Captain tilts his head like he’s trying to understand me. He’s an Australian shepherd mix but looks mostly Aussie, only with a long, thick tail. He’s brown and white, and he has one black leg and a black patch over his brown eye, which offsets his light blue one. Hence the name: “Captain Jack Sparrow.” Even though Jack Sparrow didn’t have an eye patch or a peg leg. Mom named him. He was the only pirate she could think of. And she loved Johnny Depp.
“Should I give you two some privacy?” Dad thinks he’s hilarious when he’s in that in-between, not-quite-drunk condition. I do not. “At least I know you won’t go knocking the dog up. Just do something about his hair all over the goddamn floor first, that’s all I ask. Or are you testing me to see if I’ll make good on my word?” Dad loves to threaten to get rid of Captain. It’s all talk. He’s too lazy to actually follow through.
I slowly get up and start past him toward the closet, leaving my backpack on the living room floor.
“Where the fuck are you going?” He grabs my arm. My muscles flex involuntarily. I know he’ll take this as a challenge and immediately wish I could take it back.
He shoves me as hard as he can. I reach out to catch myself but I’m not positioned right and I fall into the closet. My head hits the doorframe on the way down. These are the nights I resent my mother most.
“Answer me.” Dad kicks the back of my leg. It’s not meant to hurt so much as humiliate. And that he has done.
“I’m getting the vacuum for all the goddamn dog hair,” I mumble as I pull myself up and remove the vacuum from the closet.
He smacks the spot on my head where it hit the doorframe. “Wanna say that again?”
I shake my head. My face is on fire and I’m torqued inside from how much I just want to go off on him. At six feet, 210, I have a few inches and about fifty pounds on him. I could do serious damage. And he knows it. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what he really wants.
He snorts at me and turns back out of the room. I think we’re done, but then just before he reaches the stairs, he kicks Captain in the ribs hard enough for him to let out a high-pitched yelp. I lunge at Dad without thinking. Knowing how I’d react before I did, he easily steps out of the way, and then, using my own momentum, shoves me so that I almost land on Captain.
When I look back at him, he stares me down with a smug smile. He knows I won’t try anything else. Asshole.
When I finally hear his bedroom door shut, I feed Captain, vacuum the floors, and lock myself away in my cellar.
Okay, my room’s not a cellar. It’s a converted basement. With scratchy industrial carpet the color of old oatmeal, and shitty, scratched-up wood paneling halfway up the walls with white drywall above it covered in small holes because I use it as a corkboard. The focal point of the room is a mattress sitting only on the box spring, which I hate, being as tall as I am. And there’s a do-it-yourself-quality bathroom next to the wall of bars hung with clothes that would normally be hidden behind the doors of an actual closet.
It’s not great but it’s mine. Mom let me put a lock on the door when I turned sixteen, like it’s my own private apartment or something. Dad hates that. He thinks I’m hiding stuff. Which I am. Only not stuff he would be interested in.
I pull some loose paneling from the far corner and feel along the floor until my hand makes contact with a metal box. I carefully pull the box out and take it to my bed.
Captain jumps up and circles about five times before finally settling in next to me.
I take off the key I always wear on a chain around my neck and unlock the box, like I do every night. Then I pull out the plastic divider holding my secret emergency fund and set it aside.
Six photos stare back at me.
Mom on her wedding day—I cut Dad out of that one.
One of her when she was my age; she was so beautiful: long, shiny dark brown hair and light brown eyes that are full of life. She looks happy. I look a lot like her.
The two of us in Halloween costumes: She’s a black cat and I’m a ninja. I think I was ten.
One I remember taking when she finally went back to school. She was getting in her car and I raced out after her with the camera and said, “First day of school! My baby’s all grown up.” And she laughed. She’s mid-laugh in the photo.
The two of us hiking my favorite running path up in the foothills near Red Rocks. Captain was all muddy and jumping on her. Again she’s laughing.
And the last one: just the two of us at an awkward angle, slightly out of focus because she’s holding the camera out in front of us. We’re lounging on the couch after school let out last June. Dad wasn’t home and we were watching a Die Hard marathon and eating popcorn. She made a big deal about taking that picture of the two of us because it would probably be the last time we’d ever be like that. I was getting too old, she said, and soon I would think it was lame to hang out with my mom. I’m practically rolling my eyes in the picture, but Mom’s smiling away.