The worn wood floors creaked beneath his heavy boots. Pete glanced into the dark living and dining rooms as he passed. They were, as always, neat and orderly with no hints of the nightmare that consumed his father after dark. He passed his parents’ bedroom and went through the kitchen, picking up an empty bottle from the counter and tossing it in the trash without allowing himself to think about what it meant. Dwelling on his father’s problem only made it harder to deal with.
His mother’s sewing room looked just as it had two years earlier, when she’d died of an aneurysm while sewing a button on one of his father’s shirts. Pete had tried to get his father to sell the house, but Neil was a stubborn man, and he insisted on remaining in the house, forming yet another layer of guilt for Pete to wear. He’d secretly been relieved that his father didn’t want to sell the house. Every room held fond memories for him, too. Memories not just of a mother who’d doted on her children but had also scolded them with a stern look, followed up by a pat on the head and a hug. Oh, Peter. You know I love you, but you can’t do those things. Those things covered everything he’d ever done, from racing down the middle of the road on his bike to skipping school. He smiled at the memories. His mother had tried hard to raise them well, and she’d done a darn good job, only Pete got all of his father’s stubbornness and all of his mother’s softness, rendering him unprepared and, he worried, unable to fix his father’s troubles.
He crouched by his father’s side. Neil’s jaw was agape, and his arms hung limply off the sides of the chair. Pete loved him so much he ached, and it killed him to know that his father’s love for his mother was what led him down this awful path. He lifted the black-and-white framed photo of his parents’ wedding day from his father’s lap and ran his fingers over their images. His mother had worn her hair short later in life, but in the photo, at twenty-four, the age his sister, Sky, was now, she’d worn her dark hair almost to her waist. In the picture, her hair was pulled over one shoulder, her wedding veil perched on the crown of her head. Her head was tilted back, a smile gracing her full lips and radiating in her big, round eyes. His father was looking at her with love in his eyes that danced off the photograph and tugged at Pete’s heart. He looked young and virile in his dark suit, with his hair slicked back.
Pete set the picture on the end table and assessed his father. Alcohol was stealing all signs of the man he’d been. His father looked broken. Done.
“Pop. Come on, Pop.” Pete nudged his arm.
Joey licked his father’s fingers.
Neil grumbled and shrugged away from Joey.
Over the months, Pete had tried to pinpoint the most difficult thing about his father’s drinking. The first few times he’d found him, he’d thought the hardest part was getting him into the bedroom and settling him in for the night. Other times he’d thought it was living the lie, knowing that the people who knew his father had no idea the torture he endured after dark. But recently, he’d come to believe that the worst part of his father’s disease—and he had to remind himself often that his father did in fact have a disease—was his own inability to right his father’s course.
That thought was what coated him in guilt. He wasn’t sure if his thoughts were selfish or not. Now wasn’t the time to ponder it as he hoisted his father’s body from the chair, wrapped his arm over his shoulder, and secured his strong arm around his body, taking his full weight as he brought Neil through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the bedroom.
His father’s head lolled back. “Good boy. Bea? Where’s Bea?”
Pete laid him on the bed, removed his father’s shoes, and placed them by the closet.
“Bea?”
“She’s not here, Pop.” He moved his father toward the center of the bed and placed two body pillows against his father’s sides. He’d purchased the pillows last year, when he finally realized that the reason his father was falling out of bed was that he was reaching for his mother. The pillows did the trick. They seemed to fool him into feeling like she was nearby. Neil hated blankets, but Pete always felt better if he had them just in case he got chilly. He pulled the blankets up to his father’s waist and then lowered himself into the rocking chair in the corner of the room.
He leaned back and closed his eyes, listening to the steady rhythm of his father’s breathing. This is what his life had become—a cycle of work, fearing his father’s calls, and fearing the day the calls stopped and his father’s breathing silenced forever.
Joey stretched on the hardwood floor by his feet and yawned. Pete reached down and ran his fingers over Joey’s head. He’d never thought of himself as lonely until he’d taken Joey into his life. Caring for her made Pete realize how much time he spent alone. He enjoyed taking care of Joey. Who wouldn’t enjoy unconditional love from an adorable puppy? Pete knew that, to some extent, Joey filled a gap in his life that his father had left behind. He and his father had been close before his mother died. His father had taught him how to restore boats, how to sail, and how to play football. He’d taught each of Pete’s siblings different things. He catered to their likes and dislikes. Matty, three years younger than Pete, was into academics, and his father would bring home nonfiction books that kept Matt enthralled for days. Hunter and Grayson, now twenty-nine and twenty-six, were into hunting, fishing, and of all things, steel and metalwork. His father had taken them to Plymouth to learn from a steelworker there. Sky loved anything music and arts related. He smiled at the memory of his father cursing as he built a small art studio in the backyard. The eight-by-ten structure that Sky was forever disappearing into, and that he and each of his brothers had snuck girls into throughout their teenage years, still stood in the backyard.
Pete had always been protective of his siblings, which was something his father was proud of. He’d learned from the best. Neil had always been their family’s fierce protector. Not that there was much to shield them from in the small town of Brewster, Massachusetts, but as Pete grew older, he realized that his father had protected them from the silent troubles of life. Years when the store wasn’t doing well and they barely had enough money for groceries and when his mother had surgery when they were young and he’d told them that she was going away to take a class for a few days. He hadn’t ever wanted his children to worry about things they couldn’t control, which was probably why Pete protected Sky from their father’s drinking.
If only their father felt compelled to protect them now, from his own demise. If only that need could be strong enough to make him change.
If only.
His phone vibrated, pulling him from his troubled thoughts. He withdrew it from his pocket and saw his brother Matt’s name flash on the screen.
“Hey, Matty,” he said quietly.
“Pete, how’s it going? How’s Pop?” Matt lived in New Jersey, and out of all of his brothers, Matt was the most reasonable and open to talking about their father.