Chapter Seventeen Julian #2
“So, Julie’s changed his mind about the weed shop, has he?
I guess I can see why.” Grinning, Gino leers at Nomi, and I sustain a brief, violent urge to grab the pinata stick and see what comes out of him after a few swings.
He throws his arm around me, and I stiffen beneath the meaty weight of it, his peppery armpits enough to make me gag.
“It’s not surprising, seeing how Julie’s old man loved reefer so much.
Did your dad ever take you back in that garage and get you high, too? ”
“My father wasn’t like that. Now get your arm off me,” I say to Gino coolly, even as my blood boils. Vinny, my lawyer cousin, comes over, as though sensing an assault action brewing.
“Pop, come on.” Vinny prods his father with water. “You need to hydrate.” But Gino p’shaws him away.
Nomi turns to Ms. Lombardi. “It was nice to meet you—we hope to hear from y’all soon!” Then to me, softly, “Let’s go.”
“Aww, don’t be like that, squirt!” Gino brings me in even closer. “You’ve always been such a little bitch.” His breath reeks of alcohol and Marlboro Lights, and I just can’t. I can’t. I shove him off, and he loses balance, skidding backward on the lawn in his pale denim shorts.
Footsteps rush over. Marco yells, “Hey, is Gino okay?”
I can’t say anything. I still smell Gino’s sweat and hear his nasty, belittling words, and I just—
“I’m so sorry, Gino!” Nomi exclaims, clapping her hands over her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to trip you! Here, let me help you up.” She holds out a hand, smiling apologetically at my skeezy uncle, who looks confused as to how he ended up on the ground.
“It’s these shoes; they always trip me in the grass.” She hoists him back up.
“I—tripped?” Gino looks to his son for confirmation.
“Sure did, Pop,” Vinny confirms, which… I did not see coming.
“He’s alright, everybody!” Nomi pats him on the shoulder, and Gino decides to accept the truth as presented to him by the pretty young thing fussing over him. It must be easier than believing Julie, that little bitch, pushed him.
Nomi ushers me away quickly.
“Fuck, fuck! I’m sorry, Nomi.” I cover my face with my hands. “God. Level 2000 red-flag deluxe.”
“Come on, let’s disappear for a while.” She opens the door to Marco’s garage then searches for the light switch.
“You probably think I have anger management problems.” I run my palms down my face, hard. “I tried to stay calm, but then Gino said that about my dad, and I just—I’m sorry. And right in front of Lombardi, too.”
“You don’t have anger management problems. You have a profoundly shitty uncle. It’s different.”
After a second, the lights switch on, and she gasps.
“Whoa, look at this.”
I open my eyes, and my heart momentarily stops. Nomi, eyes wide in wonder, stares at a massive model of Sparrow Nook, complete with the downtown, river park, even a backdrop of Philly’s skyline in the distance.
I haven’t seen it in twenty years.
I stagger back a step and slam into the door.
“Julian? What’s wrong?”
“It’s my… dad’s.” I feel lightheaded and unaccountably scared, as if my father’s ghost appeared instead of the miniature town he poured all his energy into the last five years of his life. Maybe they’re the same, in a way. “He built this. I didn’t know Marco had it.”
“Oh my God,” Nomi murmurs, then leads me over to a camp chair. I shrink back from it, but it’s not Dad’s. I collapse into the seat, and Nomi sits beside me. “That’s… wow. Really intense. Are you okay?”
After a second, I shake my head, dropping my eyes to the floor.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Do I? I take several deep breaths, her question lingering in the air before I rise to my feet and feel for the switch hidden beneath the table.
With an audible click, the town comes to life.
The streetlamps light up, the storefronts blink on, and the traffic lights hanging over the intersections begin alternating between green, yellow, and red.
“Dad always intended to add a motorized track for the cars.” I drag my fingertips up Main Street.
“But he hadn’t figured out how to make the cars sync up with the traffic lights yet.
” I let out a small huff. “He would’ve, though. If he’d had more time.”
“What happened?” Nomi asks softly beside me.
Whenever I’ve been asked about Dad before—by women from short-lived relationships, a few times out of professional interest by other ER doctors, once by Eric—I usually give the short answer: he was disabled and died when I was young.
To Eric I gave the full story, though, and I’ve been glad many, many times that I did.
Having someone I know and trust help me hold the truth, who sees me and understands me in my fuller context—it’s why his advice is so good.
Eric knows me. And as much as I hate the truth, I want Nomi to understand me, too.
I want her to know, because I want her to know me.
“Dad was a mechanical engineer. Worked at the engine plant on all the assembly line machines. There was an accident one day, when I was pretty young. He got pulled halfway into a machine—it crushed his right arm and several of his vertebrae. If they hadn’t pulled the emergency brake when they did, it would’ve—well.
