“What are you here for?” he asked.
“Checking in on you,” I said, balancing on one foot as I stepped over a spilled pile of magazines.
“Still alive, aren’t I?” he asked.
“I crossed paths with Chief Bishop just now.”
“Nice lady,” he said, pausing to look at me. “Wants to evict me. Put me in a home.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Sarcasm. That’s all you’ve got,” he muttered. “Are you here to tell me I’ve got to clean this place up? Because I’ve already heard it.” He lurched his way toward the kitchen. I followed apprehensively.
I braced myself, ready for mold and rat droppings, but it wasn’t as far gone as I’d feared. The stove had two burners clear, and there was enough room to maneuver. It smelled stale like the rest of the house but not foul, which suggested he wasn’t keeping rotten food around.
“Clear off a chair, then,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the kitchen table, which was buried beneath canned food and unopened cleaning supplies. The chairs were stacked with plastic cutlery and disposable plates and bowls. A line of full trash bags stood by the back door, ready to go out, a few flies zipping around them.
“I’m good standing,” I said. I didn’t really want to touch anything in here. “She said she warned you three weeks ago you had to get this taken care of.”
“What’s to take care of? It’s my house, I live in it. Shouldn’t be anyone else’s business,” he said. “You want a beer?”
“No, I don’t want a beer. It’s barely eleven,” I said, deciding not to mention the wine I’d had already. He shoved aside a teetering pile of canned chili to get at the fridge. The cans tipped, banging to the floor and rolling everywhere.
“Jesus Christ, Dad. How can you live like this?” I asked.
“I do just fine,” he said, extracting a can of beer with great discernment despite the fact that there was only one brand in the fridge. “And why do you care, anyway?”
“I care,” I said, anger turning the words into a snap of teeth.
“I didn’t ask if you cared, I asked why,” he barked back.
I stared at him. He stared at me. It was always like this. He’d never once raised a hand to me, but we couldn’t stop ourselves tearing into each other. When he was around and conscious, which wasn’t often.
Anyone would have had a hard time knowing how to help a scared, wounded girl or the scared, angry teenager she turned into. Maybe Dad had never had a chance, but he hadn’t even tried. The only emotion that got any reaction from him was anger, and so I’d clung to it. At least if we were fighting, it meant he was paying attention.
“You’re my father,” I said. “I care. Can’t help it, apparently, and God knows I’ve tried.”
He popped the tab on his beer and took a long sip. “I don’t need charity.”
“You need help,” I said. “You can’t clear this place out on your own. Please, Dad. Let me call someone, or—”
“What, you want to pay someone to take all my stuff? Throw it out like it’s garbage?”
“It is garbage,” I said, and knew immediately it was a mistake. There’d been the tiniest sliver of light under that door, but now it slammed shut.
“It’s good stuff. Just needs some fixing up. Organizing,” he said.
“It’s not—” I stopped. There was no point. There had never been any point, any of the times I’d tried. “They’re going to make you leave. You won’t have a choice.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “What are you doing back here, anyway? You didn’t just come to see me.”
“Cass and Liv and I wanted to get together,” I said, letting the subject change, knowing it was the same as admitting defeat. “Mark the occasion, that kind of thing.”
“You mean Stahl dying. Yeah, I heard about that. Cancer. Huh.” He said it like he was commenting on the weather.
I made a sound of disbelief. “That’s all you’ve got? The guy who almost killed your daughter is dead, and you’ve got ‘Huh.’”
He took another swallow and sat with it a moment. “I’m glad if it gives you some kind of peace. That’s something you’ve had in short supply. So I suppose I’m grateful he’s dead.”
I didn’t know what I’d expected. Some sign, at least, that he gave a shit about what had happened to me. But it had always seemed like he just didn’t understand what the big deal was. I wasn’t dead. The wounds healed. Why was everyone still making a fuss about it?
“It was good to see you, Dad,” I said through gritted teeth. “We should do this again sometime.”
“See? Sarcasm. No variety,” Dad said. His laugh had a raspy rattle to it. “Is that all you wanted? To give me a hard time and go?”
“Apparently.”
“You need a place to stay?”
“I’m good,” I told him. I started to leave, stopped. “I … I’ll come back tomorrow, okay? Before I leave town.”
“Don’t go out of your way for me,” he said. He turned his back on me, shuffling over to one of the leaning piles of food. He started pawing through it. “There’s a stack of mail for you by the front door. Get it on your way out. It’d be easier to clean if I didn’t have your crap around here, too.”
I sighed. “Yeah. I’ll do that.” I picked my way out of the kitchen. How was I supposed to help someone who didn’t want my help? It wasn’t like he’d ever done a thing for me, other than not kick me out. I didn’t owe him a goddamn thing. Except that he was my dad.
I stood in the doorway, trying to figure out which pile of stuff was supposed to be mine. Finally I spotted it under an unopened Amazon package: a stack of mail two inches deep. Probably a few months’ worth.
“Yeah, my mail was definitely the problem. The rest will be a breeze,” I muttered. Most of it looked like credit card offers and other junk, but near the bottom of the stack there was one hand-addressed envelope. Probably “fan mail.” Someone who’d heard my story on a podcast and wanted to tell me how inspiring I was or explain their pet theories about the case. I stalked out to the car and threw the mail in the passenger seat, and then sat with my head against the wheel, remembering how to breathe again. “Fuck,” I said at last, and started the engine.
I held on to my anger all the way back into town.
I still hadn’t had anything to eat all day, so I parked myself at the café, with its dubious Wi-Fi connection and endless coffee refills. I found myself a seat in the back, ordered a soup and sandwich, and pulled out my laptop to work on editing last weekend’s wedding.
Time fell away from me, as it often did when I got into the rhythm of editing. It was hours later that I remembered to look at the clock—and to straighten my shoulders and stretch my aching back.
I stuffed a twenty in the tip jar on my way out as compensation for camping out for so long and went to get a room at the Chester Motel. It didn’t have bedbugs and did have cable, which made it the Chester equivalent of the Four Seasons, at least until you got as far out as the lodge.