Chapter Thirty-six Lacey
Chapter Thirty-six
Lacey
“Hey, peanut,” Dad says when he walks in from the garage. He sets his bag on the counter, along with his phone and a to-go cup.
“Hey,” I call back from the living room where I’ve holed up on the couch doing homework.
“Something smells good.”
“I made chicken and dumplings,” I say back without looking up from my Physics book.
“Chicken and dumplings?” His voice moves closer, and I look up to see him taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch.
“Yeah?” I question, trying to determine why he looks like he’s worried.
“You used to ask for that when you were sick or having a bad day.”
Oh, that.
“School’s been a lot lately,” I say, dropping my pencil in the middle of the book. I smile brightly. “How was work?”
“Fine.” He studies my expression for a beat longer before he stands and goes into the kitchen. He pulls two plates down from the cabinet.
I unfold myself from the couch and walk over to join him. Dad hands me a plate, and we fill them with food and sit together at the dining room table.
We dig in, eating quietly for a while. This recipe was my grandmother’s on my mom’s side.
I never met her, but Dad says it was my mom’s favorite meal.
Which is how it became my go-to cure for a bad day.
It’s just another one of those things that makes me feel closer to her, like we’re in on the same secret.
“I haven’t seen Vaughn around lately.”
My stomach swirls and clenches. I shrug one shoulder. “His algebra grade is a lot better.”
Dad has never been one to push me to talk.
He’s let me come to him and share when I’m ready.
Sometimes when he could tell I was upset, he’d sit with me in the living room.
I’d watch TV and he’d work. But I knew he was there if I needed him, and his presence was enough.
I have Claire for talking things out anyway.
But the way he looks at me now makes me think he isn’t going to drop this so easily.
“We aren’t hanging out anymore,” I admit.
My father nods slowly. “Boys are dumb at that age.”
My chest expands and warmth spreads through me. “You have to say that. You’re my dad.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true.”
I take another bite of dinner and try to let his words comfort the ache that’s been there all week. Knowing I didn’t do anything wrong doesn’t make his rejection sting any less.
After we eat, Dad helps me clean up in the kitchen. While we’re loading the dishwasher, he spots Mom’s bucket list and picks it up.
“This looks like your mom’s handwriting.”
“It is. I found it in those boxes you pulled from the back of the closet.”
He gives me a small smile, then focuses back on the paper. His smile widens the more he reads.
“Your mom loved a list. For years, I found her lists all over the house. Things she wanted to do, places she wanted to see, ideas for parties, baby names she liked…you name it, she had a list for it.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say.
He sets the list back on the counter. I step closer and look at it, wishing she were here more than ever. “There are so many things she didn’t get a chance to do. She didn’t even finish this list. I probably won’t either.”
He nods. “That’s true for most people probably.”
“I’ve been doing it. Her list, I mean,” I tell him.
He smiles softly.
“I thought it would make me feel closer to her by doing all these things she wanted to do at my age, but I think it’s just made me miss having her here more.”
He pulls me into a hug, cradling my head against his chest. “She would have loved that you wanted to finish it for her. You two are so much alike.”
My throat tightens, and I swallow the lump forming. “I wish I had gotten to know her.”
His arms around me loosen, and I step back. “I probably haven’t done a very good job of keeping her memory alive. For a long time, it was too hard to talk about.”
“It isn’t now?”
“It’s still hard, but it hurts less. In a lot of ways, it feels like another lifetime ago.” He looks at the list again. He points to number five: Learn the “Thriller” dance. “I think I remember her saying she always wanted to learn this dance.”
“I started it, but it has a lot of steps.”
“Let’s see them.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. Let’s learn it together. Unless you have homework or something else to do.”
The number of times my dad has ever asked me to show him a dance routine: zero. Which is exactly how many times I ever thought he’d ask to learn one with me.
I move to the living room where we’ll have more space. “No, no. I don’t have anything else. Are you sure?”
“I used to have moves.” He does some snapping, moving his arms around his body and stepping in place.
I burst out laughing, and he grins back at me.
I pull up the tutorial video, and for the next hour, we learn the entire dance. It takes Dad longer to catch on than it does me, but he’s not bad. Once we’ve perfected it, I record us and then we watch it back, laughing so hard that my stomach hurts.
“That was fun.” He’s still breathing hard as he pulls me in and kisses the side of my forehead. “I might need to stretch next time.”
“It was fun. Thanks. I think I needed that.”
His expression softens. “I know I’m not around as much as I should be.”
“It’s okay—”
He holds up a hand to cut me off. “It isn’t.
It won’t be long before you’re going off to college and starting your own life.
It’s easy to forget how fleeting this time is in the grind of the day-to-day.
But nothing is more important to me than you.
I worry what your life has been like without your mom.
I’m not a very good substitute for her. Some days you take better care of me than the other way around. ”
“I love my life. I like making meals and checking up on you. You might not be around as much as I wish, but you’ve always been good at making me feel loved and supported. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“I’ll see what I can do about being around more then, huh?”
“The homecoming game is this weekend…” I let him fill in the silent request.
“I’ll be there.”
As he hobbles off to shower, I head to my room and rewatch the video another time. Without thinking, I start to send it to Vaughn, then stop. I’ve come to associate so much of the list with him it feels wrong not to share it with him.
Instead, I send it to Claire and then cross number five off the list.
High School Bucket List
Make a high school memory box ?
Go apple picking ?
Get a piercing ?
Watch the sunrise from the fifty-yard line on the football field
Learn the “Thriller” dance! ?
Go on a double date ?
Stay up all night
Volunteer ?
Travel internationally
Kiss someone under the stars ?
Do something scary ?
Go to the homecoming dance with a date
Go ice-skating ?
Have a photo shoot with friends
Go skinny-dipping
Take a road trip with Dad
Leave my mark on Frost Lake High