A car beeped at me to move and I stepped forward, coffee forgotten, legs numb, head scrambling to read the mood of the man standing just inches from my car. My dad was back, staring straight at me with eyes that didn’t blink. I was only safe if I could read his moods. And I couldn’t read his mood.
I stopped at the front of my car. He stood toward the back on the other side of the hose. It wasn’t a great barrier but it was something. Counting didn’t calm me as the only memory that kept popping up in my head was the image of his fist barreling toward my face.
His posture was more stooped than I remembered. His back had a curve that I could see even facing him head-on. He had lost weight, making his clothes hang on his body like a scarecrow that had lost its stuffing.
His eyes stared at me from beneath the shadow of a worn-out hat. He didn’t blink. He looked exhausted; his eyes resembled giant, glassy marbles that were sunk deep within his pasty skin.
His lips were pulled into a thin, pale line. I had become a master at reading my dad’s facial expressions, but I couldn’t read the one on his face now and that, more than his abrupt appearance, scared me.
“What are you doing here?” I swallowed against the shaking in my voice.
He took one step forward, his knee pushing against the hose. “Rowan.” There was no greeting in his words or an expression on his face. One hand hung by his side; the other shoved in the pocket of his old coat.
I cleared my throat. “What are you doing here?” I repeated.
He raised his hand, palm facing me, and held it mid-air. He pulled in a loud breath. His hand was shaking. A slight tremor shot through it every few seconds making it jerk. “I came to check on you and Trina.”
My heart started racing. “Why?” The word escaped my mouth like a burst of gunfire.
He took another step forward. My eyes never left him, flipping between the way he held his face and the way he held his hands. As soon as those fingers curled into themselves, forming a fist, I would run.
Anger, resentment, and barely veiled hatred had always simmered through him like a disease. I didn’t have a single memory from my childhood when he smiled or was happy. His dad had forced him to marry my mom, and he had resented all of us ever since. When Aidan was born, he brought light into our lives and gave us all a tiny morsel of hope.
My dad was finally trying to be present, part of the family, content. He had his son and we all thought that maybe things would change. And they did…for a while. But then I put that blanket on Aidan. Within the paintbrush stroke of one night, everything in our lives changed, imploded, and fell apart.
The man standing before me, though, was almost unrecognizable because I couldn’t find the anger and resentment that I’d grown so familiar with. It wasn’t in his expression, his posture, the look behind his eyes. It wasn’t in the rigid, straight back and proud shoulders. This was unchartered territory and it made me so uneasy I would’ve felt safer in the middle of the ocean with a swarm of hungry sharks closing in.
He ran a hand over his face. He’d aged since I’d last seen him. The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were deeper. The scruff of his beard showed more white than dark brown. My dad had always been a tall man using his stature to intimidate, control. Right now, though, he looked like someone had pricked him with a needle, deflating the air, the life, out of him.
“I needed some time away.” He rubbed his face again.
“You mean after you beat me up?” I regretted the verbal slap as soon as it left my mouth.
His lips thinned and his eyes hardened, dark shadows passing over his face.
I stepped back. Run if you need to. Just run.
Instead, he merely nodded.
Cars came and went while we stood there, only a few feet from each other. There was something about him—something darker, blacker, not sinister like I remembered but infected.
“Where did you go?” It didn’t take much effort to sound distant, uncaring. He’d never cared about me. It had been pretty easy to quit caring about him—at least I told myself that.
“Here and there. I stayed with a friend in Baltimore—a guy I was in the service with. I needed to get my head on straight.”
“Is your head on straight now?” Spikes and sharp knives flew in the air between us. I clenched my teeth as every cell in my body erupted in a frenzy. What did he want?
He stared at me, unblinking, for several moments. “I’ll only say this one time, and you can take it or leave it.”
I pulled in a breath and held it.
“I’m sorry…for what I did. And for not being a better father. It’s just not me. Not in me. And you and Trina deserved better.” He waved his hand through the air and shrugged as if he’d just made a comment about the weather and not about our lives.
IF HE had sprouted wings, grew a pig nose, and started flying I would’ve been less surprised. He was sorry? Jack Slone was sorry? I laid my hand on the hood of the car. It was still warm.
He shrugged again, as if to say, That’s it. That’s all I have. There was no emotion behind those haunted eyes of his; eyes that had followed me around the last several years of my life, always accusing, always watching.
Somewhere deep inside my brain words formed like seedlings. But they weren’t taking root, and I found myself just staring.
“One more thing.”
My mouth was still incapable of speech.
“I was at the VA the other day. Turns out I have lung cancer.”
His demeanor was as casual as if he had just told me he had his teeth cleaned.
“You have cancer?” I choked. My brain tried to unravel and rewire with this information, shattering my long-held view of the most unreachable, cold man in the world. It seemed he was just that way to everything but cancer.
“Um, what do the doctors say? What treatment options are there? How…how long?”
“Six months. Maybe.”
I stared hard at his face but couldn’t detect a single flash of emotion anywhere. But I could see, and maybe I imagined it, where the cancer was eating away at him, hollowing out his cheeks, making the bones prominent and sharp; sinking in his eyes until he looked almost skeletal with one foot already in the ground.
