“Junior will be fine. Boy’s as healthy as a horse. Takes after his pa.” He ran the paint roller on the wall expertly. Up, down. Up, down. He looked over his shoulder at me, smiling. “Been a long time since we went for ice cream, eh, Kara Koala?”
I nodded. I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater, retied my hair in a bird’s nest on top of my head, picked up the other roller, dipped it in the paint, and slapped that shit on the wall.
We worked for a while, my dad piling on his dad jokes, me laughing uproariously. My shoulders and legs were screaming from the activity, but I knew my dad’s muscles were worse. Last time I gave him a massage, they were as hard as bricks.
“You laugh, but your eyes look sad,” he said suddenly, not looking at me. “You ever going to tell me what’s going on?”
I took a deep breath and kept painting. “What did you want to be when you were a kid, Dad?”
“Oh, well. Let’s see.” He blew out a breath. “I guess I wanted to be a race car driver.”
I threw him a look. “You would’ve been a great race car driver, Dad.”
He blushed. “Thanks, baby girl.”
“You didn’t pursue it because she got pregnant with me,” I said. “Right?”
Now I really felt sad.
“I wanted you more than I wanted to drive fast cars,” he said simply. He stopped painting for a moment and looked at me. “Whatever choices I made in life, good or bad, they were mine and mine alone. And if I didn’t choose whatever it is, it’s because I didn’t want it bad enough. And I chose you and your mom.”
“But she left you anyway.”
He shrugged. “She left you too. And Dyl. That’s her choice. You see? She wanted that man bad enough to leave us. And she went for it. The one thing that made me really angry at the time was that she hurt you and Dylan.”
“And you. Her loss.”
He nodded. “That’s right.”
“Are you sorry you stayed? I mean, you could’ve been anything you wanted if it weren’t for us dragging you down. I knew from Charity that you were going to race cars. You had your sponsors; you’d been training. And then my mother happened.”
He shook his head. “Haven’t you been listening to me, Kara?” He studied my face for a moment. “Tell me what’s really bothering you.”
I took a deep breath, let it out. Took another one. “I’m confused. I want something really bad, but I’m not sure if it’s the right thing for me, Dad. Actually, I keep telling myself it’s wrong, and maybe it is, but how come my heart feels so tired but my heart is still looking for it? The truth is maybe I just want to make it right, but it’s really wrong.” I let out a humorless laugh. “I don’t make sense, do I?”
He placed his roller on the plastic sheet on the floor, held out his hand so I could give him mine. He placed my roller next to his.
“Let’s have a seat on the bleachers,” he said, gesturing to the other side of the gymnasium. “I want to tell you something.”
“All right.”
We sat beside each other, and he was quiet for a moment. I could feel that he was trying to gather his thoughts, wrapping them in a neat bow before presenting them to me. My dad had always been careful with his words.
“Kara,” he started. “You have to fight for the things you want in this life. Fight for them with everything you’ve got because there will be a lot of people who will try to stop you. Your worst enemy is yourself.
“It’s not a bad thing to want a good life,” he continued. “For your family, for you. It’s not a bad thing to want to reach for your dreams and do everything you can to achieve them. But do them with a good heart and a clear conscience.”
He sighed long and deep, letting it out in a steady stream of air.
“You know the bad things in life you’ve experienced? The most despicable thing you can do is do the same bad things to other people that were done to you. Because you already know what it feels like, you know the suffering more than anyone, and yet you choose to do it to others. Life can beat you up real bad, sweetheart, but don’t let your heart harden to the point where you’ve lost it. To me, that’s disgraceful and heartbreaking.”
I wondered if he was talking about my ma. I knew it had broken his heart when she left.
“Learn to forgive so you can move on to the greater things that are waiting, that are meant for you to grab with both your hands. Once you’ve grabbed them, hold on to the
m as hard as you can. No matter how difficult or confusing. If your mind and your heart are at war, make a choice. Pick the one that you want bad enough, the one that you’ll regret most if you didn’t.”
“I will,” I told him, my voice rough.