way.
I don’t care.
I’ll make love to Vaughn Tucker once. I’ll cash in my damn V-card. Finally.
And then I’ll let him go.
Chapter Eleven
I’m in our old house in Nashville, the one I was born and raised in until the day I graduated from high school, which was only a few months after the accident happened. We sold the house, gave most of the small amount of money to Roxie, who moved in with a friend for the last two years of high school. Then we took off on tour and never looked back.
In my dream, the house is different, though. There are caves inside, where the bedrooms used to be, with dark shadows lurking in hidden corners.
My father is in the kitchen, his face still dirty with soot from a call-out he’s been on. His fire fighter’s hat hangs on a hook by the door. In my dream, he’s on fire. But he doesn’t seem to notice this. There’s a glass of neat whiskey in his hand.
I remember the night so clearly.
I knew why he drank. His own father was a mean drunk who hit first and asked questions later. He beat his wife and his two sons until the damage stacked up in ways my father has never been able to shake. Until my father ended up putting my grandfather in the hospital because one night he fought back.
My own father’s triumph was that he broke the cycle of abuse. But it didn’t mean he drank any less. He wasn’t a mean drunk but he was a tormented one. Angry at himself, although I never entirely understood why he would be. Old scars I didn’t fully understand. He wasn’t the kind of man to talk about things like that.
I think he broke the cycle through grit and because he was so in love with my mother. Everyone was. She was that kind of a person. You couldn’t help but fall in love with her. And they had four kids who, even though we weren’t perfect, at least had our own talents and managed to stay out of the worst kinds of trouble.
But for him, it never seemed like enough. He was still tormented. I resented him for that, which compounded itself over time. Why weren’t we enough? In my dream, I ask him this question. Instead of answering me, his fire burns and he pours himself another drink.
My mother’s twin sister was married to a genius investment guru who had more money than he knew what to do with. Tens of millions of dollars. Maybe even hundreds. It seemed to come so easily for him. They traveled the world. My uncle built my aunt a castle. He bought her a boat and diamond jewelry. My aunt could design clothes as a hobby when she felt like it while she stayed home with her three sons, had the help of nannies and housekeepers, and lunched at the club.
My mother, meanwhile, worked odd jobs as a cleaner, or bagging groceries at the supermarket. Eventually she got an associates degree by studying at night after her shifts ended and got a job as an assistant in an insurance office.
Money was always tight.
We bought our clothes at thrift stores. All three of us boys shared a bedroom our entire childhood. We drove old cars that always needed fixing. The roof leaked. We complained about being hungry, which we learned not to do.
It only made things worse. My father’s fire has completely consumed him now but he’s used to it. He lives his life that way.
My mother would listen to her sister’s stories over the phone about their trips to Paris and Rome, the new ruby bracelet her husband had bought her on a whim in New York City, where they’d seen the latest show on Broadway. Or the new car he’d surprised her with.
My mother soaked in those stories each day like she couldn’t get enough of the fantasy. She hid the hardships of her own family from her sister. Which, in my dream, makes my own fire burn. I’m on fire too now. His sorrow consumes us both. When I was young, I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t honest about who and what we were. Every summer we’d go to their house in Ann Arbor for a week and it was like stepping into another world. My mother would buy us special clothes for our visits and made sure we got haircuts.
None of it mattered to her, she insisted. She adored my father.