I'm Glad My Mom Died(15)

Dad has taken me to dance class a few times before. I’m excited because when Mom takes me, I never know if she’s gonna yell at someone or complain to the dance studio owner that my part in the ballet isn’t big enough or whatever. Dad doesn’t do stuff like that. He doesn’t even seem aware of stuff like that. He just kinda… exists.

“Do you wanna bike to dance class?” Dad asks me.

“Yes!” I say, honestly thrilled. I think about asking Mom, but then I don’t because I don’t want to give her a chance to say no.

Dad and I don’t get much time together since he works his two jobs at Home Depot and Hollywood Video. He usually gets home late and goes right into the back room to get some sleep. Even though the room is full of stuff, there’s a sliver of bed stuff-less enough for one person to sleep on, so that’s where Dad goes. He also goes back there because Mom says there’s no way she’s sleeping in the same bed—or even the same room—as someone who disgusts her so much. So since Mom’s in the living room on the couch or a Costco mat with us, it makes sense that Dad’s in the farthest room possible.

On top of that, I’m busy with my acting career and schoolwork (even though Mom homeschools us, we still have to turn in samples once a month to the state to prove we’re learning things) and now dance classes too.

The few times we do spend together stick out since they don’t happen that often. Like when Dad was able to come to my eighth birthday party at the public swimming pool—the first birthday party of mine he’d been to in a few years due to his work schedule. He gave me a birthday card, which he had never done before. He spelled my name wrong on the envelope. People spell my name wrong all the time, and I usually don’t think much of it, but that time it made me sad. I opened the card to see what he wrote inside. That’s the more important part anyway. “Love, Dad” was all he wrote underneath the poem in the card. I was even more sad, but it’s the thought that counts, and the fact that he had the thought meant something to me. Until on our way home I heard Mom say, “Did you get her a birthday card like I told you to? You should be nurturing a relationship with her, like a FATHER does.” So it was really Mom’s thought all along.

The other times we spend together are a bit more routine, like when Dad gets off work a little early and watches a rerun of MacGyver or Gilligan’s Island with us, or when he makes a stew on Sunday after church. Each time he makes one it’s apparently a different stew—beef, corn chowder, chili, split pea—but I swear they all taste like lentil. These times with Dad are decent but never anything special. I wish I felt connected to Dad the way I feel connected to Mom. Being around Mom can be tiring, sure, but at least I know what to do to make her happy. Around Dad, I never really know. It’s less work, but it’s also less rewarding.

But today I’m excited that he’s pitched this idea to go bike riding. I know he loves riding his bike, the one he inherited from his dad when he died.

“A bike is no home,” Mom complained. “Guess we’ll have to wait ’til Grandma Faye passes too, though that doesn’t seem to be anytime soon. Eighty-two and her health is better than ever.” Then she clicked her tongue the way she often does when she’s annoyed.

I like riding my bike too, the one that my aunt Linda sent me for my seventh birthday but that I can still fit on if I hunch over a bit. Maybe today Dad and I can make a good memory together. Maybe today we can have a fun time.

So we pile onto our bikes and ride to the Dance Factory in Los Alamitos, the next town over from us. We stop at the park on Orangewood and do a quick round of monkey bars. Dad’s smiling like he’s having a good time. And I know I’m having one. This is good.

We get to the Dance Factory ten minutes late for my class. They don’t allow you to enter past fifteen, but I’m allowed in with nothing more than a stink eye from the teacher. I’ll take it.

Class goes by quickly and we’re released into the waiting room to greet our parents. I see Dad sitting on the bench with his legs crossed the way Mom doesn’t like, eating a Clif Bar.

“Where’d you get that?” I ask, fearing that I already know the answer.

“The snack table at the front of the studio.”

“Mom says no snacks from the snack table ’cuz they’re too expensive.”

“It was a buck.”

“Exactly.”

“Yesterday was payday,” Dad says with a wave of his hand, and then leads me outside to our bikes.

We hop on and ride home, past the empty Los Alamitos High School and Polly’s Pies. Dad takes a right turn into an outdoor shopping center and pedals up to a smoothie shop.

“Where are we going?”

“Let’s get smoothies.”

“Smoothies are expe—”

“Payday,” Dad reminds me.

Somewhere in the middle of the smoothie-maker blending the strawberry-banana smoothie Dad and I are gonna split, my stomach drops with a realization. In all the excitement and bonding with Dad, I forgot. I forgot I had acting class. I forgot that we would never make it in time if we rode bikes.

But now I remember. In the middle of a painfully loud blender blending up various fruits, I remember. I look at Dad.

“A little extra lemon juice, if you can,” he says over the counter as he eyes the lemon in the smoothie-maker’s hand.