Under the Stars and Stripes (Under Him)

Simon has to fight back a smile.

He’s a big softie under all those layers of hero.

“Listen,” I tell my dad. “I love you and I’m glad you’re working on yourself. It’s probably the best present you’ve ever given me, if not the only one, now that I’m thinking about it. But that’s not what matters.”

I swallow a lump swelling in my throat and fight back tears.

“What matters is that you apologized, and I do forgive you. But before we can start being closer, I need you to promise you’ll go to a therapist about your rage issue. Because if I were to let you back into my life and you chose to speak to me the way that you used to, or hit me, I don’t know if I could come back from that.”

My dad nods his head slowly and digests what I’ve just said.

“Okay,” he agrees. “That’s fair enough.”

He looks around, all of us expecting him to make his next move, but nothing else comes except, “I should probably get home, then. I have a lot of work to do now that I’m… well… actually working.”

We all force a laugh out of kindness, and I quickly towel off and hug my father for the first time since I was a child.

“You think he meant all that?” Simon asks once, he’s gone from the backyard.

“I do, actually,” I tell him. “It’s not that I doubt his sincerity in his apologies. I just doubt his commitment to being a different person.

“My dad’s been drinking a long time, and if that really was the biggest part of his personality that brought on all that resentment and hate, he must have believed it was his best defense from getting hurt. So, what do we do the next time he gets hurt and we’re not there to keep him from a bottle?”

“Well, you’ve got a good support system here,” Sarah says, as she pats me on the shoulder.

“Yeah, su familia es mi familia,” Tony adds.

“Hmm… I think the three of us actually have things covered,” I tell Tony, as I gesture to Simon, Sarah, and myself. “Try applying to mi familia again in one year.”

Simon and Sarah laugh, but Tony just shakes his head and says, “You know, words hurt, Britt. It’s really saying something when I stand here where I’ve come to spend a holiday with you, and you make me wish I were spending it with Justin instead. Because even he’s nicer than you sometimes.”

“Wow,” I say. “I’m so sorry,” I tell him insincerely.

Then I stare at his crotch for just a second before pointing and telling him, “Tony, dude, your zipper is down, and your pussy is showing.”

He reaches first for his zipper, which he doesn’t have, because he’s in swim trunks, and then he stomps off to pout for a minute, which kind of makes me feel good.

I walk over to the little table set up in the cabana constructed with its own full bar to see if my phone I plugged in there a few hours ago has charged.

But the moment that I take it into my hands, it begins ringing the most unfamiliar ringtone I’ve ever heard, which must mean it’s one I set to a number that does not call very often.

I flip it over in my hand see the screen reading “MOM” in big white letters.

“Damn, is there like a full moon or a retrograde going on tonight?” I ask.

“Who is it?” Sarah asks.

“It’s my mom, who, by the way, I haven’t spoken to in almost seven months.”

I hit the accept button on my screen and put the phone to my ear.

“Hey, Mom,” I say, with just as much suspicion in my voice as I gave my father not fifteen minutes ago. “Is everything okay? Did something happen?”

“Huh?” she asks. “No, of course not. Why would you ask that?”

“Umm… well… because we haven’t spoken since New Year’s Day.”

“Oh, right. Honey, I’m sorry I sort of fell off the face of the earth for a while. It’s just… I don’t know. I think I’ve been busy looking for something from life that life doesn’t have. So, I figured I’d call you and see if maybe hearing your sweet voice would get this sense of impending doom out of my gut.”

“Let me get this straight,” I tell her. “You called me as a Hail Mary pass to alleviate the anxiety that’s made your stomach knot up because you have not found the cure to that in your several-year-long search for happiness away from Dad and, consequently, myself?”

“Well, Jesus, Britt… when you put it like that, you make me sound like the bad guy.”

“Oh, boy,” I sigh. “Hey, I’m kind of at a pool party thing. Can I call you tomorrow?

“Sure, honey. Let’s video chat or FaceTime or Facebook or whatever the kids call it now.”