He’d have died on the spot. As it was, he was very badly injured.
After several surgeries, he regained some function and mobility, but he couldn’t work anymore.
He had pretty severe PTSD around motorized machinery after the accident, and due to some poor decisions made during the initial surgery, he was in constant pain. ”
Nomi’s brows draw together as she listens. The concern and empathy on her face is too much to bear, so instead I keep my eyes on the model and all the little details I used to resent so much.
“He went on disability, which was less than half of his old salary, and Mom had to work two jobs because of all the debt accruing from his care. I was only seven years old, and suddenly my dad, the funniest, most charismatic man you’d ever meet, barely left his bed, and my mom disappeared into work at the same time so we’d have enough to pay for Dad’s treatments.
When Mom was home, she was always tired, and I—I blamed Dad for it.
I didn’t understand why he couldn’t get out of bed and take care of me.
I didn’t understand why Mom had to work twice as much. ”
“That must’ve been so hard on you. To be so young and lose that time with your parents.”
I bite both lips in. “I had Aunt Edna. That’s how we got so close, you know. During that first year after the accident, I practically lived at her house. She took care of the Ohs, too, and sometimes Vinny and Veronica.”
Nomi huffs. “My god, what a brood.”
“The first year was the hardest. Eventually, the surgeries stopped, and Dad could move around again. As part of his physical therapy, they encouraged him to do tasks that would improve his gross and fine-motor skills, and that’s how this started.
” I gesture a hand at little Sparrow Nook.
“You can tell which parts of town are the oldest because the painting is the sloppiest, and the buildings came from kits. Eventually, he built all the houses himself.”
“It’s amazing.” Nomi runs her finger over the top of the Strange Drugs Rx sign that hangs over the tiny sidewalk, facing the old Belly’s Steaks shop across the street.
“It is. But God, I hated it growing up.”
“Why?”
“It became all Dad cared about. He spent all day, every day, in our garage, working on this town instead of living in the real thing. He rarely left the house. If I wanted to see him, I had to go into the garage, and it always reeked of enamel paints and—and—”
“Weed,” Nomi says, understanding. “He smoked to deal with his pain, right?”
“That’s what Mom said when I asked why Dad was doing illegal drugs in our garage every day. But all I saw was a stoner sitting in a camp chair painting tiny things instead of being my dad. Instead of working, so Mom could be my mom.”
“Oh, Julian.” Nomi reaches out, and in Sparrow Nook’s twinkling lights, touches my arm. “I’m sorry.”
“It was hard, hearing people talk about my dad in the past tense before he was dead. Or worse, hearing people like Gino call him a worthless stoner. And it was even harder to believe Mom when she said it wasn’t true, because it seemed true to me.
” I shake my head, hating this part most of all.
“Then one day, he made this big announcement during dinner that he was giving up pot because his doctors had prescribed him this new miracle drug for pain relief, covered by insurance and everything. He was so proud, and Mom was so relieved.” My breath twists in my throat.
“The opioid crisis was just beginning, and Dad was one of the countless people trampled by it. On a bad pain night, he overdosed by accident and died in his sleep. I was twelve.”
Nomi pulls me to her. Wraps her arms around my middle, rests her head against my chest. The weight of it there makes the first tear feel safe enough to run down my cheek.
After a brief, terrified pause, I fold my arms around her woodenly, then melt into her, wishing that I could wear this hug like armor every day of my life.
A new layer of skin that’d protect me from all the bullshit.
If I had this, I could be nice, I think. I could finally lower my fists.
I wouldn’t need them anymore.
“No wonder you hate pot,” Nomi says into my chest.
“But I don’t now. It took a long time to accept, but if Dad was just a stoner in our garage, this model would have motorized tracks.”
Nomi’s lips quirk at the corner as she regards me. “So. That’s Dr. D’Angelo’s origin story.”
“You make me sound like a villain.” My voice comes out husky and low, hands forming a warm knot at the base of her spine.
“Hey.” Her mouth curves higher. “If the dastardly monocle fits.”
I hold her to me, a little embarrassed by how much I don’t want to let her go. “I was the son of a disabled, out-of-work, drug addict who eventually overdosed. After that, no one expected me to become anything, even my family. So, I had to become everything they never expected. The best.”
“Did you, though?” Nomi asks softly. “Or did they love and accept you no matter what you did?” She reaches up and, tentatively, brushes a lock of hair from my forehead.
“I think it’s a good thing, to be loved without conditions or expectations.
To be loved just because you’re you, and you exist. That’s enough. ”
My throat tightens painfully as I look down into Nomi’s beautiful, open face.
Is it enough? Could I be enough, for her?