Brody
“Christ, it smells like something died in here. Dad? You here?” I get no response, just a deafening silence. “Dad?” I yell again. “Where are you?”
I carefully step over the piles of dirty clothes and other detritus that litters the floor, taking great care not to disturb the new life forms growing in the take-out cartons filled with rotting food. My nose is buried in the crook of my arm as I try not to breathe in the toxic air, while I pick a path through the dump that my formerly spotless childhood home has become.
I eventually find my father passed out, face down in his bed, holding a picture of him and my mom on their wedding day. There’s an empty bottle of whiskey next to his head and an open bottle of pills of some kind.
“Dad! Jesus Christ. Dad? What the fuck have you done?”
I grab a hold of my old man, turning him so that he’s lying on his back. To my relief, he lets out a loud moan.
“Leave me alone,” he says, batting my hand away. “Just leave me to die.”
“How many have you taken, Dad?”
“Not enough. Now get lost.”
Ignoring him, I pick up the empty pill bottle. “I don’t think you’ll get far overdosing on antacids, Dad. Maybe the toilet.”
My father opens one gray eye to look at me. “I thought it’d be easier for your mom if I ended it. Can’t even do that right.”
“Come on,” I say, pulling him to his feet. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
“Just leave me here, Son.”
“To do what?”
“Die.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I miss your mom.”
“I know, Dad.” I put my dad’s arm around my shoulder, and lead him to the bathroom where I help him undress before dumping him in the shower. He starts to cry as I turn the water on. Great, heaving sobs that leave my once proud, strong father curled up in a ball as the water washes over him.
To say the last eight months have been bad is an understatement. Everything, everything, has changed for the worse. That happy life that I knew and loved is gone. My parents’ marriage is over. My business is not doing well. All because of one person…Joely. I wish that I’d never laid eyes on her. I’m being unfair. If I wasn’t such a jerk to Brooke, then she’d still be here. Joely wasn’t the one who hurt her, that was all me. I could have said no. That doesn’t change the fact that Brooke has disappeared. I have no clue where she is or what she’s up to. It’s driving me crazy that for the first time in forever I’m not part of Brooke’s life.
I’ve kicked myself every day since she left. I can’t believe I acted like such a douche to her. What guy in their right mind lets their perfect woman go? Me, evidently, and my father and my brother. We’re cursed men. Motherfucking cursed to fuck up the best things in our lives.
“Could you pass me a towel?”
Shit! I completely forgot about Dad.
“Sure.” He doesn’t say anything to me as I hand it to him; he doesn’t even look at me. He’s a sad sight to see. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone this broken. Not even when Cade cried in my arms over that trouble he got himself into, or me standing in front of my mirror every day. My father looks how I feel, like my heart and soul have been ripped from my body. I’m not familiar with this shell that my dad has become. I’m used to someone as strong and healthy as an ox, someone who’d laugh easily, someone who cared. I look at my dad now and see clothes hanging off his six foot frame; his face is drawn and gaunt, sunken.
I’m sure if I didn’t come and check on him every couple of days, he would lie in his bed drinking himself to death. He’s been suspended from his job as a deputy, so he hasn’t even got a job to keep him going.
Fucking Joely.
Why couldn’t Dad have just kept it in his pants for Christ’s sake? Then I wouldn’t have to be dealing with another shitstorm in my already very shitty life. I don’t blame Mom for leaving, not after she found out that Dad had been paying Joely to keep her quiet over their little fuckfest a few years back, and not after she discovered that Dad could be the father of Joely’s kid.
My parents have been together forever. Childhood sweethearts. They were supposed to live happily ever after. Not this…this wasn’t meant to happen to them.
Like me and Brooke.
Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, does it?
“You can leave me, you know. You don’t have to hover. Go do some work or something,” Dad says, throwing the dirty towel on the even dirtier floor.
“Got nothing better to do than spend time with my dear old dad.” I try to smile but can’t quite manage it.
“Bullshit. You’ve got plenty better things to do than spend time with your good-for-nothing old man.”
“No, I don’t. Not when my old man tries offing himself with booze and antacids.”
“Don’t waste your time, Brody. I’m a lost cause.”
“I’ve taken the day off now.”
