The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried(66)
I pull away from him. “Not today, Dad, okay?”
“I’m not here to lecture you.”
“Then, what?”
“You have a gift, son—”
“Please,” I say. “Stop right there. Whatever you’re about to tell me about how I have a gift and it’s my responsibility to use it, blah, blah, blah. I don’t want to hear it. I also have a life. It’s mine, and I get to do what I want with it.”
Dad’s lips tighten. “All I’m asking, Dino, is that, as you explore your interests, you don’t close yourself off to this one. Go see what else you might want to become, but always know that this door isn’t closed to you.”
“If this is about the name, if you’re still holding out hope I’ll eventually work here so that you can keep the name they way it is, I can tell you now, that’s not going to happen.”
Dad reaches into the inside pocket of his suit, pulls out a folded set of papers, and hands them to me.
“What—”
“I had these drawn up months ago. Not because you didn’t want to work there, but because Delilah does.”
I unfold the papers, and it’s a lot of legal stuff I skim past, but in bold type I find the request to change the name to DeLuca Family Funeral Services.
“Does Dee know?”
“She will at the wedding,” Dad says. “I wanted it to be a gift to her as she starts a new life.”
I stare at the papers and then at my dad. “Then why have you been riding my ass about becoming a mortician when I haven’t even graduated high school yet?”
“Language.”
“Sorry.”
Dad’s shaking his head, and I know that look of frustration he’s wearing. He gets it when he’s tied up and doesn’t know what to say. Usually, this is the part where Mom jumps in to help him, but he’s on his own this time.
“I don’t get you, Dino,” Dad says. “I never have. I support you being gay, but I don’t understand it. You play video games and do theater and work on stuff I don’t comprehend. We’ve never had common interests. You’ve always been your mother’s son.” He stops and looks at me. “Not that I’m complaining. I’m glad you got the best of her, because even her worst is better than my best.”
“You’re rambling, Dad.”
“DeLuca and Son’s wasn’t about the name for me. It was a dream. My dream. One thing we’d have in common. One area where I’d have something to teach you. Lord knows you’re smarter than me in everything else.”
“You taught me how to tie a bow tie,” I say.
Dad chuckles. “Score one for the home team.”
“Is that a sports reference?”
“Football, maybe?” he says.
I never knew my dad felt so left out. And it doesn’t make me want to be a mortician, but hearing what he had to say does make me see him differently. “How about I teach you some things?” I say.
“What—”
I grab a controller off the floor, toss it to him, and turn on the TV. “How do you feel about piloting spaceships?”
DINO
DAD TURNS OUT TO BE a pretty decent pilot, and he almost makes us late to the church when he picks a fight with a Thoraxian pirate squadron. We’re in the middle of kicking their afts, and Grandma Sue finally grabs him by the ear and drags him out.
The service is sweet. Dee looks gorgeous walking down the aisle in her dress, but Theo can’t stop crying, and it’s so adorable that everyone’s watching him and not Delilah, and I can see in her eyes that she’s wondering if she can rewind us so that she can walk again and get the attention she deserves.
I stand with Delilah; Will stands with Theo. Will drops the rings. Grandma Jodi’s sobbing so hard that Father O’Shea stops three times to let her get it out.
The “you may kiss the bride” moment comes, and Delilah dips Theo, which is going to make a great cover photo for their wedding album. Someone—I’m not saying who—decorated the back of the limo with rubber severed hands. The sound they make when being dragged down the street isn’t nearly as satisfying as clinking cans.
And that’s it. My sister is married.
DINO
“WHERE’S ROXY?” RAFI’S ARMS ENCIRCLE my waist and his forehead is pressed to mine as we dance to a slow number from Dee’s playlist of faux-deep emo songs she dredged up from her past. We’re both a little sweaty from being forced to dance to a horrid song called the “Macarena,” and I don’t even know what an electric slide is, but weddings seem to be a time when grown-ass adults act like they didn’t have their hips replaced last winter.
“Uh . . .”
If I say I haven’t been thinking about July since I left her at the beach, I’d be lying. But it’s like thinking about climate change—I know it’s important, I know it could affect the rest of my life, I know I should be searching for her or investigating the cause of her inability to remain dead, but I have no clue where to begin. Hell, I don’t even know if she’s still not-dead or if she’s dead-dead again. So every time she barges into my thoughts, I push her to the side, figuring I can look for her after the wedding. The only concession I’ve made is to keep my phone on and with me in case she calls.