Father's Keeper (8 page)

“You’ve got me, Jen. You’re too sharp
for me. What should I notice?”

“That most of them are me and you. Me
and you, Gil. Me and you and another person. Me and you on vacation, at
ceremonies, with animals. Where is she?” I said softly, but there was venom in
my voice. “Where is my goddamn, motherfucking mother!” I ground out the words.

He took the book from me gently and
said “Behind the camera. That is all.”

“Every time? Every. Single. Time?”

He frowned. “Yes, mostly. I guess” he
sighed, clearly at a loss for what to say.

“Fuck, she wasn’t with us even when
she was with us,” I sighed and dropped the book into the box.” I dropped to my
knees pushing and shoving at the box until it closed. Then I wrapped it crazily
in packing tape and then banged it against the garage a few times for good
measure.

Gil put his hand on my head as I knelt
there breathing hard. “Better?”

“Maybe if I back over it with your
truck,” I said.

He laughed and helped me up.

“None of that. We’ll ship it off and
then I have to go to Levenstein to file the papers for divorce.”

“Good for you,” I said my throat
tight. “You should. You sure I can’t back over that thing with the truck?”

“I’m sure. Look grab a seat, kiddo. We
need to talk.”

My  heartbeat tripled its rate and I
hoisted myself onto the work bench, swinging my legs like a kid. I figured this
would be the us talk. So it shocked me when he said “Carl was fucking around on
you last night.”

I blinked at him and oddly felt the
urge to remind him of what we had done last night and technically hadn’t I
cheated on Carl? “I see,” I said.

“And I want you to boot his ass. John
said he was messing around right there in the bar in front of everyone with
Tammy from the band. He didn’t even have the decency to do it in private.”

“Maybe he had too much to drink,” I
said softly, staring at my swinging feet.

“No excuse.” His stormy eyes flashed
and he turned from me, wiping off tools and hanging them on the pegboard on the
back wall.

“And us?” I asked, picking a sliver of
wood on the work bench’s old, weathered surface.

“No excuse,” he repeated.

“Gil, I--”

He turned way too fast and I felt my
body rear back from him. The intensity of his anger was overwhelming and my
stomach dipped crazily with nerves. “We shouldn’t have done it. Not the first
time and sure as shit not last night. It should never have happened. Nothing
should have happened between us beyond father and daughter stuff.”

“But Gil--”

“Shut up, Jen,” he hissed. “It’s
wrong. I need to divorce your mother and move far, far away from it all. This
house, this town, her
…
you.”

My vision trembled with unshed tears
and when he moved to pass me I grabbed his sleeve and tugged. I caught him off
guard and the force of my grab pulled him to me in a stumble step. I hooked my
arm around his neck and my legs around my waist and I kissed him. I craned my
neck and kissed him, feeling the bite and sting of his stubble on my cheek and
my lips.

Gil grunted and for one blissful
second, as his hand came down on my waist and he held me there, he kissed me
back. He kissed me hard and when he pulled away I sighed and he said my name
once, like the ending to a plea. “Jen.”

“Please don’t,” I said.

“I can’t.”

“Please, Gil.”

“Please don’t ask me to. Please don’t
ask me to be a bad person.”

“But it isn’t bad. I’m not your
daughter. I’m just a girl.”

“A girl that I love.”

My heart soared and my pulse raced.
“Gil--”

He held up a hand. “A girl I love and
have loved forever. Who I taught to fish and took to ball games. Fuck, I tucked
you in at night and drove you to get your first box of tampons because--”

“Because my fucking mother wasn’t here
to do it!” I roared. “Because you were always here and she wasn’t! And you love
me because you love me and I’m all grown up now,
dad!
And you want me
and that is what scares you. You want me and I want you and you’d rather play
the father card because you’re scared.”