“You sure you can afford that?”
“I figure that you’re more important.”
He grunts in response and walks unsteadily to his bedroom. I follow behind, making sure that he doesn’t fall.
“I thought we could spend some time fixing the place up a bit,” I say, cringing as I look around. “It’s disgusting in here.”
“Don’t bother,” Dad says weakly as he pulls on a cleanish sweater. “There’s no point.”
“Dad. Nothing will change if you stay festering in this garbage pile feeling sorry for yourself. How will you get Mom back if you continue as you are? She’s not going to come back if you make no effort to show her that you’re sorry.”
“I am sorry!”
“Have you told Mom that?”
“Yeah.”
“And meant it?”
“Of course I fucking meant it.” He slams both his hands against the closet door. “She won’t listen.”
“Do you blame her?” I say, folding my arms across my chest, the McAllister Construction logo emblazoned on the tee that I threw on this morning when Mom called me in a panic because she hadn’t heard from Dad since last night. “If I was in Mom’s position…”
“Like you can talk.” Dad spits at me viciously before he topples backward on to the bed. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at his comical attempts to pull on his pants. He won’t let me help him, the last time I tried, he waved me away then ended up going to bed again as it was too much of an effort for him. “You sent Brooke running. Don’t see you telling her that you’re sorry.”
“That’s because I can’t find her.” I growl.
“Bullshit. You could find her if you wanted to. Just ask Caden to hire a P.I.”
“He did. They found nothing.”
“Obviously didn’t look hard enough.”
“What do you want, Dad?” I run my hands over my face in frustration at my pig-headed father. He opens his mouth to speak but I interrupt him. “And don’t say to die. You know, you’re a selfish bastard. No wonder Mom left you.”
“Fuck you.”
“No. Fuck you. What have you done since Mom left you, huh? What have you done to improve yourself, to make Mom believe that you won’t hurt her again?” I chuck a sneaker at his head, luckily for him I miss. “Come on tell me? What have you done?”
“Screw you.”
“You’ve done nothing, Dad. Zilch, nada, nothing, except drink yourself into a stupor each night because you are too scared to lose face. You are willing to lose your wife of thirty years rather than get down on your knees and crawl through a bed of nails to get her back because it’s too much effort. Isn’t she worth it? All that unconditional love that she’s given you through the years, all that loyalty. Why wasn’t that enough? What did Mom do that was so wrong that you had to throw all that love back in her face by screwing someone else behind her back?” My words resonate to my own situation, each driving a knife further into my heart. “Look at you,” I continue, “just look at you. You’re a mess, a joke. You’ve done nothing to prove to Mom that you’re truly sorry. You’ve just sat here, rotting away, throwing tantrums because you haven’t gotten your own way.” Dad remains silent but I know he’s heard me because I can see tears forming in his eyes.
“I get how you feel, Dad,” I say softly. “I feel the same about Brooke. I miss her. There isn’t a day that goes by when I wish that I could turn back time, but I can’t, I can only go forward. So can you.” I sit down beside him on the bed. “If you don’t do something, then Mom’s going to file for divorce. She’s hurting, Dad. She’s hurting really bad, and you acting like you are makes her think that you aren’t willing to fight for her.”
“That’s not...I do…I do want to fight for her. I can’t go on without her, Brody. Your mom is my life. I’m so damn sorry.” Tears start to fall down my father’s cheeks. I pull him toward me and cradle him in my arms, doing my best to comfort him like he did me when I was a child.
“You’ve got to start trying, Dad.”
“I know.” He sniffs.
“How about we get you some strong coffee, try and sober you up a bit, huh? Then we can start cleaning this place and then…pizza? Or I can cook you dinner at my place.”
“I don’t deserve you, Brody. You or Caden.”
“I’m not an angel, Dad. I never will be. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up a bit.”
“So,” Dad says, as he takes the last piece of pizza, “you haven’t heard from Brooke at all?”
“No.”
“Asked anyone in town about where she is?”
“I asked Lola, but if she does know, she won’t tell me,” I answer, leaning my head on the back of the couch.
“Do you blame her?”
“Not really, no.”
“You know she’s probably with Hope, don’t you?” he says, keeping one eye on the game that’s playing on the TV. “Find Hope and you find Brooke.”
