33. lucas
THIRTY-THREE
lucas
Just what I fucking needed.
As if the situation with Charlee weren’t enough, my current session was taking longer than expected. I had those two appointments this afternoon that would probably be better suited to Charlee’s designs—the incredible one she showed me that was similar to the tattoo I designed for her still on my mind.
And now this.
“Give me a sec,” I said to this morning’s client. It was a walk-in from yesterday, a tourist in town for the weekend. Attracting both locals and tourists had always been the plan, and with minimal advertising, I was pleasantly surprised at the steady stream of customers so far. But pretty soon, if this kept up, I’d have the problem of being too busy.
“Dad, what are you doing here?”
I hadn’t talked to him since the morning after I fetched him from the bar. After checking in on him and listening to his excuses about his drunken behavior and lack of current employment, I’d left without looking back. I’d spent half of middle school and all of high school trying to help him, despite the fact that I was the kid and he the adult.
He just didn’t want to be helped.
“A father can’t come to see his own son’s new business?”
Thank God for small favors. He wasn’t drunk yet at least. Which meant I might actually be able to carry on a conversation with him.
“By all means, come on in. But I’m with a client at the moment.” Alex wasn’t in until this afternoon, so it was just me, myself, and I.
“Mind if I watch?”
Do not be fooled, Lucas. How many times had my father lured me in over the years? Made me think he was actually going to be a real father for a change? Cautiously, I waved him over. “Sure, come on in.”
I turned back to my client. “Sorry about that,” I said, resuming work on the compass on his chest. “What do you think so far?”
“Looks great,” he said. “Size is perfect. Design, spot on.”
“A compass,” my father murmured as he sat next to us. So, he was going to offer commentary throughout the process. Great. “Couldn’t do my job without it.”
My father had had a lot of jobs in his life. Not one of them required a compass. Mechanic? Bartender? What a cluster that one was. He’d hauled wine barrels for a vineyard and worked construction. But a compass?
“Which job was that?” I asked, wiping my client’s chest. This ink was looking pretty sweet.
“When I first moved here to work for GeoNY.”
I paused. “What’s that? Never heard of it.”
“That’s because they went out of business. I was a geologist by trade. Worked for them for over ten years.”
“A geologist? Dad, don’t you need to get a degree in that?”
In response, my father, his eyes still bloodshot, blinked. But he didn’t argue with me either.
“You don’t have a geology degree. Right?”
“Wrong.”
My client and I exchanged a look.
“Wait, what?”
“Graduated from Syracuse with a geology bachelor’s. Moved here to work for GeoNY. Met your mom. Had you. Lost my job. Your mom left.”
I started working again, aware that this sounded crazy. “How is it possible I knew all of that except the geologist part?”
Still didn’t believe it.
“Because when they closed, there was no other job in the area in that field to be found. By then, I had you and the house. Was hard to pick up and leave. So, I worked construction instead.”
“And just never mentioned your previous career? Until now.”
He shrugged. “Guess so.”
He remained silent, and so did I for a time. Was it really possible my father had been to college and had an entire career I knew nothing about?
Why would he lie?
“There must be something unique about the geology of this region that grows grapes for the wine,” my client mused.
“It’s true,” I said. “The glacially designed lakes provide the perfect drainage for the grapes.”
“Glacially designed lakes?” he asked.
“Sorry,” I said. “Can’t say I know much beyond that. But grape growing? Most people native to the Finger Lakes know at least why we have all these vineyards.”
A sudden vision of being in the vineyard with Charlee popped into my head. I pushed it away.
“Huge sheets of ice carved out the U-shaped valleys that hold Finger Lakes,” my father said. “When they retreated north about ten thousand years ago, glaciers left deposits of gravel that dammed streams and caused the depressions to become lakes.”
My client looked impressed. I was downright floored.
Was it really possible?
“You were a geologist,” I said.
Dad said nothing and watched as I worked. By the time the tattoo was finished, my mind had run a million miles around the idea that I could have grown into a man without knowing something so important about my own father. Why had he not told me?
It was the first question I asked when my client left.
“Didn’t matter. That was a different life.”
A life with a good job. And a wife. I never actually imagined.
Fuck. I really didn’t want to get into this right now. But he was sober. No time like the present.
“So why did she leave?”
That question had been on the tip of my tongue my entire life. That it took leaving for ten years to figure out who the hell I was, what I stood for, to actually say the words.
“I don’t know, Son. We were happy. Or I thought so, anyway. Now they talk about all that post-partum stuff—”
“Not just stuff, Dad. It’s a real thing.”
“Well, whatever. Maybe it was that. She just freaked out. Said she wasn’t ready for all of it. Never looked back.”
“All of it. Meaning me.”
“Not just you. Being married. Your mom was a party girl when we met. A lot of fun, and maybe too young to settle down.”
“How old was she when she had me?” The questions just spilled from my mouth now.
“Twenty.”
“How old when you married?”
“Nineteen.”
Yeah, way too young.
“Shit. I didn’t know.”
For his part, my father looked as if we could have been talking about the weather. Clearly he’d gotten over it all a long time ago.
Or at least, spent a lifetime trying to dull the pain.
“Why don’t you go to rehab?” I asked for the first time since I’d been back. How many times had I asked that question? How often had I tried to no avail?
“Ahh.” He waved his hand at me. “Don’t need it.”
“No? You’re doing a pretty bang-up job without it, Dad. How are you planning to pay the bills this month?”
“I have an interview,” he said. “With a construction company. Tomorrow.”
Oh gawd. How pointless was that?
“And how long until your drinking interferes, even if you get it?”
Dad, doing what he did best, waved another hand at me and walked away. “Good-looking place. Proud of you.”
And that was it. My father walked out.
It wasn’t like he was shy with those words. He’d said them before plenty of times. They’d always felt so hollow to me. A son who didn’t follow in his footsteps and become another town drunk was something to be proud of in his mind. No place to go except for up.
A geologist.
I tried to imagine him, not drinking, in college with a wife and newborn son. Like a real family. Before she left.
Trouble was, I simply couldn’t. Not that it mattered. It was just a fantasy anyway.
My phone buzzed. Pulling it out, thinking for a second it might be Charlee, I stared at a text from my former partner.
Convoy mission turned to shit. Was shot, am OK
Fuck.
I sat down and texted back. Holding my breath. Waiting for Nate’s response. Okay could mean a lot of things, and Nate could easily be downplaying his injury.
Obviously, he was alive. But what kind of shape was he in? I looked at the time. Nate was seven hours ahead, so he should still be up. As if it would make him get back to me more quicky, I stared at our text thread.
Come on, Nate. Talk to me, buddy.
Talk to me.