“Six months?” I repeated.
“Maybe.”
“Have you seen Mom?”
“No. But I know she’s in jail.” He didn’t blink, his eyes round saucers. “I know the truth about what happened to the boy. It’s all water under the bridge now, I guess. You’ve moved on from what Trina and your grandma say.”
I almost burst out laughing. I’ve moved on? Was he serious? The sound caught in my chest, tugging at my heart.
“I’ll be in town for a couple of weeks, I guess. Maybe we can catch up again. You’re staying at the Anderson’s?”
I nodded, suddenly so overcome with an urge to see him again, I said, “I still have the same cell number. Call me. Maybe we can go to dinner. Or something.”
He gave one quick flip of his head and turned. He started to walk away.
“Do you need a ride?” I was surprised when the words came out of my mouth. I was even more surprised that I didn’t want to see him go.
“No.”
And he was gone, disappearing into the distance as I stood there. My coffee was cold, the hood of my car was cold, and yet inside, my heart felt the first crack of thawing toward my father.
THE DRIVE to school passed in a daze. My phone rang a couple of times—once from Mike and once from Gran. But I didn’t answer it. What was there to say? After all this time, my dad shows up and tells me not only is he sorry for treating me like shit for most of my life, but hey, he also has cancer. I couldn’t imagine carrying on a normal conversation right now.
Images of Jack Slone’s life as I knew it flashed before me. Jack Slone in the high school yearbook pictures Mom used to show me. Jack Slone in a rage each time he and Mom got into a fight. Jack Slone’s expression when he realized his son was dead. Jack Slone’s f
ist coming toward my face.
Once I hit Main Street I pulled over, sobbing into the steering wheel. He was dying? How could I hate a man who was dying? How could I not hate a man who hated me? Had hated me all my life?
Tears poured down my cheeks in a torrent. Once I allowed one tear to escape it was over, and I lost control.
Aidan.
Dad.
Mom.
Trina.
Gran.
Rowan.
How did we all fit together in this miserable puzzle? Were we God’s cruel joke? I could just see him up in Heaven laughing with Paul, or Peter, or whoever Mrs. Anderson’s preacher said was up there with him.
We’re bored. Let’s destroy Rowan Slone’s life.
How else could someone explain my life and what had happened to me?
Hiccups came and went before I flopped back against the seat. With the back of my hand I wiped away the moisture only to find the tears wouldn’t stop.
I had just gotten used to the fact that my mother was a murderer. Now I had to get used to the fact that my dad was not only apologizing for everything he’d ever done, but was also dying?
I needed Mike. I needed to talk to him, to have him soothe the hurt. But he was five hours away at another soccer tournament, and I had no idea when I’d see him again.
“Oh God,” I cried. “Oh God!” I buried my face in my hands, and the sobs wracked through my body with such fury I thought my ribs would break.
In the distance I could hear my phone ringing. It slowly eased me out of my stupor. I ignored it until it rang two more times. It was Miss J., my guidance counselor.
“Hello?” I croaked into the phone.
“Rowan, where are you? School started thirty minutes ago. Are you okay?”
I glanced at the clock. Shit. My college applications, including attendance and grades, were already out, but I still held onto the fear of slipping and never finding my feet again. School was the one thing that helped keep me on my feet.
“I’m coming. Sorry. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“What’s wrong?” Miss J. knew me too well.
“Nothing. Everything. I’ll get to school and come see you.”
“Okay. See you in a few.”
I flipped the phone shut, feeling such heaviness in my heart that I knew for sure it would stop working. I’d end up in a freshly dug grave right beside my dead father. And then my mom would eat herself to death, and she would be on the other side of Dad. It wouldn’t be too long after that until Trina tried to kill herself again, or overdosed on whatever drugs she was taking. And she could be on the other side of Mom.
The Slone family plot at the cemetery. Is that how we’d all come back together? We’d all die and lose our lives of loneliness and despair only to end up back together for eternity? The thought sent a shuddering chill over my skin, like someone had just thrown me into a bath full of ice.
THE HALLS were quiet when I walked into the school. Everyone would be in second period by now. I should be in calculus, a class I really shouldn’t miss. But instead of heading toward Room 23, I went to see my guidance counselor, Tanya Johnson.
There was a window cut into her wooden office door and I stood outside it, peering in. She was bent over her desk, dark brown hair falling around her face as she read the newspaper. One hand picked at a corner of the paper, while the other slapped lightly on a stack of papers on top of the messy desk, as if she were keeping a beat to music I couldn’t hear.
I threw open the door and fell into the chair. My backpack hit the tiled floor with a loud thud.
Miss J. glanced up. A smile broke out over her face, making her large brown eyes appear as if they were also smiling, and then it swiftly disappeared. “Rowan, hello to you, too. How nice of you to show up.” She shut the paper. “Now. What’s going on?”
There was a loose thread on my jacket that I pulled until it came out. Then I twisted it around my finger, over and over until the tip turned white.
“Rowan!”
