Page 87 of Fall From Grace

N.P.

It took forty-five minutes to get to Dad’s. I spent the entire drive rehearsing what I should say to him when I randomly show up for the first time since I left.

At least, Gus was happy. He jumped out of the Escape when I opened the door and started sniffing everything before he ran up on the porch and waited for me by the door. I didn’t knock, I just stepped on in. His truck was home.

I was taken by surprise when I saw the shape the house was in. The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes and take-out was everywhere. I heard Gus barking. “Gus?” Dad’s surprised voice came from the living room. I stepped back out of the kitchen and made my way to where he was. He saw me the same time I saw him. “Grace, why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” he asked as he started picking up dirty plates and bottles in a rush.

I took in his unshaven face and tousled hair. He looked horrible to me. Dad was a man that was clean shaven and well-kept, he had been my whole life so it was weird to see him this way. Noah looked clean and groomed to perfection with his facial hair and while it suited him and added to his rugged looks, I couldn’t say the same about Dad. His case was completely different. He was letting himself go.

“Why because you want to hide how you’ve been living from me?” I asked as I snatched the empty bottles from his hand. “Just leave it, I’ll clean it up.”

“I can clean up after myself,” he started.

“I said I got it Dad,” I muttered, meeting his eyes with a stern look that told him I meant it. He backed away and ran his hand through his hair. “Why aren’t you at work?”

He sighed as he walked over to the couch and sat down. “I took the week off, I was actually coming to visit you for your graduation. I thought about it…then changed my mind at the last minute.”

I paused at the door. “Why didn’t you?”

“Couldn’t convince myself to go through with it,” he told me honestly.

I carried the trash I had in my hands to the kitchen to throw away but had to set it down on the counter so that I could empty out the trash can that was overfilled. Once that was done, I just grabbed a black bag and went back into the living room and started picking up.

My chest hurt. I hated this. Dad wasn’t this person, he wasn’t a slob, neither of my parents was. I leaned more on the slobbier side than they did. It made me wonder if maybe Dad hadn’t needed me to leave when I did but to stay. I couldn’t take back the four years I was gone, so much was left unsaid between us. This time apart made me stronger and I wasn’t afraid of his disappointed frown like I used to, which told me that leaving might not have been best for everyone, but it had been for me. I had grown, if you ignored the fact that it took Janet lying to get me back home but now that I was here, I realized how much I needed this.

I wanted my father back, even if he still looked at me in disappointment. He needed me and I realized that some part of him knew that or he wouldn’t have made plans to see me, even if he backed out on them. That was the most beautiful feeling I felt in a long time when thinking of my relationship with him.

Maybe we could learn to heal ourselves without Mom.

“Why do you look like that?” he asked me, staring at my sleeping clothes.

“Why do you look like that?” I countered back, and he just nodded, knowing he walked into that one. “Dad, why don’t you go get cleaned up and we’ll go visit Mom’s grave once I’m finished cleaning up?”

He got up. “I’ll help,” he said, and quickly added, “then we’ll go see her.”

We cleaned up in silence, not an uncomfortable one though. When we were finished, we both went our separate ways to clean ourselves up. I was stuck rummaging through my old clothes until I found something to wear. The clothes had a slight smell to them where they had been tucked away in my closet the last few years but I changed into a pair of shorts and tank top anyway.

I couldn’t help but nod my approval as Dad stepped out of his bedroom clean shaven and showered. “Much better,” I told him and he smiled slightly.

Dad took us to the cemetery in his truck, and I laughed at Gus most of the way there as he hung his head out of the window. Dad watched us from the corner of his eyes, and I thought I saw the crinkle of a smile appear on his face.

“Did you become a teacher because you wanted to, or because it was your mom’s career?” he randomly asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “A bit of both. I started out choosing education because of Mom but in the end, I stuck with it because I realized I enjoyed it.”

“You’re a lot like your mom,” he mumbled then looked at me. “A lot like me too, though, not that that’s a good thing.” I arched an eyebrow at him. “We’re both hard-headed and you’ve always gone after what you wanted just like I did with your mother when I first saw her… But now, you’re at a standstill.” I felt like his words were off, I was anything but still.

“I was offered a teaching job back in Kentucky,” I said softly.

“Are you going to take it?”

“I don’t know… What do you think?”

He exhaled. “Don’t make your choices on anyone else’s opinions, only your own. I thought I taught you that. It’s what you want, not what I or anybody else wants.”

Couldn’t he see that I wanted him to say that I could come home? That he wanted me to be here like I wanted to be here?

I looked out my window in disappointment. My chest tightened when we arrived, the thought of facing Mom in this way again brought back the sadness. Gus jumped out when I opened the door and he followed alongside Dad and I as we walked up the hill to Mom’s tombstone.

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