Page 135 of Old Habits

Chapter 35

Jovie

So, where does a girl go when the ghosts of her past rear their heads again? I’ve asked myself this hundreds of times over the last few years. There’s only one real answer for it but it’s the worst four-letter word of them all.

Home.

I sit in my car, staring out the window at the house I grew up in, trying to gather the courage to make a choice. Stay or leave. Laugh or cry. Live or die.

I suppose I should be thankful. Some of us don’t get that choice.

I push the door open slowly to keep the rusty squeak from echoing too loudly. The last thing I want is for Mrs. Clark to poke her little head out of the window and sneer at me, if she hasn’t done so already, of course.

The house looks as dark and stale as always but the flicker of bluish light in the living room gives him away. I walk up the porch steps and pause with my hand rolled into a delicate fist. I remind myself again. It was all my idea to come back.

I knock twice and twist my head around to take a cursory glance across the street again. Still no peeping old ladies.

The door opens and my father stands there in jeans and a red flannel shirt. His way of dressing up for Valentine’s, I guess.

“Hey, Dad,” I say.

“Jovie.”

“Can I… I need to ask you something.”

He shifts on his feet. “All right.”

I swallow. “What did I do?” I ask, my hands shaking. “What… what could I have done differently to make you care about me?”

His stone-cold expression barely moves.

“Why didn’t you ever care?”

I choke on a sob as my legs twitch and my heart aches but I wait for an answer. It doesn’t matter if he’s even truthful about it. I just want one word, one solitary reason to cling to as some kind of closure.

Hank’s eyes fall to my ankles and he nods. He steps back and walks into the house, leaving the door wide open for me.

I slink forward, broken and defeated, and close it behind me to lock out the world. I don’t want to linger in this house. It’s not what I came here for. I stay by the front door with my hands in my jean pockets and this is where I’ll stay until he gives me a damn answer.

Hank returns from the kitchen with a can of beer in each hand. He pauses and extends one to me.

I shake my head. “No, thanks.”

“Take it,” he says. “You’ll need it.”

I let out a scoff and snatch it from his hand but I keep it held down at my side. He wanders over to his chair and flicks his can open as he sits down. Foam rises from the opening but he drinks it down before it can spill over.

“Well?” I ask, growing impatient.

He takes his time, picking up the television remote and tapping the volume down to a quiet hum. Then, he bends over and reaches into the small drawer in the bottom of his end table. When I was a kid, this thing was usually stuffed full of cigarettes and chewing tobacco.

I pause as he pulls out a stack of postcards about an inch tall, wrapped together with an old rubber band. The edges are worn and slightly crinkled and not from your standard post office abuse either.

“I was so proud of you, Jovie,” he says.

I struggle to take in a breath. “What?” I ask.

“I used to look forward to getting the mail every day, just in case you sent me another one of these.” He taps the stack against his leg. “It meant that you weren’t here. You were out there… seeing things I never saw, doing things I never did. Living the life I never had. ‘Where are you going next, Jovie?’ I’d ask myself and I’d hope to God that the answer wasn’t Clover, Kansas.”

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