Chapter 2 #2
“Listen, uh…can you do me a favor and text me the location of the shop? I’m going to try and get ahold of my mother to get him.”
“Of course,” Alexio said.
I knew I should probably ask what kind of hard day my dad was having, but I was struggling to give a shit after everything. “Thanks for keeping an eye on him,” I said.
“It’s always my pleasure.”
Wow. Okay, I really liked his voice. He seemed genuinely kind, which probably meant he didn’t deserve having my dad disrupt his entire day. And yeah, I didn’t need to be focusing on that, of all things. Not right now, anyway.
“I’ll, uh…see you soon.” I hung up before I said anything I regretted, then leaned my head against the wall and sighed.
A moment later, my phone buzzed with the pin, and I tapped the screen and scrolled until the voice read out the location. This was the last thing I wanted to do, but what choice did I have?
“Contacts. Mom.”
The phone buzzed against my fingers with the haptic feedback as I double-tapped on her name, then pressed it to my ear, waiting with my stomach in my throat.
“The subscriber you’re trying to reach is currently out of service…”
“Oh, what the fuck?” I demanded at my phone, as though the robot could give me answers. I hung up, then tried again, but the message was the same.
God, no. No. She couldn’t have just gone, could she?
But…oh fuck, she did. Of fucking course she did.
My fingers were shaking as I started to tap on Micah’s contact, but then I stopped myself.
I scrolled up to Caleb, but I realized I couldn’t burden him with this either.
This was my issue. I’d allowed this to go on for so long, and I couldn’t ask them to give up the boundaries they’d set all because I didn’t feel like dealing with the mess.
Squeezing my eyelids so tight I could feel pressure in my forehead, I scrolled through my apps, then double-tapped on Uber. I had to solve this problem. As much as I wanted to turn and run.
Tucker was irritated with me for taking off, but I promised to be back well before the game, and I knew that I would always be the golden child on the team while he was coaching.
The ride over to the little shop Alexio had sent me was only a few minutes long, but it felt like an eternity until the driver was pulling up to the curb.
“Do you, uh…like.” The man went quiet, and I let him stew, even though I knew what he was trying to ask. “Should I help you or lead you somewhere?”
“I’m good.” Normally, I asked drivers to point me in the direction I wanted to go, but this poor bastard seemed like he was going to throw up in his own lap if I did, and I wasn’t in the mood to smell vomit.
Pushing the door open, I found the curb with the tip of my cane, then pulled out my phone and used my SeeingEye app to read out the shop names until I found the little kebab place where my dad had apparently started hanging out every afternoon.
It was not anywhere I expected him to go, even with his growing dementia. He was super white, small-town Canadian, born and bred. He thought paprika was too spicy and folk music was too modern. But I wasn’t going to pretend like I understood his fading mind.
I made my way across the pavement, and my cane hit the door. It took a moment for me to find the handle, and then I stepped in and was immediately surrounded by fragrant spices. I could hear something sizzling on a cooktop nearby, and I bit my lip, trying to decide how I wanted to handle this.
I was a creature of habit by necessity more than nature. When I was a kid, I had no problems bashing around, learning my way around strange places by touch alone. Back then, I didn’t give one iota of a fuck whether or not I messed up a display stand or knocked shit over.
But after getting yelled at and publicly shamed by shop owners, employees, and my parents, I’d learned to be embarrassed and hesitant.
I was a hockey star and still shaking in my boots that I might run into one of those pyramid displays of canned yams or something.
“Hi there, can I—oh.” His voice was similar to the one from the phone, which meant it was Nikos. Alexio’s brother, I assumed. “You must be Jonah?”
“Please tell me my dad doesn’t carry a photo of me in his wallet,” I said.
Nikos laughed, and I could hear his footsteps on the tile as he moved closer. “No, nothing like that. I guess I saw the cane and assumed.” His accent was stronger in person, and now I could hear it. It was some kind of British, though definitely not London.
“Dude. That is wildly offensive to assume any blind guy is my dad’s son.”
“I—oh. Oh. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh my god, no. I’m joking. How many people with white canes come into your shop?”
“I’m scared to answer that,” Nikos said. “Is it offensive if I say not many?”
