21. Chapter 21
At a truck stop between Montgomery and Mobile, Graham choked down a plate of fries before the sight of his brother mopping over-easy eggs with a slice of rye almost sent his stomach up his throat.
The runny yolk the color and consistency of the bile he spat down the rusty shower drain at the motel, his brother’s hands carbon copies of their father’s, down to the way they held a fork, that both sets might’ve been poured from the same thick-knuckled mold.
Graham excused himself and stood in the sliver of shade outside the truck stop to check his phone. Last night, after he lost count of the whiskeys, he’d texted Helen to tell her he was on the road. She’d asked if Lindsey was with him and hadn’t responded since.
The only new messages were more from his old boss, a kid barely out of college who was more ambitious with his business degree than Graham.
You should be managing something after spending all that goddamn time and money, his dad always complained.
As if Jason had paid for more than a small portion of college, claiming he didn’t want to raise an entitled brat.
While sitting on millions Graham was still not entitled to without following these maps.
Lindsey joined him on the stoop, holding her hair off her glistening neck. They still weren’t talking.
A few steps behind, Jase was reading a napkin square. Graham saw the waitress’s name and phone number on it as his brother shoved it in his back pocket. The asshole worked fast.
Graham swallowed three aspirins he bought in a machine in the bathroom and headed to the wagon, a teal turd shimmering in the Alabama sun.
Laying his head on the window, he tried resuming his nap but couldn’t get his mind to quiet.
It was always so fucking loud whenever he wasn’t drunk.
Between the drumbeats of his headache were bacon slices, toast, his brother’s knuckles, runny egg yolk.
His dad’s hand with an I.V. sticking out of it.
Instead of sleeping, Graham found himself back in a memory. It would’ve been just another winter morning, the usual hassle of trying to get his dad ready for another doctor’s visit. But this morning…
This morning his dad cracked his world wide open.
Graham had sat at the kitchen table across from his old man. Jason Young was eating a plate of pure cholesterol.
“Why aren’t you sticking to your diet?” Graham had asked. “Where’s your nurse?”
“I sent her out. She rags on me for eating this stuff too. If I’m going to die, who gives a shit about my triglycerides?”
Graham winced. He wasn’t used to his old man making cracks about death.
A month into his cancer treatment, his dad was content to putter around the house, playing cards with his nurses and watching James Dean movies.
Some days he could’ve just been thin, not sick, if Graham ignored the I.V. and the plastic chair in the tub.
“The idea is to keep you alive,” he murmured.
“There’s more bacon on the stove. Live a little. Denise actually tried to get me to drink something called wheatgrass.”
“Did you? I read it’s excellent for you.”
Jason grunted. “The only grass I want is the kind I can smoke.”
“Do you—you want some?” Graham asked, unsure if his dad was messing with him.
“Why, you offering?”
“I mean…”
“Bring some next time.”
“Sure.” Graham cleared his throat. He’d never smoked weed with his dad and the idea was both exciting—they might get along better stoned—and unnerving, another part of his world gone askew. “Are we going to the doctor with your junk hanging out of your shorts?”
“If you think it’ll get me a few phone numbers,” Jason said. “On second thought, the women on the cancer floor look so goddamn sick. They can’t help it, of course. The nurses, though…”
“It’s officially happened. You’re a dirty old man.” Graham stood. “We’re late. Should I call Denise back to come dress you?”
“Jesus H. Christ, I can get dressed myself. Although, I do enjoy the baths.”
Graham’s stare flattened on his dad’s impish grin. “I’m leaving.”
“Sit down. Sit,” Jason barked, and Graham sat. “The young lady you brought over for Christmas. How serious is it?”
Graham’s shoulders lifted around his ears. He should’ve stayed in the car and honked the horn instead of coming inside.
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Good, that’s good.”
“Really? I thought you liked her.”
“I do. Very much,” Jason said. “Whatever happened to the succubus?”
“Succubus?”
“Black-haired girl. Real intense. Vodka drinker, I remember. Kept Ketel on hand for her. She was around for a while, I think?”
“Jesus, Dad, you know her name. I was with her for three years.”
Jason raised his eyebrows.
“Helen, Dad. It’s Helen.”
“Uh-huh, that’s right. What’s Helen doing these days?”
“No idea. She’s in Texas, remember? Didn’t you say she was a frigid bitch anyway? Now, what—you change your mind?”
“I think I used the term witch out of respect for you. And no, I didn’t change my mind. My opinion doesn’t mean she wasn’t the one for you.”
In the three years he was with Helen, his dad never uttered a word in her favor.
“Are you seriously saying you’d rather see me with Helen?”
“Did I stutter, son?”
“Why?”
“You should settle down with the kind of woman who makes you feel thrilled to be alive. For whatever bonehead reason, it isn’t Lindsey,” he said, shoving the last of his egg into his mouth with the crust of his toast, bits of which flew across the table as he continued.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t think the world of her and doesn’t mean I care for the witchy broad who left you for Texas, but it’s not about who I like better.
” He crunched on a strip of bacon. “You need a woman to take charge and rough you up a little bit. Hazard of a charmed life, I guess. I didn’t appreciate that until I saw the way you walked all over that sweet girl. ”
“I didn’t walk all over her. I—” Graham stopped.
There was no argument. He had walked all over Lindsey when he brought her home for Christmas two months ago.
He even lied about what she did for a living.
Journalist sounded so much sexier than bartender, and it wasn’t a far stretch, since Lindsey was a journalism major until she dropped out of school. “What? I’m just the asshole then?”
Jason Young groaned and waved his son away, shuffling his plate to the sink with his I.V. of daily vitamins in tow. “Do what you want. Just don’t be an idiot.”
Graham stood and intercepted the plate from his dad’s hands and loaded it into the dishwasher. “If you care,” he said, “Helen left me. Not the other way around.”
“I know. Took a new job, or whatever.”
“No, you don’t know. I never told you this, but she cheated on me.” He reveled in his dad’s look of surprise. “She made out with some guy at a party.”
“Made out? What does that mean?”
“She kissed someone else.”
“Uh-huh. That it?”
Graham felt his cheeks redden. “Isn’t it enough?”
“Not if she’s worth more than that. I thought your mom was shacking up with a dipshit with a Trans Am, and I didn’t care. She was my woman,” Jason said. “Unless you were looking for a way out and she gave it to you.”
Graham turned to leave the kitchen. “Are you ready to go?”
“In a minute,” his dad said, his grip tightening around the I.V.
pole. “I’m going to tell you something I hope you remember.
There’s no shame in being afraid to commit.
I wasn’t interested either until your mother came around.
Even then I only did it so she wouldn’t get away.
” He let out a heavy sigh and leaned closer.
“Don’t ever let your fear or, God forbid, male pride, keep you from what you really want.
If you take anything from me before I die, let that be it. ”