Chapter 4 Thea #2
Soon the average buildings and maintained landscaping wane, replaced by rows of identical boxy homes with lawns that are patchy at best. Rusted tricycles, cracked plastic chairs, and half-buried junk tip over on their sides in half the front yards.
Mailboxes slouch over crooked chain-link fences, and as I approach my house, my hands clench my steering wheel.
My face burns, even though I’m alone in my car and have traveled this street all my life.
But it’s not because of the other houses on the street.
It’s mine. The one with the lopsided porch my dad never fixed and the blue recycling bin overflowing with sun-bleached beer bottles next to the weather-beaten garage.
The flower beds my mother used to keep up with are now overgrown despite my attempts to remove the stubborn weeds. Scratches scar the front door in uneven patterns, marks from my dad’s steel-toed boots kicking it over and over when he was locked out at three in the morning.
This proves my point. I can’t bring anyone home to this.
Tristan would try to pretend it didn’t bother him. He’d be kind, probably volunteer to help me fix a few things, but I’d see it in his eyes. The pity. He wouldn’t get it, though. Not really.
I stop at the curb, scanning the peeled siding. I’m not sure why there’s a smidge of hope each Friday. Like maybe, just maybe, he decided enough was enough and he should get his crap together.
Swallowing, I gather my things, allowing the groan of my door to drown out the rapid thump in my chest. I’m curious how the house will look. Last time it was awful, and I spent the entire time I was home cleaning it from top to bottom.
I bypass the front door in favor of the side one, and even though I can’t see in through the cinched curtain covering it, I can smell the trash from here—stale beer and sour rot.
With a harsh jiggle, I open the door. He never locks it anymore, and frankly, I don’t really blame him.
I learned several years ago to keep anything valuable either on my person or in my car.
I step inside, fingertips dancing along the pear-patterned wallpaper in the kitchen. “Phil!” I yell for my father despite his truck not being here. It’s after 4:00 p.m., so I doubt he’s around. “Phil! It’s Thea!”
Without a response, I roll my eyes and poke around the kitchen.
The two-person table sits in the middle of the floor with several empty bottles lined up in the center and old takeout containers woven between them.
Instead of dishes piled on the stove, my mother’s old cookbooks sit stacked, a fine layer of dust coating the pictures of women in aprons and perfectly constructed food.
I drag a finger over the top of one, drawing a heart before I move to wash my hands in the stuffed sink.
Burned food crusts the bottom of all the pans from my dad’s late-night cravings, and I crouch, opening the cabinet for dish soap to get them soaking.
Really glad Tristan isn’t seeing this.
Once they’re submerged, I make a beeline for the living room to gather more trash and dishes. Several filled ashtrays linger on the coffee table, cigarette butts tumbling out onto old, torn mail. I shake my head, but—
Pausing, I stare at the cigar sitting there, thrown off.
It’s thick and rich looking, with a burgundy foil wrapped around the end.
I don’t know anything about cigars, but the gold lettering must be indicative of its swanky status.
It belongs in a leather chair at a fancy bar, not this wreck of a living room. Who the heck smoked that?
I ponder the answer while moving to the set of three windows overlooking the front yard.
When I pull open the blinds, dust particles kick up, drifting in lazy spirals.
The natural light reveals signs of effort.
Half-hearted ones, at most. There’s a can of Febreze on the table, and the old framed wedding photo of my parents is without a speck of grime or dust on it.
Mostly, though, the house is an ode to defeat. He’s given up, and no matter how I try, plead, yell, or threaten, it doesn’t matter.
I take in the rest of the living room, the space not much bigger than the two bedrooms down the hallway.
My dad’s stained pillow and rumpled blankets hang off the brown suede couch, in a total avoidance of the bedroom he once shared with my mom.
I’ll be honest, I ignore it, too. It’s been two years since I stepped foot in there.
Gathering more junk and dishes, it takes me three hours to tackle the kitchen, living room, and the only bathroom we have in the house. By the time the sun has set, I’m starving enough to spend money on cheap pizza delivered from the gas station down the street.
I scarf down two olive and cheese slices, gagging at the soggy crust, then put the rest in the near-empty fridge for Phil.
Checking in with him would be the right thing to do.
