Chapter Twenty-Six
Dean
Abbi was supposed to be here with me.
That’s all I can think as I walk up to my old man’s house. The thing is, I think she would’ve come if I’d asked her. Despite everything, Abbi would’ve held my hand as I saw my dying father. But I need to do this alone.
Dad’s house is a run-down bungalow west of Atlanta. The area isn’t great, his street isn’t much better, and his house is definitely the worst on the block. Some people live like this because of the circumstances life delivered them. It’s shit luck, and it’s unfair and frustrating. My father lives like this because of the decisions he made over and over again. He’s not an addict. He’s not incapable of working. He’s just always preferred trying to cheat anyone around him into paying his way. He’s spent his life working so hard for a free check that he could’ve had an honest one many times over.
I don’t know why I spent so many years worrying about being like him. I’m nothing like him. If anything, I’m his opposite. I live for hard work, for busting my ass to prove myself, and for taking care of the people I love. Genetics won’t change that.
Sandy greets me on the crumbling concrete porch. Her thin blond hair whisks around her face in the light breeze, and her face is creased with the kind of stress that still shows even as she gives me a shaky smile. “Thanks for coming. Did you find a place to stay?”
I nod. “I got a room just off the bypass.” I could’ve made an appearance and left, but I decided to come for a couple of days. Milo needs some help applying for college and wants to do a couple of campus visits too. I told Sandy I’d help, and I thought she’d cry. “It’s the least I can do for my brother,” I said on the call, and then I heard her soft whimpering on the other end of the line.
“He’s in and out today, but I know he’ll be glad to see you.” She leads me into the house, where they have a hospital bed set up in the living room. The place smells of cat pee and death, and my stomach turns. Someone’s placed a folding chair at the side of his bed, close to his head, and I lower myself into it. It’s cold and hard and about as comfortable as I feel.
My father rolls his head to the side and looks at me through slitted eyes. “Dean?”
I nod, and my eyes feel hot. Goddammit. “Yeah.”
“Milo said you’d come. I told him he shouldn’t lie to a dying man.”
“I didn’t want to.” He’s too young to die. Too young to look this old. I guess cancer treatments do that to you. I stare at the pale hand by his side. My mind plays a hundred different cinema-inspired scenes in my head, and in every one I take that hand in mine and we share the most genuine, meaningful moment of connection we ever had. But this isn’t a movie, and I’m not here for connection. I’m here because Milo needed to see me show up. Maybe our father stuck around for him, but sharing a roof with his youngest son made him no better a dad to Milo than he was to me. This man was absent for both of us in all the ways that counted. Now Milo needs to know there are people in this world who do show up, even when it’s hard, even when things are rocky.
“Your mama come with you?” he asks.
“No. She said goodbye to you a long time ago.”
“True,” he wheezes. “You here to rub it in my face—what a fancy life you got?”
I shake my head. “Nah. It’s not so fancy.”
“Bullshit. I see pictures online of that business you run. Fucking mansions you’re remodeling. Gotta be good money in that. You never thought to share a little of that good fortune with your old man?”
Oh, Dad. Even cancer can’t change you. “I’ll help Milo out when I can. That’s enough.”
“Selfish bullshit.”
Sandy squeezes my shoulder, and I jump. I didn’t even realize she was standing so close. Thank you, she mouths.
I used to have this whole speech in my mind for the time I saw my father again. You remember when you used to say I was just like you? I’d ask. You were so wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong. I’ll live every day of my life to make sure I’m nothing like you. He makes me angry enough that it’d be easy to let it slip out, but I see the grief on Sandy’s face and keep it locked away. I’m not here for myself.
“I just wanted you to know that,” I say. “Milo’s a good kid. You don’t need to worry about him.”