and sea it’s this: no kids want to know about their parents’ sex lives. Ick.
“So, Dad,” I started now we were alone. “Happy birthday.” I walked over and gave him a hug, handing him the gift I’d toted along with me. He smelled like soap and hair oil.
The gift was wrapped in brown paper and curly red ribbon, and as Dad tore it open he grinned widely at the framed picture of him and Aldus on a community service trip (hunting and fishing). “Ah, perfecto,” he intoned, caressing it. “How is the old cretino? Driving you mad?”
“You have no idea,” I moaned.
Something in my face made him look at me quickly and I saw shrewd old Arty Aqualina, King of the Swift Move, the guy who got thirty years for the biggest scam the county ever saw.
I shook my head, trying to see him as Mom had, thirty years before. One thing was for sure. My stocky, gangster Dad had never seen a girl like Mom. And he sure hadn’t been Robinson Crusoe there. But he’d managed to make made her laugh and the rest is history. For her part, my brainiac Mom had been pretty dense when it came to protection. Aegirans used to believe it impossible for mermaids and land-dwellers to reproduce. Before me. I came along almost nine months to the day after my Dad made my Mom laugh, so I guess Dr Phil might say my crappy track record with men is just me repeating some kinda pattern. Of course, he’d also ask: is this workin’ for ya? And assure me that today could be a changin’ day.
“Let’s shoot before we talk,” I said.
Dad’s good, but I’m pretty good too, and he only beat me by a whisker. It doesn’t matter that I never lived with Dad. He was the one who taught me to shoot, fish, and throw a ball. We finished the game without much conversation. It felt good to just pocket balls, and be together.
“Okay now, so what is it, bambina?”
I’d been thinking about what I wanted to ask all the way here, weighing the words in my mouth. I needed to find a way to manage the sick undercurrent that churned my stomach, lurked at the back of my consciousness. “Dad,” I started. He just watched me with brown almond eyes that I knew from experience didn’t shock easy. “D’you think someone can learn to be brave?”
Dad burst out laughing, this great throaty chuckle. “Madre de Dio,” he roared when he finally caught his breath, wiping away tears. “I’ve been headstrong, stupid and stubborn, but never brave.” He stopped smiling and studied me closely. “Want to tell me whatcha ’fraid of?”
I wouldn’t have said it like that. But once he did, it settled into my pulse and picked up its rhythm. Something had lodged itself, deep and silent in my blood. The pain, the terrible pain from last night. Then realizing I’m really not at all cool with dying. In three weeks time. Or ever. And realizing that, according to the Seer at least, that means I got some work to do.
Y’know, to change the course of destiny and save the world entire.
I shook my head once. No, I definitely don’t want to tell this man what I’m afraid of.
Dad nodded. “Okay, then,” he tried again. “All I can tell ya’s this. Courage is for fools and heroes. And heroes end up deader than dead. It’s fear that keeps you thinkin’. Making the right decisions. Livin’ to tell the tale.” He paused for effect. He loves a touch of the theatrical. “Fear is your amico, your pal.” It sounded kinda corny, like maybe he’d heard in the Godfather, he loves that movie. But it made sense too, like something clicking into place inside me. I didn’t have to fight the fear. Maybe it was there for a good reason. I just had no idea what it is.
I was about to talk some more when his next visitor arrived.
It was always like this at Dad’s. Grand Central Station.
“Hey, Aldus,” I sighed. “You were sure quick at Larry’s. Any leads?”
“Nah,” Aldus sighed right back at me, plonking his ass down on the sofa near Dad and handing him what looked like a hastily wrapped gift and a six pack of beer. “Just kids I bet. I’m sure our dead blonde’ll show up.”
Aldus blames everything on kids. I think he watches too much cable news.