Make sure he’s okay. But there’s a handful of bars within walking distance, and I don’t have to venture a guess where he is right now.
Exhausted and ready to sleep on a twin mattress instead of a lumpy secondhand sofa, I lock the door and retreat to my room.
My room is my space. Smoke free, though some seeps in from the vents and cracks under the door, but for the most part, the smells of the house don’t consume me in here.
I run a cheap air purifier I found on Craigslist, though it hums like a snoring roommate, crack the window even in the winter, and burn dollar store candles that smell like fresh linen.
It’s all superficial to mask the smell, but it helps.
My phone dings, and I pull it out of my back pocket to see a message from Tristan.
Tristan
Miss you already.
I smile but toss my phone on the nightstand beside the single dandelion in a glass I collected last weekend. Pretty sure it’s an off-brand jelly jar, the label only half peeled off. The water sloshes when the phone lands near it, and I sigh, crawling into the bed.
It isn’t long before the things I need to do torment me on loop. A checklist of laundry, cleaning, and outdoor work races through my mind. I stare at the ceiling. He should be handling this. My job should be college, or an actual job. But he won’t. He never does.
He was never that bad when she was around. He had his moments of relapse, but he loved her too much to let his addiction take hold. When she died, well, that was just too much for him, and he gave in.
His love for me—if there’s any left—is not enough.
My mother, though … she loved blindly. Even when it left her empty.
She loved him in a stubborn way, the kind that forgave too much.
It would break her heart to see him like this, and that’s the reason I can’t pull away like I should.
So much so that it doesn’t matter if I flinch when he slurs my name or that he forgets what day it is.
Or how the dishes stack up, the house smells, and I have to grocery shop with whatever cash he didn’t drink.
What would she think if she knew I often sit in my car, just trying to find the energy to walk through the door?
I’ve stopped trying to make him better and now only hope to survive him.
She was always there for me, putting her home and family first, and even though I’m tired … so, so tired of patching up the damage he causes, I’m still here. Still showing up. Someday, I want to pour into someone, into a family, like she did, but hell if I do so in vain.
Something jolts me awake, and I shoot upright, groggy and tangled in my sheets. What was that? Rubbing my eyes, I glance at my bedroom door.
It’s still shut.
The blanket around my waist slips, and I flail, struggling to get up until—thud, thud, thud. Dull, heavy whacks pulse against the front door, like someone is slamming their shoulder into it.
My brain scrambles to catch up as I stumble out of bed and open my bedroom door. I locked the front and side doors. My money, if I had any, is on Phil having lost his key and now that it’s …
I glance back at my nightstand and growl. 3:45 a.m. It never fails.
Four more fist falls sound on the door, and I wince. Please do not wake the neighbors. We don’t need that.
Barefoot and pissed, I drag myself across the gritty tile and follow the bangs to the kitchen side door.
I shiver, annoyed that my sleep shorts and oversized T-shirt Tristan made me take to “remember him while I slept,” aren’t doing more to keep me warm.
When I pass the thermostat, I stop in my tracks.
Sixty-two degrees!? I definitely set that at seventy-five before bed.
We cannot afford to keep the house this chilly, and who would want to?
Several more pounds on the door have me ignoring the temperature, and I hurry through the living room.
“What in the Sam Hill is going on?”
I startle, letting out a squealing scream before turning to find Phil stumbling up from the couch.
I tug at my shirt. “You scared me! When did you get home?”
He’s still in his dirty work jeans and grease-smudged white T-shirt.
His thinning russet hair is unbrushed, and his patchy beard clings to his jaw, overgrown and neglected.
Those pure ice-blue eyes staring wide are also mine, and what once was pride in sharing the feature with him has now fizzled to resentment.
He looks rough, face lined with years of heartbreak and hard drinking.
Sometimes, when his eyes clear or if he takes the time to shave, there are hints of the kind of face that might’ve been handsome once. Even in his late fifties, he could’ve lit up a room. Now, he can’t hold himself upright next to the couch.
He blinks rapidly. “I—uh, a few hours ago.” He sniffs. “What are you, uh, doing awake?” Thud, thud, thud. “And who the hell is banging on my door?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was you, Phil!”