“Can’t find her either. Like I told you earlier, Cade already tried.”
“Well ain’t we just a bunch of fuck ups,” he says.
“You think stupidity is inherited?”
Dad turns his head to look at me, then lets out a bark of laughter. “Yeah, I would say it is in our case.” His face is alight with amusement. “Can’t believe we all banged the same chick.”
“Don’t remind me.” I groan. “It’s bad enough that I slept with her…”
“You get tested for STDs?”
“I’m not having this conversation with you, Dad.” I can’t believe that he just asked me that.
“Well did you?”
“Jesus, Dad.”
“Not an answer, Son.”
“Yes, I did, okay? Did you?”
“Course I did.”
“Good. I can’t believe that we’re talking about this.”
“Hey, you asked first.”
“Well I used a condom with her.”
“So did I…at first.”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“Brody, just promise you’ll wrap it up in the future. If a girl says she’s good for protection, don’t believe her. Hell, just don’t go near her. That was my mistake right there. Giving into temptation like I did, and now I’m paying for it.”
“And that right there is why Mom won’t have you back,” I mutter.
“What did you say?”
“Why did you do it, Dad? If you love Mom so much, why did you go behind her back?”
“Because I’m a pig-headed fool, Brody. An attractive young woman showed me attention and I decided to act on it. I wish to God that I hadn’t.” He shakes his head. “Listen. I love your mom, more than anything. I know that I’ve been an ass...but I swear from now on I will do everything I can to make this right.”
“Amen to that.”
“Do you want to talk about what happened between you and Brooke?”
“Not really.”
“Be good to get it off your chest.”
“No.”
He’s quiet for a minute or two before hitting me with, “I’m going to ask Joely for a DNA test for Kyan.”
I wasn’t expecting that.
“I figured that I’ve been paying her money all this time out of fear that she would tell your mom, and now that it’s out in the open…”
“Hate to break it to you, Dad, but you weren’t the only guy she slept with back then. I’m surprised you haven’t got tested before now.” I fix him with a glare. “Hell, I’m surprised half the town hasn’t been tested. How could you, of all people, be that stupid?”
“Joely said that if I made her get one, then she would tell your mom about our affair. I didn’t ever want Judy to find out.”
“Jesus Christ, Dad. Are you fucking crazy? Do you know how many men Joely has spread her legs for in this town alone?”
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
“You’re unbelievable,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “Were there others?”
“What?”
“Did you cheat on Mom with anyone else?”
“No! God no.”
“Well that’s something.” I spit.
“Hey. Show me some respect, I’m your father.”
“Who cheated on my sweet, kind mother and drove her away.”
“Like what you did was any different.”
“What’d you say?”
“What you did with Brooke was no different.”
“Brooke and I had split up.”
“You were still living in the same house. Kind of cruel to be going on dates with another woman while your ex is still living with you, don’t you think? So, before you go accusing me of being an old bastard, which,” he says, pointing to his chest, “I am. You should take a good, long look at yourself.”
“Dad…”
“No, Brody, you think because I’ve spent most of my time drunk that I don’t see what’s going on. I see it, Brody, believe me, I see it.” Dad leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “I can see you struggling to move on, I can see you hurting. You found out the hard way that the grass ain’t always greener on the other side, and now you’re lost. Lost without that sweet girl. Brody, you are a smart guy. I’m so proud of you and Cade, but it hurts me to think that you have both made the same mistakes that I have. Don’t be like me. Do the right thing and fight for what you want. Move heaven and earth to make it right.”
“How can I when I don’t know where the hell she is?”
“You’re just not looking hard enough.”
“If one of the top P.I.s in the country can’t find her, then how the hell do you expect me to?”
He sighs, and scrubs his hand across his jaw. For the first time I notice the lines in his skin and the gray hair on his head. My father has always looked young for his age, now, now he looks old…weary. “In two months-time it’ll be Christmas Eve,” he says quietly.
“So?”
“Brooke and Hope visit their parents’ graves on Christmas Eve, every year without exception.”
“I know that. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Without exception, Son.”
“You think that…”
“Yes. I do. Question is, what are you going to do about it?”