dumpy caregiver my way; I snarl and throw things and curse until she leaves. Repeat.
After the first round, I got a pissed-off email from him. The second woman I ran off warranted a phone call. By the fourth, my father had actually visited, issued a couple of warnings, and left the same day.
Then the fifth caregiver showed up—a man that time—and I ran him off too. I got an email and a phone call after that one.
And so it went. It’s nothing but a ridiculous game we play, all so he can pretend that he gives a shit.
This time, however, I sense a change in the rules, and I brace for it. It’s taken twenty-four years, but I’ve finally started to figure my dad out. Instinct tells me he’s about to switch tactics.
I take another sip of my drink—a big one—and slump farther into the chair, letting him know that no matter what he throws at me, nothing will change. Nothing can change.
“You get one more shot,” he says.
I don’t bother to disguise my snort. I was expecting better from him. “Isn’t that what you told me last time? And the time before?”
He moves faster than I thought a seventy-one-year-old could and snatches the whiskey out of my hand. I glance up in surprise. The amber liquid’s all over his hand and on the rug, but he doesn’t seem to register it, because he’s too busy looking at me like he hates me.
Bring it on. I hate me too.
“I mean it, Paul. This is your last chance to show me that you have any desire to continue with your life. Any desire at all to get your agility back, to learn to cope with your physical changes. I understand why you wanted to hide at first, but it’s been over two years. You’re done. You get six more months to get your shit together.”
“Or what?” I ask, pushing myself to my feet and loving that the injury hasn’t taken away the fact that I’m still a few inches taller than him.
“Or you’re out.”
I blink. “What do you mean, I’m out?”
“Out of this house.”
“But I live here,” I say, not quite understanding where he’s going with this.
“Yeah? You paying the mortgage? Or the utilities? Did you build the gym exactly as the physical therapist specified, or was that me?”
I grind my teeth through my dad’s sarcasm. It was my dad’s idea to move me into a luxury home, not mine, and it shows how little he knows me. If he thinks kicking me out of the cushy mansion would mean anything to me, he’s dead wrong.
He’s got an expectant look on his face, as though he thinks I’ll go along with his little plan so I can sit here in opulence and drink overpriced booze.
I feel a little surge of satisfaction that he’s about to be disappointed.
“Fine,” I say, deliberately letting my tone go careless. “I’ll move out.”
He blinks a little in surprise. “To where?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
And I will. I don’t have much money to my name. I know that. But between the disability compensation I get as a veteran and my smallish savings account, I can get a little cabin somewhere.
My dad’s eyes narrow. “What about groceries? Clothes? Essentials?”
I shrug. “I don’t need gourmet shit and designer clothes.”
My eyes catch on the label of expensive whiskey on the sideboard, but I don’t feel even the smallest pang of regret that it’ll soon be out of my budget. I’m in it for the numbness, not the taste. Cheap booze will do the trick just as well.
“And your precious books?” he sneers. “All those first editions you’re so proud of?”