by Flite, Nora
Lifting my chin, my voice was a dry husk. “Hey there, Dad.”
****
Nine Years Ago
“Wow!” My face ached from grinning, but I didn't mind. Eagerly running my fingers down the length of the guitar neck, I spoke without looking away from the beautiful instrument. “Did you really make this for me, Dad? Holy shit, you didn't need to do that!”
“Watch your mouth,” my mother said, struggling to sound upset over her own glee. My parents were crushed together on the couch, hovering above me where I sat with my new gift; a guitar my dad had carved for me.
I caught him rolling his eyes. “Come on, honey. If he's going to be a famous rockstar someday, swearing is just going to happen.”
“Well, when he becomes whatever, he can swear all he wants.” Pushing off the couch, she gathered up the shreds of shiny paper. “Under this roof, he watches his mouth.” Moving my way, her scowl broke, lips puckering to press a quick kiss to my forehead. There was only joy in her eyes when she stood straight. “Happy birthday, Anthony.”
My dad hit me in the temple with a wad of wrapping paper. “Yeah, happy birthday, kid.”
Scratching at the back of my head, I turned the guitar around. My father had always been a great guitarist, but he excelled at woodworking. A fact that I knew bothered him, even if he never flat out said it.
He cleared his throat. “Go on, strum a bit.”
“Ah, you know I'm not that good still.” My neck was hot at his coaxing. Singing was my passion, but I'd never turned away my dad's attempts at teaching me to play. It had to increase my chances at getting into a big band someday if I could do both, didn't it?
His eyes warmed; melting emeralds. “Just a bit, for me. I worked hard on that.”
Smiling sideways, I set the instrument in my lap. It smelled of sawdust and polish, fresh enough to make me dizzy. Tweaking the pegs, my fingers were shaking. I wanted to impress him so badly. I'm already thirteen, I should be better than I am. All the hours of practice, of classes my parents scrimped to save for...
I should be better.
Moving my fingers like a wave, I began to play. My eyes were stuck on my movements, working so hard to make everything perfect. Each mistake screamed at me, drilled into my teeth like cavities.
Better. I need to get better.
It was all I ever wanted.
Looking up, I spotted the sad smile on my father's face. Then it was gone, and I knew what he was going to ask before his lips started to move. “What's the most important thing you need to be a good guitarist?”
As I had done a hundred times before, I shook my head.
His answer was always the same. “If you ever figure it out, let me in on the secret.”
I will, I thought determinedly. When I find out, I promise I'll tell you first.
****
Eight Years Ago
“Why doesn't he want to come?” Colton asked, twirling a drumstick lazily. He dropped it twice before I bothered to try speaking.
Looking up, I shrugged into my ears. “Mom says my Dad's just really tired. I don't know, you'd think he'd want to see my first show.” It had taken Colton and myself weeks of work to feel ready to perform on our high school's stage.
Picking at his ear, the lanky kid studied me. “So it doesn't bother you?”
“Of course it bothers me.” Wrinkling my nose, I fidgeted with my guitar case. “But what the hell can I do about it? It's his life, not mine.” He used to be so involved. What changed? The days where my dad would practice with me till we were drained, would talk to me about music, discuss his own grand wishes and plans and dreams... those had faded soon after my thirteenth birthday.
In the wake of that time, my mother had started to pick up his slack. She took me to every practice, drove me to the music store, endured my chatter about what band was up to what.
It wasn't the same, but her support kept me motivated.
I still wish we could have convinced Porter to play with us. Colton had done his best to talk our friend into it, but he'd deferred the attempts every time. I didn't understand, but I also didn't pry.
Colton said nothing for awhile, just poked his nose with his drumstick. We were virtually alone in the hallway; the auditorium was starting to buzz with a growing crowd. Hearing the life through the doors made my senses flare.
“Well,” he coughed, staring at the far wall. “My whole family is going to be in there. They'll cheer hard enough for us both. Okay?”
Grinning wide, I gave him a hard shove. “Everyone will be cheering for us, you mean.”
“Yeah.” Adjusting his shirt, he flashed me a knowing look. “Yeah, that's what I meant.”
Inside the auditorium, people were shouting; it was time.
Hoisting my guitar case, I paused with my hand on the knob. I didn't look back as I spoke. “Thanks, Colt.”
Together, we pushed into the room.
****
Seven Years Ago
Exhaustion had become an old friend. Along with it, the walls of my bedroom were now decorated with trophies in silver, or gold.
Mostly gold.
Winning singing contests had become my talent. It didn't make me try any less hard, knowing the constant feeling of success. All that I wanted was to practice more. Playing guitar, running through exercises for my vocal cords; I never stopped.
I couldn't.
I'm still not there yet. I still haven't made it.
At age fifteen, I was starting to feel old. Like my road to being a star was beginning to narrow. Seeing the pinched looked on my father's face as the years went by, I feared my future lay where his did now.
Failure.
I have to try harder. I have to be the best.
Dropping my backpack on the kitchen counter, I poured a glass of lemonade from the fridge. I'd downed all but a final swallow when I spotted the envelope. It was a fat, manilla thing addressed to me and my mother. Of course it wouldn't mention my dad. The man hadn't shown up at a lesson, a show, anything for over two years.
