not here. He should be pushing one of us off the boat when we least expected it.”
“Yeah,” Seth said and sniffed as he looked out over the water. “Dick.”
Chad and I chuckled.
Naomi continued. “But it doesn’t feel real yet, at the same time. Like we’ll see him tomorrow.”
Chad nodded. “We’ll see his folks tomorrow, for the visitation.”
“Yeah,” Naomi said softly, and we all got quiet. I knew we were all dreading the visitation. For the most part, we had all held our emotions in check but facing it full on without reprieve tomorrow would be fucking brutal.
“Careful!” Nicole shouted from the back of the boat, causing us all to turn.
Vince must have lost his footing for a moment, because he was hanging onto a metal bar with one hand while he tried to stand back up.
“You okay, Vinny?” Naomi called out.
“I’m fine,” Vince said, clearly embarrassed. “The waves rocked us is all.”
Naomi looked at Seth and I directly, saying what we were all thinking. “He’s drunk, isn’t he?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“There aren’t any waves. We’re out here alone.” Seth set his beer down and looked at it for a moment, like he had lost his desire to consume any alcohol, even casually. “What are we going to do about it?” he said in a volume that Vince might be able to hear if he wasn’t so busy drinking more from his bottle.
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my hand over my face. What options did we have? Tomorrow was the family visitation. Thursday, we had plans to go four-wheeling. And Friday, the funeral, would be hell on all of us. We were all going our separate ways on Saturday. Nowhere in there was an opportunity to potentially piss Vince off. Maybe we would all have to trek to San Diego to chat with him.
“It’s dangerous,” Naomi said.
“We know,” Seth replied. “But it’s also asking for a fight with him. If we talk to him tonight, he might just bounce and head home, skipping the visitation and the funeral altogether and being in a worse place than he’s already in.”
“Do we need to have an intervention or something?” Chad asked. “I don’t know if any of us are qualified to do that.”
Seth leaned forward and lowered his voice. “The issue is, is this long-term behavior? Will went to see him a couple months ago in San Diego, and he didn’t mention any concern for Vince. So, is his drinking grief-induced?”
“I fail to see why it matters. A problem is a problem, whether it’s temporary or not. I think you guys just don’t want to deal with it,” Naomi said, an eyebrow raised.
Chad put a hand on her leg. “Hey, chill, please.”
“She’s right,” I said. “I know I don’t want to deal with this. Do any of you?” Seth and Chad shook their heads. “We don’t want to deal with it, but we know we have to. The problem is the timing.”
“We might need to make a trip out to see him,” Seth mused.
“That’s what I was thinking too,” I agreed. “It wouldn’t hurt for one us to bring it up while we’re here though. In a very non-confrontational way.”
Naomi, Seth, and I turned to Chad. “Why are you all looking at me?”
“Because you’re good at being non-confrontational. I should know.” Naomi raised her eyebrow, as if she dared Chad to challenge her.
Chad sighed, resigned. “Fine. But if he gets pissed off, that’s on you guys.”
“She’s got one!” Nicole exclaimed, interrupting our conversation. Tori stood on the deck; her feet spaced out to better ground her stance. She pulled the reel back and then let it go, and then again, fighting with whatever was on her hook.
“Here, let me take it,” Vince said, covering Tori’s hands with his on the pole.
“I’ve got it,” Tori replied, gently pulling away from him.
“I’ve done this a hundred times. I can do it.”
“So have I, and so can I,” Tori insisted, pulling her pole away from him.
Seth stood up to intervene, but I nudged him. If anyone could hold their own in front of Vince, I knew it was Tori. And while I would step in if necessary, I didn’t think this situation warranted any interference.
And I was right, because Vince eventually stopped trying to take her pole and drunkenly wobbled over to the sofas in the back of the boat, looking like he had just been scolded thoroughly. All he needed was to defiantly cross his arms over his chest, and he would