he wants to give me a full coronary, he hands me a mug.
“Hot toddy?” I inhale the scent of cloves.
This was my grandfather’s go-to winter night drink. He and my father drank them all the time, and Granddad used to give me a sip of his every once in a while, even though Dad frowned about it.
“I miss the old man most around the holidays. Sometimes this bar feels lonely as hell without him back here telling me every damn thing I’m doing wrong.”
There are so many snide remarks right on the tip of my tongue. So many ironies ripe for exposure.
But it’s Christmas Eve and my father just handed me a hot toddy, the drink he shared with his father only, and he’s breaking his own ‘never drink in your own pub’ rule. It’s a wacky ass day, and I’m willing to just roll with it and not be an asshole.
“I miss him, too. I think he would have liked Mila, you know?” The dance floor is getting rowdier, and she’s dancing to an upbeat version of “Jingle Bells” with a group of other sweaty, giddy revelers.
“He would have. He had a thing for brunettes. She one of your bartenders?” Dad asks, sipping his drink piping hot, even though it’s got to be making welts on his tongue.
“No. Mila’s a librarian. And my roommate,” I say, and instantly realize that that one word carries an implication that’s not right. Not yet anyway. “Platonic roommate. Until last night.”
Dad’s bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows go up to his hairline. He hates TMI in any capacity, and especially when it comes to sex, so I clam up and veer in another direction.
“I don’t think she’s gonna stick around with me, though.” I sip my toddy, letting the combined temperature and the alcohol burn singe my mouth and throat.
“What do you mean?” Dad’s voice is testy, like he has no patience for this train of thought.
“I mean, I think she’s realized that coming out here to see me was more about fantasy than reality, I guess. And there’s a guy back in Boston who I just found out has a thing for her—”
“You have a thing for her,” my father interrupts. “Am I right?”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “I do. But you know I’ve had a thing for girls before.”
“Dumb ones. Except Antonia. She was a nice one, but you burned her, and I was never so proud of any girl as I was of that one for dumping you.” As if she knows Dad’s singing her praises yet again, Toni looks over, and Dad raises his glass with a big, stupid grin. “A toast to good women we don’t deserve.” He holds his mug up to mine.
I look right at Mila, twirling in a circle around my brother, her dark hair curling from the sweat, her laugh ringing out and catapulting other laughs out of other peoples’ throats.
Our mugs clink in solidarity, and I mumble a half-hearted, “Cheers.”
“You’re a decent guy, Landry. Girls don’t drive hours on Christmas Eve for guys who don’t mean anything to them. Don’t sell yourself short all the time.” Dad takes a long sip and sucks air through his teeth. “I haven’t been fair to you all the time, son,” he starts. I’m about to interrupt him, but I hold back. My dad isn’t one for big speeches, and I want to know what he’s got to say.
“I let Paisley get away with murder, but she’s my little pumpkin. I know it seems like I go easy on Henry, but that’s because I know that boy needs a long leash. He won’t be happy staying put, staying close. He’s gonna have circumnavigated the Earth twenty times over by the time he’s my age. It’s not that I’m harder on any one of you than I am on the others. It’s that I know my kids. Like I know this bar. And you,” he turns and pokes me in the chest hard, “are the one most like me. I guess that’s why we butt heads so often.”
I think about what Rusty told me and about this whole business, and a new swell of shame threatens to choke me.
“Dad I just want to tell you that I’m so sorry I—”
“Nevermind,” my dad cuts me off. “Let me tell you, I was chomping at the bit to get out of this hole-in-the-wall when your grandfather was talking about passing it on.”
I take a long, honey-soaked sip of the whiskey-laced drink and shake my head.