One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin #2)(26)

Just yesterday, he assured me wryly. And the day before that, I was a newborn. Then he cleared his throat and ruffled my hair.

Late afternoon, we carried our gear outside.

My father attempted to assemble the borrowed tent. Much cursing and swearing ensued. I ran piles of blankets and pillows from the house to the yard because we didn’t have sleeping bags, something my father hadn’t realized till just now.

Everything took way longer than expected, my father’s expression becoming less excited, more frazzled. But eventually, the sun just starting to descend, he had produced a tent-like shelter, while I had procured every piece of bedding we owned. I would organize our sleeping quarters. My father would inform the forest sprites of our dinner reservation.

He was gone a very long time. But then, I had a lot of blankets to arrange.

When my father finally reappeared, bearing a tray of cooked franks and baked beans, he was beaming from ear to ear. So pleased with himself. So happy. So very, very happy.

Just like that, I knew why he’d been in the kitchen for so long. His smile faltered. He opened his mouth as if to say . . . No! . . . You’re wrong! . . . I’d never do such a thing!

But the words didn’t come. He closed his mouth, held out the tray. We sat on the ground and ate our meal with our hands, dipping the franks into the baked beans and making a huge mess. I wanted to giggle at the baked beans dripped across my father’s lap, the smear of ketchup on his cheek. I wanted to scream, “Carry the one!” just so he’d laugh uproariously and I could collapse beside him and we’d both be so very, very happy.

I wanted this moment to be real.

But my father was gone. In his place was a drunk who talked too fast. About childhood memories and random facts and oh, wait, look at the color of the sky. He always loved the smell of grass, there was nothing like sleeping under the open sky and we should do this again, wait, we should do this now, and hey, why had we never gone camping before this? Next week, Yosemite!

My father disappeared into the house with our dishes, eventually weaving and stumbling his way back out. He grabbed for the tent to balance himself. Both it and he collapsed to the ground. Never mind. Ghost stories!

By the time my mom appeared, I was carting the blankets from the tent back to the house, so I could drape them over my father’s passed-out form. He and the sofa were one again. Which left my mother and me on our own. She stared at his prone form, still in her coat, clutching her purse. I couldn’t read the expression on her face. Rage? Resignation? Relief that our household was finally back to normal?

I told my mother I was tired and going to bed. Then, clutching a pillow to my chest, I turned sideways as she walked by. I didn’t want her to see the half-filled bottle of bourbon I had stashed behind my back.

Later, in the privacy of my room, I sat on the floor behind my bed and studied my father’s precious bottle of booze. I twisted off the black cap. I inspected the amber liquid, sniffing the slightly sweet brew, dripping it across my palm, licking it off my fingers. I wanted to taste what my father tasted. I wanted to feel what my father felt. I wanted to understand this powerful liquid he loved more than anything in the world.

Even me.

I rubbed some of the bourbon at the top of my lip. I licked more and more off my hands, took tiny sips from the cap. I felt, bit by bit, the warmth spread through my veins. Then I inhaled until the boozy scent formed into the shape of my father, grinning beside me.

We are camping in the backyard. The night is cold but our tent is cozy thanks to my stockpile of blankets. My father tells me this is the best adventure he’s ever had and look at that shooting star and oh, he has one more ghost story to share. And we talk and laugh and stuff ourselves with marshmallows straight out of the bag because he never let me build that fire. Then we chase down the marshmallows with chunks of dark chocolate and broken pieces of graham crackers and it tastes so good we declare we will never eat s’mores any other way. We fall asleep still laughing.

My father and me.

On the camping adventure that never happened. And the relationship that never was.

I never camped again. My father had more moments of sobriety. Followed by more moments of failure. Such is the ride.

My mother . . . she worked, she endured, she nursed her rage. First at him. Later at me.

Till the day I graduated. I don’t remember it, being so well and truly wasted that even my father regarded me with pity as I stumbled home at four in the morning. Then soon enough, I was gone, off to bright lights and hard partying in LA.

Till one day, hundreds of miles away, a driver swerved across the center line. He hit a vehicle head-on, and just like that, my parents were dead.

I took the call standing outside a bar, one finger stuck in my ear to drown out the background noise as I listened to my aunt’s words. I think I nodded. Then I went back inside, to the business at hand.

I never met my parents as a sober adult. I never got to show my father this disease could be beat. I never got to prove to my mother that I took after her more than she thought; I’m a good worker, I know how to get the job done, I can make a difference in this world.

She knew I loved my father. She died before I could tell her that I loved her, too. That I did admire her. That my father might have been my favorite playmate, but she was my hero, and I never would’ve gotten my act together if I hadn’t had the example of her strength to guide me.

Unfinished business. An addict’s life is filled with such instances. The coulda, woulda, shouldas that will never happen again.