Lush

sneak peek

Lush

Well, my father is at it again.

Saturday, 2:35 a.m., while all normal fathers are sleeping, mine stumbles through the door, breaks a vase, then proceeds to eat a plate of cold lasagna face first.

From my post at the top of the stairs, I watch him. Still face-planting the lasagna. Still face-planting the lasagna.

If you ever catch your dad in this position, some advice: Flip on the light in the upstairs hall. Flip it off. Flip it on again. Do this until he finally lifts his head and squints around the kitchen—until you can see that he hasn’t suffocated on ricotta cheese.

Later, when you are back in bed, listen for the uneven tread of his feet on the stairs. You will hear the clean thwack of some part of his body hitting something solid in the hall, and you will hear him swear.

“Ellie!” he will yell to your mother. He will stumble into their bedroom. “Ellen! Get the ice pack!”

Your mom will make her shushing sounds. “Shhhhh. Patrick. The kids.”

And your dad will yell for her to get the ice, dammit. Now. You know that your mother will do it. She always does.

In the morning there will be a bruise on your father’s cheek. Or shin. Or elbow. But he won’t remember how it got there. He won’t remember a thing.

* * *

I don’t know why my father drinks. Well, I kind of do. I asked him once and he said he does it for the snap.

“The snap,” I repeated. I was picturing a pair of pants, tan with an elastic waist—the kind my little brother wears. But what my dad meant was entirely different. When he drinks, something in his brain snaps into place.

“Like how?” I asked.

“It’s hard to explain,” he said, and then he changed the subject to baseball. As if the Red Sox were more important.

“He’s a good man,” my mother said later and I said, I know, I know, you tell me all the time.

“Samantha,” said my mother, irritated. Then, “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“I doubt it,” I said.

My mom doesn’t get it, not lately. Over the summer she went on a trip to California and while she was there she found yoga. Worse, she brought it home with her. Now she spends her day twisted up on the floor like a human pretzel, puffing through her nose.

My mother thinks she has the solution to everything: just breathe through it. We joined this studio across town, a big pink stucco thing called the Yogi Palace. There’s only one problem, my dad refuses to go. I don’t exactly blame him. It is a place like nothing you have ever seen, full of screwballs. My mother says I will get used to it, like I got used to junior high. Aren’t I happy there now?

“It’s okay,” I say.

People make a big deal about junior high, but the only thing I’ve noticed is you can’t be friends with boys anymore. You get two choices: either they are your enemies, or they are trying to mash with you. There is no middle ground.

Take Charlie Parker, who lives three houses down and used to be my best friend. All through elementary school our free time was spent in the fort in his back yard, making up secret codes and planning spy attacks against the neighbors. Then seventh grade hit us, and who knows what happened. Mostly it was the time capsule incident, where he stole one of my bras and all the boys paid a buck to see it before it got buried. We haven’t really spoken since, which stinks on so many levels. Level #1, Charlie Parker is the only person I ever told about my dad.

Once, I was in the nurse’s office at school and there was this pamphlet, When Someone You Love Has a Drinking Problem. I took the test, answering all twenty questions about you-know-who. I said yes to every single one.

“Would you like to take that with you?” the nurse asked.

I shook my head, put the pamphlet back in its cubby.

The nurse scooted her chair over next to me. She leaned in and placed the back of her hand on my forehead, soft as a butterfly. “What hurts?”

“Everything,” I said. Then I waited to be told I didn’t have a fever but I could take two Tylenol and be on my way. Okay, I said. I actually walked out into the hall like I was going back to class. And then, when the nurse was busy in the supply closet, I snuck in and grabbed the pamphlet.

That is the worst part, the sneaking around. If your dad drinks you hide it. Otherwise everyone will know and whisper about you behind your back. “We don’t air our dirty laundry in public,” my nana said once, when the subject came up. “Our business is our business. You want to talk about it, you come to me.”

“I don’t get that expression,” I said. “Airing your dirty laundry. Why would anyone want to smell our underwear?” But what Nana said stuck with me.

That is why I am careful about who I invite over to the house and when. My dad has to be long gone. He is an architect at a firm in town. Which means he is usually out of the house weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., so I can have people over after school until dinner. No sleepovers though. Weekends you just can’t predict. I wonder sometimes what Angie and Vanessa and Tracey would think if they knew—if they saw my dad coming home after a good bender. I think they would run and hide in the closet, afraid that he might start throwing steak knives. I am waiting for something like that to happen myself.

So far it hasn’t, but a person has to be prepared. The one thing I’ve learned is you just never know. One minute my dad is sitting quietly watching the ball game, drinking Jim Beam, the next he’s slamming doors and swearing. I like it best when he’s passed out on the couch under a blanket. His mouth is calm and soft. If I wanted to I could put my hand on his chest, feel his heart beat, make sure he’s okay.

Then sometimes I don’t care if he ever wakes up.

It sounds confusing, I know. But when your father would rather drink than breathe, that’s how it goes.