Page 27 of Winning Bid

He thinks for a moment. “I don’t think so. What happened?”

When I think about it, I can still smell the inside of that crazy woman’s house. She was a hoarder, so there were stacks of newspapers lining the walls, and some of them had gone to rot. “She showed me her shotgun?—"

“No!”

I nod. “And she showed me that she had no ammo for it. Just that she liked to wave it around to scare people off. She asked if I was hungry, and I said yes because I was, but looking back on it, I think she meant going hungry. She said I couldn’t steal again, but if I was hungry, then I was welcome to come get a couple of apples for myself whenever.”

“That mean woman did that for you?”

“Yeah. And I’m pretty sure she’s the one who started dropping off those anonymous bags of groceries that showed up sometimes.”

He smiles and lets out a sad sigh. “Well, hell. I’ve been thinking about her all wrong this whole time. Guess you can’t judge a book?—"

“She’s still the same woman who pointed a shotgun at children to scare them, so don’t go getting the warm and fuzzies for her just yet.”

“Eh, still. She tried to help my family when I should have been doing exactly that. I can’t hate her anymore.”

It makes me incredibly happy whenever he says things like that. It shouldn’t, and I know that. Acknowledging his failures counts as doing the bare minimum. But not long ago, he didn’t even do that, so I see it as big progress for him. And what can I say? He’s my dad. I want to see him do better.

If he can get redemption, maybe there’s hope for me, too.

“Okay, sure. Old Mrs. Flanagan gets a little redemption for helping us. Do you remember her Christmas decorations?”

He laughs. “That sad string of red lights around her railing that made it look like she was either running a winter brothel or beckoning the devil to her door? Yep. Hard to forget it. Every time she came out to yell at people in her winter coat and bathrobe and curlers, she was underlit in red and looked like the crotchetiest demon this side of hell.”

“But it was festive,” I say, laughing.

“Certainly put Mr. Bryson in the holiday spirit. That codger was her best-paying customer.”

I roll my eyes. “Dad, she wasn’t running a brothel.”

“I guess it’s not a brothel when it’s just one sex worker.” He shrugs and gobbles an oyster.

“You don’t … she wasn’t … no.”

Slowly, he nods. “You didn’t know?”

“She was a thousand years old!”

He laughs. “She was somewhere in her seventies.”

“A seventy-something sex worker? You’re pulling my chain.”

“I wish. But Mr. Bryson was more than happy to brag about what she could do when she took out her dentures and?—"

I plug my ears. “La, la, la, I do not need to hear that. You are ruining my childhood.”

He laughs, and we order post-lunch cocktails. Once the server leaves, he says, “I’m glad you said ruining your childhood.”

“What do you mean?”

“That means I didn’t ruin it back then.”

Oof. My heart. “No, Dad. You didn’t. I mean, I definitely had to grow up way too fast, and there are things I’m still … processing. But I had good times as a kid.”

“Mixed in with the bad.”

I nod. “Pretty sure that’s a fitting description of most people’s childhoods, though. I imagine yours was a mixed bag, too.” He never talks about his youth, and one day, I’d like the story.

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