I snorted. “No. Please relax. I was just giving you shit.” I waited until he started moving again, then turned toward his voice and extended my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
His palm was rough, calloused, probably from cooking. I recognized the feeling of burn scars. But his handshake was soft and tender—not in a patronizing way, but in a way that told me he was kind. “Same. Your dad talks about you a lot. He and my wife bonded over parenting.”
I wrinkled my nose. My dad wanted to claim he ever parented me? That was fucking hilarious. “Interesting.”
Most of the time, my dad made it obvious the only thing he wanted from me and my brothers was for us to disappear. I was pretty sure he was only happy when we were at the blind boarding school before our mom yanked us out and put us in a mainstream school down the street from her house.
“Is my dad here? I spoke to your…”
“Brother,” Nikos filled in where I hesitated. “Alexio.”
“Right, yeah. He said my dad was having a bad day.” I stopped, then asked, “Is Alexio here still?”
“No, no. He only stopped in. He has a work thing tonight.” I heard Nikos move a few steps closer. “There’s a chair in the corner of the room to your…ah. To your left? No, your right. Wait…”
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
Nikos took a slow breath. “I have a thing. I struggle with direction, and my wife usually handles those things, but she’s back in Athens this week, helping her sister out. Anyway, he’s to your left, in the corner, sitting at a table. I think he’s asleep. He hasn’t moved in a while.”
God, please don’t let him be dead, I thought as I took a step in that direction. “Mind taking me to him? I should probably feel his pulse.”
“Of course. He’s breathing though,” Nikos said. He touched my arm, then snatched his hand away. “How would you like me to—”
I put him out of his misery by tucking my cane into my armpit and taking the back of his arm. “Lead the way, MacGuff.”
“It’s lay on…” Nikos started, then stopped. “Ignore me.”
“No, it’s fine. Tell me how I got it wrong,” I insisted.
He sighed, hesitated, then said, “Really, it’s not important.”
“If you say so.” He walked quickly, which I appreciated. A lot of people led me across the street or through aisles like I was some hollow, bird-boned centenarian who would break a hip going at more than a shuffle.
He came to a stop a second later. “Right in front of you. Want me to wake him?”
I bit my lip. I wasn’t actually sure what the protocol was for men like my dad who were losing their memories. Would he even recognize me? Was it like sleepwalking, and I should let him come to on his own?
“Yeah. Maybe you should go for it. I’ll step in if he gets weird.”
Or violent, but I didn’t say that aloud. I didn’t really know my dad anymore, so I had no idea what was going to happen when he woke up and saw me.
Nikos moved away, and a second later, I heard him speaking quietly. “Peter? Can you open your eyes for me? Your son is here. Peter?”
A moment passed, and I heard the sound of a body moving and shuffling, and small grunts, but other than that, my dad didn’t say a word.
“Should I keep trying?” Nikos asked.
I sighed and bowed my head. “Uh…probably not. I don’t…fuck. I don’t know what to do. I have no idea what I’m doing with all this.”
“He usually doesn’t sleep for too long. Why don’t you come to the front with me? I can get you something to eat while we wait for him to come around.” Nikos moved back to me, touching my hand with the back of his, and I absently took his bicep.
“How often does this happen? Like, really?”
“A few times a week,” Nikos said as he led me back to the front of the shop. We came to another stop. “There’s a chair to your right if you want to sit. I’ll fix you a plate. Does anything sound good?”
I grimaced. “No offense, but I don’t even know where I am.”
He made a soft choking noise. “Oh god. I’m so sorry. I forgot you can’t…which is ridiculous, right? You can’t see. It’s a bit obvious. I mean—oh, fuck me. I’m being so rude.”
I burst into laughter. Some of it was stress, but dear god, this man was sweet. “Please calm down. I’m a pro hockey player, okay? I’m almost impossible to offend.”
Nikos made a startled noise. “You play hockey?”
I felt offense rising in my chest. “Yeah. I know we’re not, like, as famous as the NHL, but we’re still pro.”
“Sorry, no. I…I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not really a sports guy. My brother though—he plays.”
“Alexio?” I said, thinking of the guy with the voice. Maybe he was one of the Alexios I knew.
“Mm. He was drafted to Boston a few years ago, and we moved with him to keep him out of trouble.”
I almost laughed. Keeping hockey players out of trouble was futile. Especially those NHL dickheads. I tried not to be pissy with them. Most of them were nice guys. Well, some of them were nice guys. But they tended to treat us like we were trained circus animals doing tricks, not serious athletes.