Chapter 25
Tristan
Those things you want to try… you should try them with me.
Nick and I don’t discuss his messages at all for the next couple of weeks.
We’re too busy with our work at the station, responding to emergencies, doing paperwork, and keeping our vehicles in good shape.
Not to mention everything we both have to handle in our personal lives.
I’ve got the projects around the house I’m helping Dad and Bobbie with; he’s busy with his daughter.
There are plenty of things for us to talk about that have nothing to do with the kinky sex he proposed we engage in together. Not that I know what, exactly, he was proposing, but I have a pretty good idea.
Even from observing Nick going about his job, I get the sense that he’s naturally dominant. It’s in everything about him: his calm, commanding presence, his strong, steady voice, the controlled power with which he carries himself.
He’s—he’s everything.
And he doesn’t press me for an answer.
Not when I don’t respond to his text. Our next messages are days later—me asking him a question about where some equipment is kept.
I’m sure he knows I saw it. Knows I read it. And he’s giving me the time I need to process.
He doesn’t know why my last relationship ended.
I didn’t tell him that Warren died. But he knows enough to know I need time. And I really, really appreciate that he’s giving me that time.
The thing is, I know what I want.
I know it like I know my very name.
I want to surrender to Nick, to give him full control, to let him do whatever he wants with me, to me, however he wants.
But he won’t force my hand. He won’t force an answer or a response. He’s waiting until I’m ready.
I hope that I can be ready.
? ? ?
There are plenty of other things to keep my mind occupied.
Namely, the Stove Incident, which occurs three weeks into my “fresh start” in San Francisco.
It’s a cool Saturday in early October, and I’m just getting home from a twenty-four-hour shift.
Because it’s the weekend, I’m not surprised when I get home and find the house silent. Though Dad and Bobbie are both usually early risers, they often sleep in on the weekends.
I drop my stuff in the foyer and go to the kitchen to make myself a pot of coffee.
That’s when I notice that the gas stove is on.
“Shit,” I whisper.
Immediately, I turn off the stove.
The kitchen is warm, almost uncomfortably so. Thankfully, nothing was on top of the stove when it was left on, so nothing melted.
But still.
I rub my eyes. I guess that Bobbie could technically be responsible for this, but more likely, it was Dad.
After I make myself a large cup of coffee, I sit at the kitchen table to think.
This is bad, but it could be worse.
Thankfully, I came home.
Thankfully, nothing melted or burned.
But, of course, my brain goes to the nastier hypotheticals. What if Dad had left a kettle or a pot on the stove? What if I hadn’t come home? What if something had caught fire, and what if it had spread?
I’m still sitting and thinking when Bobbie comes down, yawning and wearing a cozy robe over her silk pajamas.
“Good morning, Tris. I thought you’d be taking a nap.”
I chug some coffee. “Dad left the stove on last night.”
Bobbie goes straight to the coffee. “Shit.”
“Yep. Unless you left it on?”
“No. He stayed up later, said he was making himself a cup of tea. I thought it would be okay.” She shakes her head. “That was stupid of me.”
“No, Bobbie, it’s not your fault.”
Her expression is anguished. “I know. I know.”
Bobbie has always looked young for her age, and really, she isn’t old. Just late middle-aged. Now, though, she looks old. And tired.
“Tristan, I don’t know what to do.”
I think about my response for a long time before I answer. “It might be time to start having some conversations about getting him some more full-time care. I was hopeful that I could help with that—”
“You are helping. You really are.”
“Thanks. But like he said a few weeks ago, I’m his son.
Not his nurse. There’s only so much that I can do, and he’ll only listen to me when it comes to some things.
There’s a limit to how much I can help right now.
But, if we get him a caregiver, or hire a nurse to work with him one-on-one, he might listen to them. ”
She snorts. “How well do you know your dad? Do you want to have that conversation with him?”
“It won’t be a fun conversation,” I agree. “But I think it might be time that we have it.”
? ? ?
My prediction that “it won’t be a fun conversation” proves to be accurate.
Dad is at first defensive, saying there’s no way he left the stove on, then belligerent when we bring up the idea of a caregiver or nurse, and finally cold when we say we’re just trying to help.
Finally, he leaves us in the kitchen and goes to work in the garden. By then, Bobbie is crying, and I’m exhausted, frustrated, and at a loss.
I collect my thoughts, let my anger cool, and go outside with two cups of coffee. One for myself, one for dad.
“Hey,” I say, sitting on the front steps, watching him.
He’s on his knees in the dirt, pulling weeds. Just past him is the wrought-iron fence that encircles the garden, then the sidewalk, and then the road. I’m glad the fence is there.
Dad doesn’t look up. “Hey.”
“I brought coffee.”
He wordlessly accepts it.
“I’m sorry about how that went,” I said. “It was my idea to bring it up. Please don’t be mad at Bobbie.”
Dad sighs and puts down his trowel. “I’m not mad at anyone, Tris.”
“Really? Sure sounded like it.”
He joins me on the step.
“I know. I’m sorry. This is all new to me—to all of us—and it’s hard. I hope you never have to understand from personal experience what this feels like.
“It’s subtle right now, but I can tell that I’m losing parts of myself. That feeling you get when you walk into a room and you don’t remember why you went there, or what you were looking for? It’s like that feeling is always on the edge of my mind, always waiting to sabotage me.
“It’s embarrassing for me to know that I’m not able to trust myself to do something as simple as turn a stove off. That I can’t always remember the days. That I forget important things like—like you coming home. And knowing that it’s going to get worse?”
He shakes his head. “It’s terrifying.”
This might be the most Dad has ever talked about his feelings, and I’m shocked.
I know that I have to choose my words carefully.
“I know I don’t understand how it feels. And, Dad, trust me when I say that if there were anything I could do to take all of this away from you, I would.”
I pause, sipping my coffee, wondering how to proceed.
“Remember when I came out to you, years ago, and you said that what hurt you the most was that I felt you wouldn’t love me no matter what?
You said that there was nothing in the world I could tell you, nothing that could change about me, that would stop you from loving me, or that would stop me from being your son.
You said that you would do anything in the world to keep me from feeling that pain again. ”
My voice is hoarse with emotion as I continue.
“I need you to understand that that goes both ways. I love you, Dad. Nothing will ever, ever change that.”
When Dad looks at me, his eyes are wide and teary.
“What if I forget who you are, Tristan? It might happen. It probably will happen.”
The question breaks my heart.
“I will still love you. What did I say? Nothing will change that. I mean it.”
He closes his eyes. “I know.”
“I don’t know if it’s because you’re afraid of being a burden, or what, but please, let me love you.
Let me help take care of you. It doesn’t mean that you’re weak.
It doesn’t mean that I don’t need you anymore.
I need you. You’re my dad! I will always, always need you.
You cared for me so well when I was young. Please let me give back.”
“Tristan…” he says hoarsely.
And then we’re both crying, and my arms are around his shoulders. I feel like a dam has been broken, a bridge crossed, a page turned.
When the tears stop, I help him to his feet. “Come on,” I said. “I’m taking you and Bobbie out for breakfast, and we’re going to spend it judging the online employment profiles of different home health aides.”