Page 91 of Lily In The Valley
Pops took a sip of his drink. “Few months.”
“Six, to be exact,” Cheryl added, flashing her dimples, beaming across the table at my father. He returned her look.
I nodded, chewing on the silence. My jaw clenched so hard; I had to take a drink just to loosen it. Tasha looked between us. Picked up on the tension like static. My father looked at me then really looked. And for the first time in a long time, he looked like he knew he might’ve hurt me. But didn’t know how to fix it. Cheryl and Tasha picked up a conversation of their own.
“Looks like we both moved on,” he said plainly.
I didn’t answer. Because I wasn’t sure if I was mad at him for being happy. Or mad that he got there without me. I watched he and Cheryl’s interactions, the love that flowed between them easy, unconstrained. That wasn’t Tasha and me.
The next day, Cheryl stayed behind for brunch with some cousin she had in Pearland, so it was just me and my father when we pulled up to Xavier’s. He had the grill going and a fresh case of beer chilling in a tub of ice on the back porch. The speakers played Frankie Beverly low enough to talk over but loud enough to make you want to two-step.
My father shook his hand then embraced him like Xavier was his own son. “I can’t believe the two of you really grown enough to have kids. How’s Ted and Josie?”
Xavier grinned. “They’re doing good. They’ll be out here in a few weeks for the baby shower.”
“I may have to double back,” Pops said, hitting me in the chest playfully.
Later, when the food was gone and it was just the three of us, the conversation shifted.
“Cheryl seems cool,” Xavier said, cracking open a beer.
“She is,” my father agreed. “Solid woman. Knows who she is.”
“She makes you happy?” I asked.
“Yeah, she does.” He looked at me. “She makes iteasy.Doesn’t mean it’s shallow.”
I nodded slowly.
“But you gotta ask yourself,” he added, “if easy is what you really want. Or if you’re just tired of drowning.”
We were halfway through a second round of beers when Xavier stepped inside to take a call, leaving just me and my father on the porch. The firepit had burned down to a soft, pulsing glow. Crickets sang in the brush beyond the fence. I leaned back in the chair, staring up at a sky I could barely see through the light pollution.
“You never really said what you thought about Tasha,” I said finally.
My father looked over the rim of his beer. “I did,” he replied. “Said she’s nice. Easy.”
“You mean easy like… compatible?”
“I mean easy like the thing that feels good ‘cause it doesn’t press on your sore spots.”
He said it with no heat. No judgment. Just that matter-of-fact tone that made it worse.
“She’s good to me,” I said.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” he replied. “But good to you ain’t the same as goodforyou.”
I hated how that sat right in my chest. “You think it’s fake?”
“I think… you like the quiet she gives you. But you’re not quiet, son. You’ve just gotten good at pretending you are.”
I turned the bottle in my hands. Let condensation roll over my fingers.
“You ever felt like somebody loved you more than they should’ve?” I asked. “Like it scared you?”
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “That’s how I felt about your mother.”
I glanced up.
