Private Practice (Private Pleasures 1)

She watched him go, mind reeling with the new information. Shame on her, assuming Tyler cut their…uh…date short in order to pursue some testosterone-fueled blood sport. Then again, he hadn’t said anything about what he was doing, so how could she have known?

She locked up and walked to her car, assimilating what she’d learned about Tyler, and came to the conclusion she needed to adjust her opinion of him. He wasn’t an adult version of the hell-raising, trouble-hungry rebel she remembered. He excelled professionally, looked out for his employees and their families—if his loyalty to Junior served as any indication—and did charity work in his spare time. For a man who’d arrived on her doorstep in the wee hours of the morning with a lipstick smear on his shirt and a jealous drunk’s bullet in his butt, Tyler Longfoot turned out to be a lot more complex than she expected.

Thirty minutes later she pulled into her father’s driveway and noted some things remained exactly as expected. The garbage bin at the curb overflowed with empty beer bottles and fast food cartons. Not the recommended diabetic diet.

Stifling a sigh, she hauled two bags of groceries up the same sagging porch steps she’d spent her younger years imagining led to an enchanted palace, or a lost city or, most fanciful of all, a happy home where two loving parents eagerly awaited her arrival. Adult Ellie harbored no such illusions.

She balanced the bags in one arm and rapped on the screen door, silently cursing the humidity when a bead of sweat trickled into her eye. She muttered a not-so-silent curse when her knock yielded no response. Frank was home. His pickup sat in the cracked asphalt driveway and the TV blared from the other side of the door. She twisted the knob and shoved the door open.

Hot, stale air slapped her as soon as she walked in. She left the door open, hoping to get a breeze flowing despite the thick air outside. Her father lay sprawled on the faded plaid living room sofa, napping or passed out, with one thin arm flung over his forehead, the other bent across his thickening middle. He looked like he’d slept more than once in his stained wifebeater and rumpled pajama bottoms.

Time hadn’t been kind to him. His hair, once the same dark brown she saw in her mirror, was matted and shot with gray. Even in rest, deep lines carved their way across his face. Broken capillaries bloomed around his nose.

How he could sleep with the TV loud enough to be heard in the next galaxy, she didn’t know. No, wait, she did know. Six beer bottles littered the cheap wood-grain coffee table.

Because she had

a strong impulse to kick the table and send the empties flying, she stomped to the kitchen. She dropped the grocery bags on the chipped and yellowed Formica counter and put the contents away, using the mundane activity to settle her temper. Then she strode back to the living room and turned the TV off. Silence rushed in with deafening intensity.

“Wha’ the…?” Frank jerked awake and his bloodshot eyes fixed on her. Good. At least he could still hear. “Hey. I was watching the game.”

She tossed the remote toward him. “Really? It kind of looked like you were sleeping. Have you had anything to eat?”

“Yeah,” he muttered, picking up the remote.

“Beer doesn’t count. I brought groceries. I can make you something.”

“I told you, I ate.” Not looking at her, he turned the TV on again. Then he lifted his unfinished beer and drank.

“What’s your glucose today?” The volume of the game forced her to yell the question. Typical. One way or another, he made communicating impossible.

“Don’t remember.”

“Where’s your meter? It logs every test.”

He ignored the question. She reached over and grabbed the beer. He held on. Unwilling to forfeit the ridiculous tug-of-war, she pulled harder.

The bottle popped out of his hand and the sudden, unopposed momentum sent it smacking into her forehead, showering her with beer in the process.

“Damn it, Frank!” She mopped her face with shaking hands. “You can’t drink like this on your meds. It’s a fast track to liver failure.”

“Jesus, stop lecturing me. If you were any kind of a woman, you’d have found a man to hassle by now and leave me alone. Your mother was married with a kid by your age.”

And dead by the time she was thirty. But I’m still here. If you’d pull your stubborn head out of your ass and notice I’m here, trying to be your daughter, maybe I wouldn’t have to force myself to visit once a week. Rather than voice thoughts he wouldn’t know what to do with anyway, she returned to the kitchen and rummaged around in the junk drawer for his glucose meter.

There was no point letting his attitude upset her. Years ago a sharp truth had lodged in the soft underbelly of her heart. Frank had never been interested in fatherhood. Her mom had wanted a child and he’d relented. But after she died, his bitterness over the loss left no room for anyone else, including his own grieving daughter.

Her father’s diabetes had been a major factor in her decision to return home to open her practice. She’d harbored a hope that by being here as an adult, helping him, she’d magically break through his barriers and turn them into a real family. But the last couple weeks had driven home a harsh fact. A grown daughter didn’t interest Frank either. If she wanted a happy, loving family, her best shot involved turning herself into Roger’s dream girl, and then showing him they were made for each other.

Her fingers finally closed over the glucose meter. Reviewing the log didn’t take long— one test today, one yesterday, and a handful over the past week. The numbers were high, but not horrible. She opened the kitchen cabinet and checked his supply of meds. He seemed to be taking them as directed.

She spent another five minutes using some of the fresh vegetables she’d bought to make a large salad and placed it in the nearly empty fridge, beside the diabetic-friendly Dijon vinaigrette. Considering her duty done, she washed up and headed to the front room. Her chances of getting so much as a thank-you from her father were nonexistent, but still, she paused at the open door. “I made you a salad. It’s in the fridge.”

“I hope you brought beer. I’m low.”

She pushed open the screen door. “Bye, Frank.”

The rickety metal door slammed shut behind her.