“Here?” she asks skeptically.
“Yes, let’s go, and don’t forget to grab the keys,” I remind her, and she ducks back in to pull the key from the ignition.
I lead her up a short hill and into the grass, counting the ten headstones until we reach the one I’m looking for.
Roni’s eyes search the tomb. Michael Tedesco 1988-2003 Beloved husband and father.
Her eyes find mine and I can see the sadness in them. I rub a hand through my hair. “Shit, sorry, this is kind of depressing.”
She shakes her head and grabs my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I hate that I wasn’t here for you when this happened.”
“It wasn’t like you had much choice in the matter. We were ten.”
“I know, but still.”
We stand there for a few moments before I can steady my voice enough to speak. I lost my dad eight years ago; some days that pain is a ghost of a whisper, and other days, especially on days when Mom has seemed to give up, it’s a raw gaping wound in my chest.
“I thought he was invincible,” I confess. “Like Superman or some shit. I never would have thought my dad would do something like that,” I say weakly, unable to bring myself to say the words commit suicide. “I mean, he was the strongest person I knew. If he wasn’t okay, what hope do any of the rest of us have? Why wasn’t I enough to make him stay?”
“You were more than enough.” She hooks her arm through mine and leans her head on my shoulder. In that moment, all is right in the world. “One thing I learned in therapy is that it isn’t about us, as much as that hurts. Parents are just people, flawed and imperfect. We build them up in our heads as superhuman because that’s what we need them to be for us when we are young, but that’s not who they are. I know he fought for you because I saw how much he loved you. But he wasn’t super, he couldn’t outrun the darkness in his mind forever, but that doesn’t mean that he wanted to leave you. He just wanted the pain to stop.”
I nod, a silent tear rolling down my face, partly for my dad, and partly because I live with the same darkness and pain. She looks up at me, her big brown eyes filled with emotion. “If you need someone to talk to, you know I’m here, right?”
I hook an arm around her neck and press a kiss to her forehead, and then, because I can’t help myself around her, I press one to her lips. “I know.”
9
Chapter 9
Roni, age 18
It’s been a week since the party and since Dev took me on my driving lesson in the cemetery. I’m still not sure what exactly is going on between us. In a lot of ways, he feels like the same boy I grew up with, but in other ways, he’s so different. There’s a darkness that lives inside him, one that scares me a little.
His demons and mine play a little too well together, which makes him the more tempting option. It’s easy to be myself with him because I’ve never, ever had to be anyone different. Then again, he’s in love with another girl. I’ll always come second to her.
Am I okay with that?
I stare at the half-filled canvas, and my head cocks to the left, as I try to visualize the old oak tree in Gran’s yard. Grabbing my pencil, I begin to sketch the beginnings of a tree I’ve painted hundreds of times in hundreds of ways. Once I have it the way I want it, I reach for the paint and squeeze a bit of leaf green onto the plastic paint palette. Next, I grab the olive color and squirt a bit of it in as well. I mix and remix, trying to find the perfect color. Once I think I have it, I lift the brush to the canvas, and swipe on the color, and frown. “Fuck.” I growl, tossing the brush down onto the tray of my easel.
“Everything okay here?” Dad asks from the doorway. He’s got on his Edwards Landscaping t-shirt and his work jeans.
I frown. “Are you going to work today? It’s Saturday?”
“Yeah, the old man is offering a little overtime and I figured with you going to Chicago next year, the extra money would be nice. But it’s just for a few hours, and I haven’t forgotten about our Jeopardy and pizza night.”
I nod. I used to love it when he worked Saturday’s because then I could go with him. It use to be the highlight of my week, spending the morning in his old truck, playing in the dirt, not having to worry about Momma seeing and getting mad at me for not acting like a lady.
He shoves his hands in his pockets and tips his chin towards the mess on the floor. “How’s the painting coming?”
I press my palm to my forehead and groan. “I’ve mixed six different shades of green, and none of them are right.”
“Six times.” He whistles, and steps into the room. “May I sit?”
“Of course,” I say, scrambling to take the seat next to him on the bed. It’s been weird, these past two weeks. Dad volleys between walking on eggshells around me, like he’s afraid he’s going to scare me off, and overcompensating like there’s some sort of World’s Best Dad competition that I don’t know about.
“Well, I’m not an art critic, but it’s looking great to me.”
I roll my eyes. “You have to say that because you’re my dad.”
He shakes his head. “Nope. That’s not actually in the dad bylaws. Trust me, if you sucked, I’d tell you.”
I snort. “Thanks.”
He leans to pick up the brush and swirls it in the paint. “What was wrong with this green again?”
“It’s too muddy. I added too much olive,” I huff like a toddler. “I know I’m being dramatic, and that it’s probably all in my head, but I worked for this, what if I get there and crash and burn?”
“It looks perfect to me, and I know green.” He tells me, handing me the brush. I force a smile and take it from him, flipping it between my fingers. “I know I haven’t been around for you much, but you never use to be this…” He pauses, thinking of the word.
“Uptight?” I offer.
“I was going to say you never used to be this much of a perfectionist. You were so confident in your paintings. Remember that time you painted like ten pictures and begged your grandmother to take you with her on her Bingo night to try and sell them to her church friends?”
I smile fondly at the memories. Young Roni had so much tenacity; I admire her. “Yeah, that was before I got into one of the most prestigious art schools in the country. They're expecting perfection, not muddy blobs of blah.”
“It isn’t finished yet?” he asks in an annoying dad voice.
“It isn’t worth finishing,” I mumble. If the green isn’t right, then none of it will be.
“How do you know?”
“Because I can just tell. It’s like I can see where it’s going, and it isn’t good.”
He moves to stand. “Maybe if you can see where it’s going, then that means it isn’t too late to change its course. Something I learned during my years getting clean was that it’s never too late to fix things. It’s not over until it’s over.”
“And what if once it’s finished I still hate it?” I ask, staring up at the man who I once thought ruled the whole world.