Setting the glass aside, I wiped my hands on my jeans. The mail was heavy, weighty with an importance I was quickly gleaning. It had already been opened; the top carefully peeled back. Inhaling to my belly, I lifted the letter into the air and read it with mounting excitement.
It was an offer letter to Goldman's—an arts school known for its highly skilled students. I knew the name, so many of my favorite musicians had attended. And they want me to go there. When had I started shaking?
“Well, what do you think?”
Spinning, I looked into the watery, smiling face of my mother. She'd been waiting since I'd stumbled home from school for me to find the letter; the look in her eyes said it all.
Wordless, I grabbed her in a hug, listened to her delighted laughter and hoped it would never end. I didn't want this feeling to ever go away.
This is the first step. I can really make it.
I can be a rockstar.
She pried herself out of my arms, taking the letter gingerly. “It came this morning. I couldn't wait to show you.”
A thought hit me, settled in my guts. “Did Dad see it?”
Her small frown muddled the joyous occasion. “Not yet.” Smoothing her hair, she put the envelope back on the counter. “I'll tell him about it when he's... in a better mood.”
When he isn't drunk. I knew her code. “Can we really do this? It means moving to Colorado. I won't get to graduate with my friends.” Colton and Porter are going to hate me.
My mother reached out, kind hands holding my cheeks. “Anthony, honey, this is all up to you. If you want to go here, we—you—have to decide.”
Leaning in brought us together. I'd gotten taller than my mother—tall as my father—soon after turning fourteen. In my hug, my mother felt... small. Frail. She hasn't been eating well since Dad started drinking so much. I was familiar with the strain he brought.
I was also very familiar with the bruises he could leave.
&nbs
p; Thinking about his misery made me hold her tighter. “Listen, Mom.” The words were escaping faster than my brain could make sense. “Let's just go together. You and me, we'll vanish and Dad can be the depressed fucker he clearly wants to be by himself.”
“Language, Anthony.” She squeezed me briefly, voice low. “I can't leave your father like that. Not... without saying something.”
“He doesn't say much to me at all these days.”
Pulling away, my mom considered my bitter grimace. Her kiss on my cheek nullified some of my distaste. “He has his reasons. Don't take them personally. Now, why don't you go clean up before dinner.”
“What?” Grinning, I ruffled my dark hair. “You saying I smell?”
Together we laughed in the kitchen, a moment of peace that would forever remain cemented in my heart. I could never forget how pleased my mom looked, how she playfully swat me and chased me upstairs to my room.
It was pure bliss.
Of course it had to end.
****
I heard the screams—no, I felt them. It's such a primal, protective reaction when you hear your own mother in danger.
My hair was still wet from the shower, steam escaping me and my hastily thrown on jeans. There was no time for anything else; I just ran towards the source of the noise.
Inside my father's workshop, the scent of polish and pine brought confusing nostalgia. As a child, even a young teen, I'd spent so much time watching my dad work on what he loved.
The sight of him working over my mother—someone I loved—made me want to wretch.
He had her on the floor, blood on his knuckles, blood on her forehead. He was saying something, but my ears were blinded to all but her pleading screams.
“Stop! Donnie, it's not what you think!”
“You're going to run off and abandon me, you little bitch! After everything!” He moved to swing again. In the whites of his eyes, insanity bloomed.
I didn't remember moving. Circling my forearms around his shoulders, I wrestled my father backwards, down to the sawdust covered floor. “Get off of her! Stop it, Dad!” My skull vibrated, birthing confusion. How could this be real? What had gone so wrong?
He'd hit me before, but never like this... and never my mother.
Scuffling, he threw me against the legs of a heavy table. “You'd try to fight your own fucking father!?” Hands had my throat, nails ripped my cheek. “You piece of shit, you god damn fucking piece of shit!”
The back of my head slammed into something solid; the edge of a work bench. Dots of color blinded the inside of my eyelids. Losing my grip, my father scrambled out of my hold. I thought he'd come for me again, but he went right back for my mother.
She looked like a terrified animal. Sliding sideways, holding her palm to the crimson seeping from her left temple, my mom sobbed. “Please, please stop! No! get away from me!”
“Ungrateful family,” he huffed heavily. “Think you'll just go off and become rich and famous, think you're better than me. After all of the time I put into making that son of yours so fucking talented!” Bending low, his fingers coiled in her hair. The sawdust at his feet was sludge from the blood.
Under his boot, I saw the edge of my admission letter.
I'd started yelling; didn't recall beginning. In a rage that left me nothing but a beast of revenge, I tackled my dad back to the floor. Together we rolled into a tool bench, metal showered around us, instruments he'd once used to lovingly carve his guitars.
There was a flicker of movement, a moment where I had him pinned under me. I didn't see the chisel until it was too late. Pure pain, radiating from my lower back.
He'd stabbed me. My own father had stabbed me.
Rawness took over my throat. Distantly, I worried I'd ruin my vocal cords. Who cares? Who cares if I can't sing again if I'm dead.
If she's dead.
