Chapter Eighteen
Vanessa
That evening, I found Dad curled up in the living room, well within the warmth of the woodstove, with the newspaper spread over his lap. He looked up as I entered the room and raised his eyebrow. “What, you youngsters aren’t up to anything in town this evening?”
I laughed. “Are you trying to get rid of me already?” I asked. “I was out all night yesterday.”
“I know,” he said, nodding sagely. “And, it’s good for you. I’m afraid I’m not the best company for you at this point. You should be socializing with people your own age.”
I laughed. “That’s a little difficult to do when Julie’s got Danny to look after,” I said.
Dad nodded to concede the point. “What about Trethan?” he asked after a moment. “I seem to recall the two of you being inseparable once upon a time.”
I fell silent and stared out the window into the darkening evening. “Dad, what do you think about Trethan?” I asked finally. “I’m not asking if you think I should marry him or anything like that. We’re not even dating. But I just mean, as a man. What do you think of him?”
“Well,” he said, frowning. “Of course, I think he’s a good man. Perhaps a little misguided at times, but then again, aren’t we all?”
“You really think he’s a good man?”
“Of course, I do,” he said. “I wouldn’t let him work here if I didn’t think so.”
“But what about his history?” I asked. “He told me that he overdosed and ended up in the hospital because of it. You still think he’s a good man?”
Dad was quiet for a long time. “We all have our sins to atone for,” he said finally. “No man is perfect. Trethan certainly has his faults, but he’s done a damned good job of pulling himself back from the brink.”
I shook my head. “Maybe he has, but that doesn’t mean that he’s a good man,” I said.
“What is a good man?” Dad asked philosophically. “We all try to do the best we can for our families. Whether that’s our flesh and blood families or the families we choose for ourselves.”
I thought about Trethan taking Brent to the rehab center, about how chewed up Trethan had been that he hadn’t realized his friend needed help. Maybe Brent was part of the family Trethan had chosen for himself. But if so, wasn’t that just as bad? Not only was Trethan potentially volatile himself, but he didn’t exactly surround himself with the most stable of individuals.
Before I could say anything about that, though, Dad continued. “You know, if it weren’t for that mother of yours, I might not have ended up as good as I am,” he said, laughing a little. “Now, I know I’m not perfect, but I’ve tried hard to be as good as I can be. Your mother was a big reason for that, though. When she met me… God. I can’t believe she ended up with me!”
“What were you like?” I asked curiously. I had never heard this story before.
“Put it this way: I probably would have been a drunken brawler like Trethan used to be,” Dad said, shrugging a little. “I was out at the bars every night. And, I’d drink heavily before I even went out. Hell, I drank while I was out working with the horses during the day. I think I spent two years there where I didn’t sober up once. That’s what your mother walked into.”
I stared incredulously at him, trying to imagine that. Dad hadn’t had a drop of alcohol for most of my life, so it was difficult to picture drinking all the time. “Why did Mom stick with you?” I asked.
Then, I winced. “Sorry, I know that you guys were in love and all, but I’m just trying to figure out how you got to that point of being in love with one another, when I know for a fact that Mom would never have tolerated someone who was, to put it frankly, a drunken asshole.”
Dad laughed heartily at that. “Call it whatever you like,” he told me. “That’s what I was. That’s actually a very good description, a drunken asshole.” He paused. “The thing is, men by themselves, they have strength. They have strength, but they haven’t got much sense. They need a woman, a strong woman, to support them. To show them what goodness is.”
He laughed again. “One night, I was over in the Roasted Bison having some drinks with some friends, and your mother marched right up to me.”
I snorted at the visual image since my father must have been a foot and a half taller than my mother.
“Oh yeah, go ahead and laugh,” he said. He was laughing, as well, although I could see tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as well. “Well, she marched right over to me, and she jabbed her finger in my chest, right here. And she told me, ‘John MacIntyre Thomas, now you listen to me: your mother didn’t raise you to be a drunkard like this, and if you don’t want her to find out about this, then you’d better quit drinking at once!’
“And me being the idiot that I was, I responded, ‘My mom’s dead, sweetheart.’ That gave the boys quite the laugh, but Margaret… Oh, Margaret, she wasn’t having any of that.”
“What did she say?” I asked.
“Well, she told me that if I didn’t shape up, she was going to make sure that no girl from White Bluff would ever sleep with me. And the thing is, your mother really had that power, didn’t she? So when she said that, I listened. I’ve been sober ever since.”