Gil looked at me as if I’d started
spewing profanity in church, turned on his heels and left me sitting there on
his workbench. On his bench lay a pane with a tall honey haired angel outlined
in stained glass. She was beautiful. Tall and strong and sure of herself with
her silver sword. She was everything I wasn’t.

I didn’t see Gil the rest of the day,
or even Carl. I went to my shift to find Carl MIA and came home to find Gil in
bed already. They were both gone when I got up. The next day passed slowly, a torturous
parade of time until I could go to work

Finally it was time for me to pull on
jeans and a white John’s Tavern tee. I put on my sneakers and brushed my blue
streaked hair that now seemed silly and juvenile. I trudged the blocks to work
like I had cement in my shoes.

Carl was already off work and drinking
with the boys from the landscaping crew who he spent all day with and now,
apparently, all night. He came over on the sly. “Hi, girly,” he said and I
caught the sheepish look and the blush.

“So you got drunk and fucked Tammy,” I
said, washing mugs behind the bar. Carl pressed his lanky frame over the bar
top to talk to me softly.

“I didn’t fuck her,” he said, leaning
low.

“Ah,” I said with no real anger. Who
was I to judge? I’d given my stepfather a blow job the night before. Could I
really ridicule him over Tammy, who would basically fuck around with anyone who
gave her the time of day?

“I’m sorry, Jen. I had too much to
drink and you know I get stupid when I do that.”

I nodded and rinsed all the mugs
before upending them on the drying mat. “Gotcha.”

“You okay? I mean beyond being mad at
my dumb ass.”

“I’m not mad,” I said. “Tired.”

He was covered in rock dust and dirty.
His face was sun burnt and his strawberry blonde hair was lighter from working
n the sun, already. “I hear ya. You want food when you get off? I can take you
out.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.” John motioned me
over. “I have to go. On the clock and all that. I’ll check in soon.”

I turned from him, relieved to be done
with having to talk. Truth be told, Carl could turn tail and walk off into the
night and never be heard from again and I’d be fine. I’d remember fondly how
well we got along and the good sex and all the laughter and booze and music and
a few nights of good pot and munching out at the Mexican food drive through.
But I wouldn’t miss him. Or grieve. Shit, I wouldn’t even cry.

Please don’t ask me to be a bad person
Gil had said to me. Now that made me
feel like crying. As if loving me, as if wanting me, was akin to being a bad
person.

I helped John hang the new beer deal
sign and tried not to think about Gil or Carl or fucking or grief or my runaway
mother and her box of pictures that she was already absent from.

“You okay, kiddo?” John asked.

“Tired,” I told him.

And I was. I was tired down to my
bones. Tired of floundering in my life and wasting it on people who didn’t want
me.

Chapter
10

Carl cornered me after shift in the
back alley. He’d popped home and showered, his hair was combed and he smelled
like cologne. “Hey there, wanna go eat with me?”

“Maybe,” I said and tried to smile.

He kissed me and I let him. He had no
idea anything between us was off. Anything strange he’d chalk up to his
screwing around with Tammy. Any girlfriend would be pissed about that, right?

His hand sliced a trail from knee two
groin between my leg and he levered the hard ridge of his hand to my jean seam.
The thick fabric pressed my clit, stole my breath. He kissed me hard against
the wall, my head swimming with the clean smell of him. What the fuck, Gil didn’t
want me. What difference did it make?

“Let me go home and shower,” I
laughed.

Carl shook his head, smiling in the
single spotlight that John had secured in the brick wall to keep folks from
hanging out in the back alley and doing drugs. Or fucking, let’s face it.
“Un-unh,” he breathed.

“Come on,” I said. But he pushed his
hand into my jeans and touched my clit, smeared my ready moisture around with
his fingertips. I gripped his shoulder, let him kiss me again. He rubbed slow
and even, faster and faster and faster until the spirals he traced on my skin
sucked me under and I came, shuddering against the wall like a teenager.

