“Maybe we could hang out this weekend,” she said, sounding like a sad, lonely kid.
“I have tons of homework to catch up on.”
“I really don’t want to be by myself all weekend.”
“I also might have to babysit my little brother.”
“I still can’t get over that dog that follows him around. I wish I could go over there and hug the snot out of him.”
“My mother loses it when people come up and try to pet Scout. She reads them the riot act every time.”
“Because your brother could die if he doesn’t get his medicine?”
“Yes, but only if Scout alerts us that his glucose levels are off.”
“That really sucks for your poor brother.”
“It’s all he’s ever known,” I said. “And he’s very fortunate that the people in our community donated all that money to buy him a service dog. I’m not sure how we would have gotten Scout without them.”
“Please call me if you get any free time, Katie.” She walked toward her car. “I could really use a friend.”
“I’ll see how things turn out,” I said. “You be sure and take care of that big arm of yours.”
She turned and shot me a smile that could have landed her on Glamour magazine. Then she curved her right arm into a muscle and kissed it.
* * *
My father comes in and sits next to me on the bed. Although I’m facing away from him, I can always sense my father’s presence in a room. His odor is as unmistakable as it is pleasurable. As a young girl, I loved that particular smell, and before long my father and his scent became interchangeable.
“How you doing, hon?”
“I’m okay.” I wasn’t, but I knew he didn’t like to hear bad news, so I never gave it to him.
“How’s the noggin?”
I lift my hand out of the blanket and make a so-so gesture.
“Can I do anything for you?”
“Can you sit with me for a bit? You don’t have to say anything.”
“Sure thing, kiddo.”
His smell comforts me. It took me years to put two and two together and figure out what that scent was from. It came from the oils that he used to paint his portraits and landscapes. It clung to his skin and became a part of his being, even when he didn’t paint every day. Oftentimes I’d see him in that art studio, moving paints around or combining them together, sometimes dipping a stained finger in a paint to gauge the color.
I looked past my father’s many transgressions because I believed he possessed an artistic temperament. He was born a free spirit and couldn’t be reined in or put into a box. It seemed ironic because I was nothing like him. More like my mother in that regard. An old soul, she jokingly called me. But in Shepherd’s Bay, a grown man pursuing art was not looked upon kindly, especially if he couldn’t support his family. That didn’t mean I forgave him for the way he treated my mother. Because he should have never gotten married or had kids in the first place, not that it mattered now.
Despite the lock on his outdoor studio, I still managed to sneak in there from time to time and witness the startling graphic nudes he painted. As a young girl, I’d often wander out there on a cold winter’s night and peer through one of the studio windows. He couldn’t see me, because of the dark. Only on occasion would I actually see him putting paint to canvas. Most of the time he’d be sitting there, drinking beer or smoking pot, while the wood stove glowed in the corner.
Once, when I was fourteen, my friend’s mother dropped us off downtown one Saturday afternoon so we could window-shop and then see a movie. We were walking around when I saw my father stumble drunkenly out of a fishermen’s bar with a woman by his side. He put his long arm around her, and the two of them staggered down a side street, laughing, with not a care in the world. Thankfully, he didn’t see me. Nor did my friend see my father, which would have totally humiliated me, because the two of us went to the same church.
I want the best for my parents. They shouldn’t be married, but I know why they stay together. I’ve heard it said that it’s better to be from a broken family than in one. Not entirely sure about that. Love, in my view, is rarely a monolith, something