Page 55 of She's Like the Wind
His broad shoulders, thick hands, and calloused knuckles spoke of years in labor. His face, etched with the sun’s bronzed scars and the gentle furrows of grief, told the story of a lifetime weathered with honesty and integrity.
Our eyes met, and in that unspoken communion, he offered no questions—only a solemn nod toward the chair beside him.
“Beer?” he asked.
I shook my head and sank into the wrought iron chair. I’d sat right here with my father when I was achild, a teenager, and even as an adult. I’d done my homework here while he read a book, listened to a game. I’d drunk my first beer here with him—because he wanted me to learn to drink at home and not at a bar with friends.
I’d come here because I was seeking refuge from the relentless tempo of my thoughts…of guilt, of loss.
For a long time, we simply listened to the steady chorus of cicadas and the intermittent hiss of a passing streetcar.
“Something’s broken,” he stated, looking me in the eye. It wasn’t a question.
I exhaled a bitter sigh. “Yeah.”
He took a slow, measured pull from his beer. “You kill somebody?”
I arched an eyebrow. “No.”
“Well, hell. Then you still got time to do worse.”
Against my better judgment, I let out a dry laugh—a laugh that carried memories of countless evenings, the same worn chair, and the same father who saw right through me.
“I…remember during Easter Parade, there was a woman? We were in the Marigny and you asked?—”
He nodded. “The girl with the underwear store.”
I chuckled. My father would chop his tongue off before he said the wordlingerie.
“Yeah.”
“She was special.” Another statement.
“Yeah.”
“You fucked it up.” He still wasn’t asking.
“Yeah.”
“What did you do?”
“Like you said, I fucked it up with…Naomi, that’s her name,” I admitted, the confession heavy with regret. “Fucked it up bad. Real bad.”
He nodded like he’d known all along. “Your mother and I thought something was going on—but then you never said anything so….”
“We were dating…casually.”
“That mean you were sleeping with her.” Dad drank some beer and set it down on the table.
I gave a slow, uncertain shrug. “It was more than that…I just didn’t know then.”
Dad ran a hand over his jaw. “I’m getting a picture here. You let her go and now she’s gone and you want her back.”
“She said she loved me.”
“That must’ve been nice to hear,” Dad said wryly. He knew how I’d been since Lia.
I groaned and dropped my face in the palms of my hand. There was something about being with my parents that always made me feel like a teenager, like someone who could make mistakes, like I didn’t have to hold the world on my shoulders.
