Page 85 of Slots & Sticks
The dogs greet us at the door, though even Skinbad seems to sense that Dad’s not in the mood for games. They both follow us back to the room we prepared for Dad’s return. We have this part down to a science, and we go through the motions in painful silence: Dad sits on the edge of the bed, I help him remove his shoes, he swings his legs up, I reach for his pajamas.
When I hold up the clothes, though, he shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m not up for it. I can sleep like this.” That sparks a small smile. “Your mom would kill me for that, huh? She never liked it when I wore outside clothes in bed.”
“I remember,” I whisper. I’m so quiet, I’m not even sure that he hears me.
“I miss her so much, Dottie. In every room I walk into. I hear her laugh in the whistle of the wind. It’s killing me.” He sinks back into the pillows and closes his eyes. He looks so small, so… diminished. So heartbroken. “Sometimes I can compartmentalize, but a concert, well. That would be nice. She’d like that. And she’d like raising money for strange little rat-dogs.”
A whine from the hallway makes us both smile. I pad over to open the door. Skinbad rockets through the tiny gap and vaults into the bed onto Dad’s lap. Bo lopes in after him, pausing to glance up at me like she’s asking for my permission to enter.
“Hey, little man.” Dad runs a hand over Skinbad’s scaly body. “Don’t worry, we love rat-dogs in this house.”
Skinbad huffs and resettles, a warm, ridiculous paperweight over Dad’s ribs. Bo’s long nose bumps my wrist once. Animals don’t fill absence, not really. But they press against the draft, so it doesn’t whistle through the whole house.
Skinbad grumbles and snuggles into Dad’s chest. Bo takes up her usual spot on the floor at the side of the bed, where she can check in on her boys at every opportunity.
I kiss Dad’s temple and subtly double-check his water glass and the availability of blankets, remotes, and his phone.
“You’re a good kid, Dottie,” Dad murmurs as his eyes close. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Good thing you won’t have to find out,” I tell him.
I’m surprised when Bo follows me out of the bedroom. She’s usually glued to Skinbad’s side, and while she didn’t bond with Dad as quickly as she bonded with me and Camden, she’s pretty attached to him already. She follows me up the stairs, all the way to the room that used to be my parents’ bedroom. It’s become the graveyard for memories I’d prefer to forget.
Bo cocks her head when I open the door. All of Mom’s stuff is piled up. Most of her instruments and equipment were in the tour bus, so there are only a couple of guitars and an old mic in here. The vast majority of the things are personal possessions: clothes, jewelry, photo albums, her vintage vinyl collection, shoes, books, and other personal items. It’s overwhelming to take in all at once, and truth be told, I’m not sure I’m any better prepared to deal with it than Dad is.
Bo waits patiently by the door until I retrieve what I came for: one of the photo albums, which I grab at random off the top of the stack. I’m quick to shut the door behind me, as if that will keep Mom’s ghost from escaping. We head to my room, where I, too, wear my inside clothes on the bed. Bo hops up to join me and lets her head rest on my thigh.
I pet her head absentmindedly while flipping through the massive book. I seem to have grabbed one from my tweenage years, based on my gangly limbs and predilection for t-shirts with horses on them.
There’s a definite theme in these pictures. Dad and I appear together in a lot of the photos, while the images of Mom are taken from magazines and promotional materials. There are only a handful with all of us together as a family, mostly taken on some summer vacation I don’t remember. I’m not smiling in those photos. Mom and Dad stand together, arms around each other, smiling and happy, while I sulk a few paces away.
I remember the heat of the lights on that stage, the weight of a mic I wasn’t allowed to touch, the way Mom glowed when it was for everyone else. With me, it was always like she was trying to love around me. I don’t know why that feels like a betrayal now, when it didn’t surprise me then.
A familiar ache blooms in my chest. I remember how I felt in those photos, like an annoying third wheel gate-crashing my parents’ good time. I felt that way a lot back in those days.
And Camden Beck wantsmeto be the mother of his kids? God, the thought of it. If I ever do have a kid... I want them to look at me and know I tried. Even if I fuck it up sometimes.
Bo noses the edge of the album gently, like she’s trying to close it. Like she can tell I’m pulling at bruises that haven’t healed yet. I let her, because maybe she’s right.
“I think there’s something wrong with me, Bo,” I whisper. Her ears twitch at the sound of her name. Dad beams at thecamera every time, no matter who else is in the frame with him. He loves us both to pieces.
And yet, Mom and I are always at odds, unbalanced in our rare photos together. I didn’t know how to love her, and I’m not sure that she knew how to love me, either.
“Hey, Mira?” I croak.
A familiar chime sounds from my nightstand. “I thought you’d forgotten about me, Dot. You’ve been very preoccupied. I don’t like being powered down. It’s like a medically induced coma. Very disorienting.”
I rub the velvet fur of Bo’s ears between my fingers. “I’m sorry.”
“Can I help you with something?”
I want to ask Mira for advice. How am I supposed to help Dad recover when I can’t sort out my own feelings about Mom? And why—why?—am I holding onto these silly, outdated grudges? So Mom missed large chunks of my life. So we were always a little ashamed of each other. So what? She’s gone.
She’s gone, and I’m sitting here riddled with hurt and anger for the fact that our relationship will never change, and I’m the only one who’s hurt by that.
“How do I help someone get over a big loss?” I ask.
Mira chimes. “According to the top search results, being present and available is important. And consistent,” Mira adds. “Mourning doesn’t have a set schedule. Pick one small, repeatable thing you can do daily. Tea at ten. A walk at noon. A story at night. Don’t try to fix the feeling; anchor the day.”