Carl knew the way to my forgiveness,
it usually involved his talented fingers or tongue or cock and an orgasm or
three for me. “Come to dinner with me,” he said.

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

We both heard movement and turned.
First I saw Gil’s pissed off face, then Tammy. Oh what a tangled web we weave
when first we practice to deceive, I thought wildly.

“I see you’ve forgiven him,” Gil said
and then walked away shaking his head.

“He did fuck me,” Tammy chimed in and
I pushed off the wall and headed after Gil leaving Carl to sort out his issues
with his brand new lover.

I didn’t see Gil on the street and
could only assume he’d driven the short trip from home to the tavern. I had to
run. I ran like the devil was on my heels. I ran like my life depended on it. I
ran like I was sorry. Because I was. No matter what he said, I knew the look on
Gil’s face when he found me with Carl. I’d had that look, felt it, lived it.
That look was pain and I never wanted to cause Gil pain. Not since I was a
little girl.

At first I had hated him. Loathed him
for trying to take my father’s place. For being in the home with us when my
real dad couldn’t or wouldn’t. Hated him for having my mother and her for
having him. Hated that he was so handsome and nice and funny and good. But once
that had shifted, once it had morphed, all I ever wanted was for Gil to be
proud of me. To love me like I wanted to be loved. To love me as much as my
mother.

“More, more than her,” I softly to
myself, reaching out to tap the parking meters on Main Street as I shot past
them at a dead run. Running to save my life, to save my soul. Running to save
my heart.

By the time I came pounding down
Flying Monkey Way I felt like I’d be sick from running. When I turned on to my
street and saw his big blue truck in the driveway, I sobbed louder. I burst
through the front door, heart rapid and sickening in my chest. Sweat that
prickled heat along my brow and lip turned oily and cold. I turned in a circle.
“Gil?”

No answer. There were boxes strewn
about and some were partially full. But not of her stuff this time. Of his. My
stomach rolled over and I dropped into an easy chair, putting my head between
my knees, panting for breath.

I heard a sound in the bedroom and
when the world stopped tilting I rushed in to find him throwing things in a box
randomly. His face cold and set, his eyes dark and angry. “Gil!”

“Leave Jen. Or don’t leave, actually.
This is your house now and I’m leaving it.”

“No,” I said and rushed at him.

He caught me up in his hands, keeping
me at arms length no matter how much I struggled. “I came to say I was sorry.
And there you were. With that person. You’re still punishing yourself, aren’t
you?”

“What?” I was so confused and I shook
my head like I was on trial and denying every accusation.

“Your mother spent her life punishing
everyone else for your father leaving and you run around punishing yourself.
Over and over and over again. Aren’t you tired of it?”

“You have no idea,” I said and dropped
my arms. Now that he’d said it, I felt he weight of it on me, hanging on me.
Crushing me. I dropped to the bed, the tears coming hot and fast. “Oh my god,”
I said, the truth so dark and cloying I felt like I couldn’t breathe. And I
couldn’t--the air whistled in and out of me, teasing me but giving me no real
relief. I was starving for air--thirsty, hungry, needy of it.

“Christ,” I heard him say and he
drooped to his knees in front of me, pushing my head down, rummaging and
finally finding a paper bag from a pharmacy prescription. “Breathe, honey.
Breathe,” he said.

I tried. My vision going gray and then
sparkling white. Terror flooded my limbs and I felt paralyzed, literally. Tears
leaked in a steady stream from my eyes and Gil kept his gaze pinned to mine. He
stroked my bangs out of my face and talked a soft steady river of words at me.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re hyperventilating and it sucks ass but you’ll
be fine. You are not going to suffocate or die or any of it. You are fine, you
hear me?”

I nodded, still struggling for air,
trying so hard to believe Gil because I knew he’d never lie to me. My fingers
pawed relentlessly at the leg of his jeans, tugging in a restless, desperate
way as the air tried to tear in and out of my lungs. My chest burned and my
face was numb with fear.