the passenger seat of the car and went to get some bottled water from the helpful funeral director. By the time I got back, he was half asleep.
“Than’ you,” he slurred, trying to take the water and immediately spilling some of it all over himself.
I steadied the bottle long enough for him to take a few long swigs. “You’re welcome.”
He blinked at me over the rim like he’d just seen me for the first time. “Look just like your mama.”
I was the only Sutton boy who did. They all looked like my father, each stockier, taller, and more blue-eyed than the last. “I know,” I said softly.
“Not gonna leave me, are you?”
“No.”
“Can’t lose you, too. You and the boys, that’s all I got,” he said with surprising alacrity before he slumped in the seat again. “Look just like Lori.”
He started to snore. How had my life turned so quickly? I stared at him for a few moments, disquiet rumbling through my body like a summer storm. Because this was only just the beginning. I knew that like I knew my name.
The sound of a loud squeak made me wince—I knew the sound of butt cheeks against porcelain when I heard it. But I preferred anything over getting lost in memories better left buried.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked quietly.
“Whatever you’re thinkin’. You know my rule. You boys can say anything to me, as long—”
“As we say it respectfully. I know.”
He’d drummed that into us when we were growing up and it had been strangely freeing. Nothing was off the table, as long as we kept a civil tongue in our heads when we brought it up.
Respectfully, I thought he dropped the ball. He’d put a lot of burden on me, and I’d just been a kid. Respectfully, I thought he’d fucking checked out when he could least afford to. I was glad he’d finally decided to straighten up and get the help he needed, but respectfully, it had been a case of too little, too fucking late. A litany of things I could say ran through my head. I didn’t care for any of them. In the end, there was only one thing that really needed to be said.
“I needed you... the boys needed you. And you were nowhere to be found.” I swallowed. “I don’t want to stir up the past, but I don’t know how to pretty that up, Dad.”
The sound of water had completely ceased on the other side of that curtain. “I know. I can only say I’m sorry.”
“I know that.” I was a little exasperated with myself. “This is all in the past. I don’t even know why we’re even talking about this.”
“Because it can’t truly become the past until we do,” he said gruffly. After a few moments, he asked, “Did you know I used to play basketball back in the day?”
“Yeah, I did.” I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “I saw some of your team pictures. Mom used to say you were cute in your basketball shorts.”
“All the time,” he said fondly.
“They were far too short, Dad.”
“That was the style back then.”
“Your knees were very knobby.”
“And I passed them along to you,” he said, sounding a tad smug.
He wasn’t wrong. “Was there a point to this story?” I asked crossly.
He chuckled. “Well, my father used to work a lot and rarely had time to come to any of my school events. I understood, of course, because we might not have been dirt poor, but things were always tight. Still, he’d always made time to come to my games… until he didn’t.”
“What happened?”
“He needed the extra hours at work, so he’d be able to support us. He was doing what he had to do, and that was much more important than a silly basketball game.”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with his story, but I knew it wasn’t good. “He wasn’t working,” I guessed.
“Nope. I found out he was spending time with a woman from church. He let me borrow his car sometimes, and I came across some of her things under the seat. A lipstick and a roll of lifesavers.” He made a noise of derision. “Mom didn’t eat candy, and she damn sure didn’t wear lipstick.”
“Did you confront him?”
“I did. And he convinced me to keep it a secret for years. It ate me alive. I was relieved when someone from the church found out and told my mother.”
My grandmother had been very vocal about my