Chapter 2 #2
With those thoughts contaminating my head, I close my eyes but don’t sleep peacefully.
There is very little rest and a lot of ache.
“I have to talk to you, Uncle,” I say when he picks up the phone in the morning .
“What good fortune as I was just about to ring you up! I’m visiting your dad right now.”
My stomach cramps. “That’s…great. Great.”
“Actually, he wants to talk to you.”
I pull my legs up onto the couch until they tuck under my chin. The closest I get to crying is when I talk to my dad, which is why we haven’t had a proper conversation in a really long time. “Okay.” My voice has gone soft.
“Hello, puth,” says my dad in his familiar deep rumble.
Puth —child.
What he always calls me, no matter how old I get.
It’s as if that endearment is made to unspool me. A detangling where all things from the past fade away and hope finds its stubborn way back into my squeezed heart. I wish one word didn’t have so much power over me, but it does.
“How are you doing, Dad?”
He doesn’t answer my question. But what he says tilts my world.
“ I appreciate you.”
No one speaks after that. I’m not sure I can.
For my whole childhood, my dad has overworked himself.
He has driven long hours on the bus and then woken up to drive the bus again.
He needed us to survive after my mom died.
Financial support was his love language.
With the emotional constitution of a stone, he spoke through gestures: a pat on the head, the brush of a hug, how he always pretended not to be hungry when we didn’t have much food.
Then the drinking started and kept going, and funny enough, made him able to express himself.
He would say things like:
You are good.
Be good.
Be happy.
Stay happy.
I ’ m happy you are happy.
But, this?—
I appreciate you.
Three words and I’ve no idea how to handle them. All I can think is, he needs me. He needs me. He needs me. He needs me.
Our roles have officially reversed. I’m the parent now. We’re not pretending and ignoring the fact that Uncle and I have silently been his caretakers for a while now.
Now, my dad sees it.
He appreciates me.
I’m close to crying again, but I won’t let myself fall apart.
There is noise again as Uncle is back on the line.
“We can’t talk much,” he explains. “The visits are limited because they want him to focus on his inner meditation, but let me tell you, Rita—my brother has not looked better. I wish you could see it, but I know you have to be in Barcelona. That’s why I asked the coordinator to email you updates as regularly as they can. ”
Is it true? Can I let myself hope? Has my dad accepted he is an alcoholic who needs professional help to manage his disease? “I appreciate it, Uncle.”
“Now, tell me. What about your news?”
“Oh. I’m actually asking for a friend . Do you still have contacts in the tech industry in Mumbai? Remember you told me you did, a long time ago?”
“I’m not sure they’ll remember me again.”
“Any other job possibilities?”
“Rita, what is going on? Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine!” My eyes close, then open. “I—actually there’s this...old quarter I visited the other day! That’s what I really want to talk about. Full of bars and restaurants and I-I thought of you. Called the Barri Gòtic. So many tourists and so much noise, and I know you would have loved it there!”
“How great! What did it look like?”
Putting him on speakerphone, I search it up.
“Like something out of a movie, Uncle.”
“I’m so happy for you! You know I had this feeling that this new city would be great for you. I just knew it. This is all going to work out, you’ll see.”
“Yes, I think so too!”
“Okay, I better go now, but I will call you later.”
“Bye, Uncle.”
The phone clicks off.
So my fake-cheer persona isn’t broken after all.
I appreciate you.
Three words. And it feels as if a boulder resituates itself on my shoulders.
I appreciate you.
No matter how much I brainstorm, there was only one chance for me to keep working enough to keep paying for the rehab. My choices dwindle to him .
I sit on the couch and email Luke Abbot, pretending I didn’t walk out of his office yesterday.
I tell him that I had to sort out some details and that I was ready to proceed with his offer as long as he’ll pay me an additional wage for the extra cake work.
I say I can start when he wants me to. That I have many ideas.
My fingers tremble. Is it enough? Will it matter? Have I screwed up this lifeboat too? Will the immoral and perpetually rude, Luke Abbot, heir to billions, let me hang out to dry? Especially after I walked out on him without an explanation?
He responds in a matter of minutes.
Start tomorrow.
The relief I feel is a wave.
It doesn’t matter if I’m forced to make cakes for the CEO of such a horrible company. Or that his father is widely known to be a greedy, evil man in the business world.
Luke has agreed to privately hire me.
I don’t care if he is a terrible boss, I ’ m making this work.
Especially since the stakes have never felt higher to me. Dad is counting on me.