I laughed, and Dad did as well. “Just like that?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“Just like that,” he said solemnly. “She was quite the force of nature, wasn’t she?”
“She was,” I agreed.
“It’s like I said, a strong man needs a good, strong woman for support,” he repeated.
I hummed an agreement. Finally, I shook my head. “I should let you get back to the newspaper, I guess. It’s about time I went to bed anyway; I was up early this morning.”
“All right,” Dad said. “Sleep well.”
“You, too,” I told him warmly.
Up in my room, though, I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept thinking over what Dad had said, about a man needing the support of a woman. Of course, I wasn’t full of myself enough to think that I could be precisely what Trethan needed in his life, but was it possible that some sort of stable woman was just what he needed?
Was it possible that he really could shape up and quit being a brawling drunkard, just like Dad had done?
Feeling totally conflicted, I called Julie. “Hey, I’m sorry,” I told her. “I know it’s late. I hope I haven’t woken anyone up?”
“No, we just put Danny down to sleep not too long ago,” she said. “I’m getting caught up on a little reading, and Liam is watching the end of some sports game. What’s up?”
“I was just thinking about Trethan,” I told her.
“Again.”
I paused. “I just feel so uncertain about it. What if he really could change? What if he just needs some sort of stability in his life or a good friend? If I turned my back on that, I’d feel like the biggest asshole in the world.”
“You shouldn’t feel pressured to take care of him just because you guys used to be close,” Julie said, sounding disapproving. “Has he put you up to this?”
“No,” I said. “I just was thinking about it, that’s all.”
She sighed. “To be honest, I don’t really want to tell you that I think you should take your chances with him,” she said. “I remember how hurt you were last time when things didn’t work out. But I know that you’ve been thinking about him a lot lately, and I know that you’re not stupid. You’re not ignoring his faults.”
I laughed softly, remembering what Dad had said. “But every man has his faults,” I reminded her. “Even Liam must have his faults, right?”
As though on cue, I could suddenly hear Liam cheering loudly in the background. And just as loudly, I heard Danny begin to cry. Julie swore. “There’s one of his major faults,” she griped. “He’s too into his sports. Look, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to put you on speaker so I can try and get Danny calmed down and back to sleep. Is that okay?”
“No problem,” I told her.
“Liam has his faults,” she continued after a moment where all I could hear on the other end of the line was rustling. “And I do as well. And this baby will have his faults as well.” She paused. “But those faults aren’t always life-threatening.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that he’d overdosed?” I asked because I was under no illusions that she hadn’t known.
“Because you were finally starting to sound okay about your breakup,” Julie told me. “It was right around the time you started getting interested in that TA of yours, whatever his name was. Josh? I wasn’t about to tell you ‘oh yeah, by the way, Trethan was in the hospital.’”
“But if he’d died, I would never have been able to forgive myself for not being there,” I told her, feeling the hurt bubble up to the surface.
Julie sighed. “I know,” she said. “I knew that, even then. But your father didn’t want you to know about it, either. He didn’t want you to be hurt, and he didn’t want anything to tear you away from your dream of becoming an art historian. He thought he could figure out some other way to honor the friendship you’d had with Trethan, without your ever having to know about the OD.”
“And that’s why he offered Trethan the job,” I said slowly, feeling things finally starting to click into place.
“I don’t think that’s the only reason,” she said. “You know how things are in a small town. Everyone knows someone who’s been in that position before, whether it’s them or a cousin or a friend or someone else.”
“True,” I agreed, remembering again what Dad had said about how he would have been a drunkard without Mom’s intervention. No doubt, he’d seen something of himself in Trethan. “But should I give Trethan another chance?” I asked Julie plaintively.
She was quiet for a bit. Finally, she sighed. “You know I can’t answer that question for you,” she said. “But I will say this. You’re not eighteen anymore, Vanessa. I know it’s scary, but sometimes, being an adult just means taking a chance. And whether that’s with your art gallery or with a man, it’s really the same thing. You just have to decide which chances are worth taking.”
I thought this over and nodded to myself, even though I didn’t feel any more decisive now than I had when we’d first started this conversation. “Thanks,” I told her.
“Anytime,” she said. “Now, I’m sorry to cut this short, but I have a husband to scold.”
I laughed and shook my head. “No problem,” I told her. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Talk to you soon,” Julie agreed before hanging up.