A soft sigh escaped my lips. “You know, it’s been a tough year, right?”
“Yes… It’s been quite a year, although are you referring to the actual past year or this school year? You need to be specific.”
“I dunno. I mean, I guess the school year. But I can’t ignore last year. Or the past eight years, can I? As much as I try, it never quite goes away.”
“Why these somber thoughts? Do I need to ask again what’s wrong?”
“I saw my dad.” I twisted the thread.
“Your dad?” She leaned forward. “Where?” Her voice hardened.
“At the gas station this morning. I knew he was back.” I waved a hand in the air and rolled my eyes. This didn’t bother me…this didn’t bother me. “Trina had told me he was back, but you know, who knew he’d come and find me.”
“What did he want?”
“To tell me he’s sorry.”
“For…? What is he sorry for?”
“Who knows? Not loving me? Beating me to a pulp? Who can say?”
“Okay. Well, what else did he say?”
“He’s dying.”
“Your father’s dying?”
“Seems as if.”
“Rowan…Talk. Tell me what happened.”
But I had already grown tired of this topic, probably because I still wasn’t sure what to think about it.
Tanya Johnson had been my guidance counselor since my freshman year. Since I failed the fifth grade, the same year Aidan died, I’d had guidance counselors following my every move. Miss J. was the first one I actually liked talking to. That didn’t mean I always opened up, but she made more headway than most when it came to talking about my life.
Silence filled the air now as she watched me play with the string. This office had become more familiar to me than my own locker. Could it be that it was only months ago that I sat in this chair, my face covered in heavy makeup just like my sister wore to mask the bruises that my father gave me?
I pushed to my feet and walked to the bookshelf. I let the thread fall to the floor then started straightening the brochures that lay there.
“Any word from the schools?” I asked her, my back turned.
“No. It’s still too early. Don’t worry. I’ll let you know as soon as I get them.”
When I sent in my college applications, I’d given them Miss J.’s mailing address. Sending them to my old home wasn’t an option. They could have been sent to the Anderson’s, but what if I had to leave for some reason? Or, well…it just seemed like the right thing to do.
The bell rang and I jumped. Miss J. chuckled and ran her fingers through her hair.
“Guess I need to go. I don’t want to screw things up at this point in the game.”
She came around her desk and stood by my side. “Rowan, you’re doing just fine.” She put her hand lightly on my shoulder, just a graze across the fabric of my coat.
I turned when I felt my eyes mist, hating and loving these pep talks. “See ya later.”
“Okay. Have a good day.”
After I passed through the door, I looked back at her. “You may not remember, but last year you told me that you were a testament that if you wanted something bad enough, you couldn’t let anything stand in your way. What were you talking about?”
Her eyes clouded over, not with tears, but with memories come to life.
“Someday. But not today.”
I nodded. Just before I walked out the door, I said, “By the way, I like your new haircut.”
She touched the ends of her hair, newly cut into a style that fell to her shoulders. “Thanks, Rowan. That’s sweet.”
“Hot date? Is that why you cut it?”
“Out, Rowan.” But she laughed, and so did I.
IT WAS lunchtime before I received a text from Jess.
Have doc appt today. Can you come?
What time?
5:00.
I’ll be there.
The rest of the day passed in a
blur of textbooks, notebooks, and furious note-taking. Miss. J. had told me to relax at the end of last quarter; that I was either in college or I wasn’t; that I had a scholarship or I didn’t. She said to ease up and then laughed at her advice since she was my guidance counselor.
Her suggestion made sense but the last thing I wanted to do was get into college with a scholarship and then lose it because I didn’t understand the class content. Each time I thought of this, I buried my head deeper and deeper into the books.
My backpack weighed ten tons when I left the building. So much for lightening the load on seniors. Jess shouldn’t miss too many more days. I had gone around and picked up the work she’d missed, but I could only do that for so long.
My phone dinged. It was Mike.
Can you talk?
I slid the phone into my pocket. There was so much to talk to him about that I wasn’t sure I could talk about anything. Oh well. Now is not a good time for me. Maybe I’d call him after Jess’ appointment.
It took awhile for my car to warm. Rubbing my hands together, I glanced around. The parking lot was already half empty. There were some students standing by the entrance to the school trying to sneak a cigarette.
In a car a few spaces over, I saw Trina, her blonde hair pulled into a messy ponytail high on top of her head. She was turned toward a guy in the driver’s seat and didn’t see me. There was only one car between us, and I had a clear view through that car’s windows.
The guy was doing something with his hands in the space between them, though I couldn’t tell what. But then Trina bent down, stayed there several seconds, sat up, and fell back against the seat. Now I could see the side of her face. Her eyes were closed. Her lips were lifted into a smile. I’d never seen her look so calm and peaceful.
The guy leaned over and started to kiss her neck. As if sensing me near, her lids slowly opened, and her head turned toward the window. When she saw me, her smile faded and her eyes hardened. She lifted her hand, wiped the very tip of her nose, and pulled a long drag off a joint as the guy shoved his hand down her shirt.
A Life, Forward: A Rowan Slone Novel Page 7
