Page 4 of Luca

“I can’t be here right now,” I say, standing from the old recliner.

“Where are you going?” he asks, worry creasing his forehead.

“I don’t know. This is…this is all too much.”

My legs carry me to my room, but I don’t feel anything as I throw a few changes of clothes in my bag and head to the front door.

“Luca,” my father—no, Frank—calls from the living room. “I love you. You have every right to hate me, but I need you to know that.”

I don’t look at him.

I don’t respond.

I just walk out the door.

Chapter two

Luca

Two Years Later

I’m burying my father today.

Standing at the edge of his grave, I stare at the casket that holds the body of the man who held so many secrets. So many regrets. And I let myself cry. I finally let it out after months of refusing to allow myself to get to this point. During the last several months, his body weakened until he needed help with everything—and I was that help. His tired heart wouldn’t allow him the freedom to even make it from his wheelchair to his bed on his own.

It took three weeks to come back to the house after my father told me about my real parents and his role in their deaths. Three weeks of couch surfing between my friends’ houses and fielding questions from their concerned parents. Three weeks of unanswered calls and texts from my dad. He never asked me to come home. He just wanted to make sure I was safe. I don’t know. Maybe he thought I’d go off the rails and run to Boston to find my real family or something. I never answered him, though. As far as I was concerned, he didn’t deserve to have that peace of mind.

I’m not sure what kept me in California. During the day, I’d pretend everything was fine. I went to class, went to football practice, and did my homework. I’d eat dinner with whatever friend’s family I was staying with and pretended my dad was on a business trip, saying he was doing some sort of training at different plants. My excuse was wishy-washy as hell, but I didn’t have years of practice when it came to lying, unlike some people.

At night though, I’d lie awake thinking about the story he told me, the life he led and the reasons he had for saving me that night. I never told a single soul what he confided in me. Shit, at the time, I was sure no one would believe it. I hardly believed it myself. And I didn’t know how to tell anyone that the life I had was one big lie. There was also another part of me that didn’t want anyone looking at my dad differently. Regardless of how he came to be my father, it didn’t change the fact that he raised me. No matter how angry I was, there was still the part of me that remembered that. Maybe that’s why, after three weeks, I walked back through the front door after football practice instead of going to a friend’s house again.

The look of relief on my dad’s face when he saw me will forever be burned in my memory.

He hugged me and told me he was happy I was home. Though something inherent changed within me the day he’d told me about Boston, I couldn’t let him suffer and die alone. No matter what he did and how horrible it was, that wasn’t the man I knew. The man I knew did everything to give me a safe and stable life. The truth of our past would go in a box in the recesses of my mind, just like the box of photos he’d hidden in the back of his closet. I told him I was a long way from forgiving him, but I wasn’t going to punish him either.

As the months wore on, my dad’s health declined. Thankfully, he had good insurance and benefits, so when he had to stop working, his company took care of him. I got a part-time job, but he insisted I take courses at the community college after graduation. There was no way in hell I was going to a four-year university on a scholarship I could’ve gotten with football. If it were any other situation, he would have argued with me about my decision. Instead, he was grateful for the time I was willing to give a dying man.

We were never the same after he told me about our past. I knew he wanted to talk to me about it, to check how I was handling everything, but he didn’t dare bring it up out of fear I’d probably disappear again. And trust me, there were days I wanted to, days when my anger wanted to get the better of me. When I wanted to rail against him and the entire world, but I didn’t. My feelings were complicated and so damn convoluted I wasn’t sure I would ever make sense of them, but I couldn’t ignore the eighteen years of love from a man who gave up everything to protect me.

We spent our days watching old westerns and shows about a couple guys going through people’s junk and finding hidden treasures. Toward the end, Frank mostly dozed off for long periods during the day, but he insisted on sitting in our old recliner rather than wasting away in bed. He needed the company, and quite frankly, so did I.

Now he’s gone. And that box I’d kept a tight lid on for the last two years has smashed wide open.

My tears fall. Hot, angry rivulets of water splash to the damp ground at my feet. The day is overcast, the marine layer hanging on tightly and blocking the sun and its warmth from my skin.

The service was small. There were just a few friends from high school I’ve kept in contact with and some old coworkers of my dad’s who came to pay their respects. I feel the gazes of the men waiting to start filling the hole where my father’s coffin lies. I know I should let them do their job. They probably have other things to do with their day rather than stand here and watch a twenty-year-old man cry over his father’s grave. But I can’t seem to make myself move from this spot. When I do, I’ll be going home to an empty house with nothing but memories to keep me company.

When I was a kid, maybe seven or eight, I asked my dad if he was ever going to get married again, still believing he was married to my mother when she died. He laughed and shook his head, telling me he was perfectly happy living his life with the best son any father could hope for before he asked why I brought it up. He was probably concerned he wasn’t enough, worried I was missing out on not having a mother. I didn’t really care about that part, although I thought at the time it would be nice to have snuggles from a mom, but my dad was the best hugger in the world. No, I wanted a little brother. My dad laughed and laughed when I told him that, but I thought it would be cool. My best friend in second grade had one, and he always had someone to play with. Seemed reasonable to me. But when my dad said I’d have to share my cars with another kid all the time, I thought better of the idea. I liked having my own stuff that only I was allowed to play with.

The memory makes me smile, and I think about my dad and his booming laugh. He didn’t sound the same after his body began to betray him. A laugh like that would’ve probably left him wheezing for breath and made him pass out from exertion.

I wipe my damp face with the backs of my hands and stand a bit taller, taking a deep breath before turning to face the parking lot where my car sits. My gaze briefly lands on the workers, who give me a small smile before I walk to my car to drive myself back to my empty house.

Opening the door to our one-story bungalow nestled in the quiet neighborhood that butts up against acres of farmland, the finality of the day hits me. Similar to how I felt at the cemetery, but this is quieter somehow, sadder. I look to the left, and my gaze lands on the medical equipment on the kitchen table where I spent hours doing homework. I’ll have to call the hospice company again to have them pick all this stuff up. One more thing for me to take care of now that this is all…over. My dad died here three days ago. It’s not as though this is the first time I’ve been alone in the house. The old man didn’t want to go to the hospital. There was nothing they could have done for him there, he told me. He wanted a quiet passing in the home he’d created here with me. Now, I’m the only one in the home.

With the funeral over, there really isn’t anything for me to do for the first time in two years. I took this last semester off from school, with my dad’s health declining drastically over the last few months. My part-time job stocking shelves a couple nights a week at our local grocery store gave me the next week off for bereavement. There’s nothing for me to do.

I toss my keys in a bowl on the slim table we have next to the front door and head into the living room. Collapsing onto the couch, I throw my head back and stare at the ceiling. Suddenly, I feel like I can’t breathe. I rip the tie from my neck and undo the top two buttons on my black shirt. It doesn’t help. The silence is stifling, and I feel like I want to run ten miles to get rid of all this excess energy strumming through me. With no one to take care of or funerals to plan, I feel lost, adrift in a life I wasn’t prepared for.

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