Ignoring the sickening weight of the chisel in my flesh, I punched down into my dad's jaw. Again and again, the thud of my knuckles bounced off his face. I didn't stop until he went limp, wet bubbles of red hanging on his lips.
Groaning, I made myself stand. A blackout tickled my vision, but I moved towards the phone on the wall of the workshop. I could tell my mother was breathing; wasting another second without calling for help was madness.
As I dialed for an ambulance, my bare foot found the ragged letter from Goldman's. Blood from my dad's shoe stained most of it. It was funny, how important that piece of paper had seemed to me just hours ago.
Now, as I looked over my beaten mother, endured the waves of pain from my wound...
I wished it had never arrived.
****
Present Day
There were half-moon cuts in my palms from how hard I had been clenching my fists. For so long, I'd avoided thinking about what had happened that day. How my father had gone so far in his jealousy that he tried to murder my mother, and no doubt, would have killed me as well.
Standing there watching me, he said nothing. I almost preferred it that way, but that wasn't why I was here. I wouldn't waste this trip.
Honesty.
“Why.” The word had been on the tip of my tongue for years. “Why would you do it.”
“Listen, kid—”
“Don't!” Curling back my lips, I gripped my own skull. “Never call me that again. I'm not a fucking kid.” My guts balled up, thinking about how I'd called Lola 'kid' initially. I'm nothing like him. I won't be—I can't be. “Just tell me why.”
His mouth fell open, a pathetic expression that I just loathed more. “I've—been seeing someone about that. Therapy, you know? I'm—”
“Tell me why!”
Lines grew deep along his forehead, around his eyes; eyes that were so tired and nothing like they used to be when I was just a child. “Did you really come to see me, after all these years, to ask that?”
“No.” The why doesn't even matter. “I don't need your answer. I figured it out soon after they sentenced you. I wasn't stupid, I fucking got why you turned into such a pathetic, desperate piece of shit over the years.”
He crumpled like a dying balloon. “Then what do you want from me? You want to talk to me, right? You're here for me.”
The nape of my neck cooked. “I'm not here for you, I'm here for me.” I'm here so that I can get over my past. I'm here for me.
For Lola.
There was another prisoner in the cell, his body shifting under a blanket on the bottom bunk. My dad shot a look towards the movement, then eyed me with less defeat than he'd worn a second ago. “Fine. You came here to mock me. You proud of that? You proud of looking down on your own father, Anthony?” My hackles went up in rows. “You proud of taunting an old man who struggled to give you what you have now?”
“I used to be proud of you!” My bottom lip split with my hard growl, the blood a distant note on my tongue. “I was so god damn proud of everything you did, I looked up to you!” Whatever plan I'd had, the perfect speech I'd written in my brain on the way to the jail, it was washed over by the one that had been scratching itself into my brain since the day my dad had started to ignore me. He erased me. He hated how good I was becoming, how much I surpassed him, and he began to turn me invisible until he couldn't any longer.
The realization did nothing for my rage.
“You looked up to a failure like me?” he asked, eyes going dull, doubtful.
“I did.” Raising my arm, I wiped at the burning cut on my dry mouth. “Until the very first time you hit me, I just wanted to be like you.” I wanted to show you I could be the star you wanted me to be.
Turning away, Donnie closed his eyes and breathed out. “Well, you've made it further than I ever did. I've seen you on television, son. You're famous—like I wanted to be. You just actually got there.” There was a hollowness in his gaze as he looked back at me. “Guess we weren't very similar, in the end.”
“No,” I said, feeling my lower back twinge. “We're nothing alike.” And we never will be. “I'm here
to remind myself of that. I'm going to make sure I never, ever become anything like you.”
In the shadows of the cell, my father fidgeted.
Seeing him like that, bent over, face lined with a map of misery, I burned the memory deep into my mind. This was who my father was, and even though our blood was the same, our hearts never would be.
I had demanded perfection from Lola in the way my dad had from me. I'd felt the fear when I saw her talent soar, recognized the world would claw and crave her as I did every second. I'd lost my mind at the idea she'd slip away, told myself I would do anything, anything to keep her at my side...
But I was not my father.
And I would never let myself become the bitter man he was.
Turning on my heel, I stuck my hands in my pockets. “One more thing, before I leave and never waste my time thinking about you again.” My lungs fluttered, fresh with satisfaction. “What does it take to be a good guitarist?”
He stood rigid, finally to his full height; I had his attention.
I'd never wanted it more.
“Honesty.” The single word cut the stagnant air of the prison. “The answer is honesty. That's why you could never make it.” And why she could. That beautiful, genius fucking girl knew the answer from the start.
His lips moved, mouthing the word softly. “Honesty? You think that's what matters?”
“Yeah.” There wasn't a tremor of doubt in my voice. How could there be? “It's what allows people to be themselves, to be free and unconstrained.” It's what will keep Lola and I together.
My heels cut down the concrete hall. Not once did I look back, not even to see the proof that my father was looking after me with the regret I'd wanted him to understand, to truly know, back when I was merely a teenager.
I was finally done with my father.
But there was more to do before I could return to Lola.
Chapter Four.
Lola
