When Everything Is Blue(35)



She stomps her foot like a child and pivots away from me. I feel bad because what she says is partly true… maybe. And even if it isn’t, it’s sad as hell that’s how she sees it, unloved by our dad even more because she’s a girl.

“I’m sorry for ditching you, Tabs. If it makes you feel better, I’m a total disappointment as a son.”

She sniffs and rubs at her eyes. “Yeah, well, you’re a total disappointment as a brother too.”

“Tabitha,” Chris warns.

The insults that hurt the worst are the ones that ring true. I don’t see how we can recover from this for the time being, and I’m not going to cower in the corner like a kicked dog because of some bullshit my dad pulled. I yank off my apron and toss it on the counter, rub my hands on my shorts.

“Theo, don’t,” Chris says, letting his demand float there between us.

“Tell Paloma I’ll do cleanup.” I head for the door while thinking that’s one more thing my dad and I have in common: we both bail when things get tough.




I GRAB my skateboard and consider going over to Dave’s, but I don’t want to use him as a standin, which makes Dave just another one of the people I’ve disappointed lately. I zone out to the steady rhythm of my skateboard on the concrete while thinking on the people closest to me and how I can’t seem to give them what they want. And my dad. How I wish I could believe what my sister says, that he wants a relationship with me, even if it’s not the kind of relationship I want. Maybe he is trying. What is it about me that I have to have things on my own terms? All or nothing. Like Chris. I should be happy with this awesome best friendship we share, but I’m not. Maybe Tabs is right; maybe I am selfish.

When I finally come out of my stupor, I find myself on the corner of Palmetto and Lake Avenue, the block where Saint Ann’s is located, which is where my Uncle Theo lives. Impulsively, I decide to follow up on my earlier commitment to myself and pay him a visit.

I roll up to the double glass doors on my skateboard and tuck it under my arm. The lady at the reception desk asks me, like, five times who I am and who I’m here to see. It’s obvious she doesn’t believe me or thinks I have some nefarious motive, which is sad that anyone would come to an old folks’ home with bad intentions, so I show her my permit to prove I am indeed Theodore Wooten III, related to TW II. She apologizes and remarks that Uncle Theo doesn’t have too many visitors, which prompts me to ask her when the last time someone’s stopped by to see him, and she answers that she can’t remember, which means it was probably the last time I saw him, Easter.

Apparently Tabs and I aren’t the only ones my father is neglecting.

I make up my mind that if I can stand the salty old bastard for the next hour or so, I’ll make it a point to visit him more often. The receptionist tells me he’s likely upstairs in the rec room playing solitaire, and it kind of depresses me to find out when I get up there that she’s right.

The rec room smells like old people and polyester with a hint of urine, but the place is pretty clean overall and bright, thanks to the row of windows overlooking the water. A room with a view. I suppose when you’re this close to the other side, that’s all any of us can hope for. Uncle Theo was in the Navy for, like, thirty years and worked as an engineer on cruise ships after that, so he had a pretty good retirement package after his life at sea, plus the Wooten Family Trust fund, that mythical creature my dad and grandmother both reference when I show the slightest indication of not having my shit together.

Still, it must be costing him or my grandmother a pretty penny to keep him in a place as nice as this. I suppose that almost makes up for the fact that he has no one visiting him.

There are a couple of nurses and a few elderly folks milling around, some of them with walkers and others propped up in wheelchairs, half-comotose. Uncle Theo sits by himself at a round card table. He’s got good posture for an old man, maybe because he was once military and the mannerisms stuck. His white hair is neatly combed and he’s wearing a button-up shirt and slacks, which sets him apart from the other residents, some of whom wear housedresses, the men included. I wonder if he has any friends in here, people he can talk to who are at least as lucid as he is. I hope so.

I watch as he methodically sets up another round of solitaire, carefully placing the cards so that the edges line up with a uniformity that reminds me of myself. I also like things to be tidy. His face is a scowl, or maybe it’s just the weight of eighty-plus years wrinkling up his mouth. Regardless, he doesn’t look happy to see me when he lifts his blue eyes, which are the Wooten trademark and the reason my mother, presumably, fell in love with a gringo.

“Who are you?” he barks like a naval captain, which he was and, I suppose, still is. I take up the chair across from where he sits and lay my skateboard across my lap.

“I’m Theodore Wooten the third,” I tell him, hoping that will spark some recognition.

“Huh,” he grumbles, then flips a card and says, “pretty dark for a Wooten.”

I smile at that. Maybe I should be offended, but I find it kind of hilarious. “Yeah, my mom’s Puerto Rican. Your nephew had a thing for island girls, I guess.”

Uncle Theo nods like that makes perfect sense. “If you’re looking for money, I don’t got it.”

I shake my head at that. Maybe that’s what the receptionist was worried about, like I’d come up here and shake down my elderly, senile uncle. I wonder if that’s a thing. Sad.

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