Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 53034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 177(@300wpm)
I move out of their way and stand next to my dad, who’s off to the side with his arms crossed.
“I thought that seat belt and helmet were ridiculous, but I guess not,” he says.
“How does he seat belt himself on a toilet?” I ask.
He runs a hand over his short salt and pepper hair, scoffing. “You should see the damn thing. He has to put the big loop around his chest and it attaches to the back of the wall in one of the stalls. So if he passes out, the loop keeps him upright. It’s kind of ingenious.”
“He needs a padded toilet stall,” I say softly. “And yeah, a fiber supplement. Like Melina said.”
Straining on the toilet can cause vasovagal syncope in some people. It starts with lightheadedness and can lead to passing out. I learned about it in school, but I’ve never seen an actual case.
“We’ll see what the doc says,” Dad says.
Melina leads the way out of the bathroom, Lucien and Carter carrying the board Isaac is now strapped to.
“I hate oatmeal!” Isaac is griping. “It’s mushy.”
“You don’t have to like it,” she counters. “Don’t tell me you’ve never eaten something gross. I’ve seen the women you date.”
I smile at Dad. “Hey, can I run something by you real quick? In your office?”
“Sure. I need to talk to Bruce for a minute. Meet me there in five.”
Dad’s office is more inviting than his home. The walls of his four-bedroom home have impersonal art chosen by an interior designer, every room looking like it belongs in Architectural Digest.
Here, though, you can see him everywhere. There are photos of him on the walls spanning nearly the last three decades. He’s grinning with teammates in some of the pictures, including one with Walter Denton, his former best friend and teammate, who died in a car crash a few years ago. A recreational golfer, he’s shown posing with celebrities at golf tournaments and with pro golfers he’s become friends with.
A bookcase is lined with personal photos, his second wife Angie scrubbed from the collection after their recent divorce. She deserves it after what she did to him. He was the last to know about her and their contractor.
Dad has his arms around my stepbrother, Chase, and my stepsister, Chloe, in one of the photos of them on a ski trip. I’ve always gotten along well with both of them, but I don’t see them much anymore. Chase is a senior and Chloe is a freshman in college now.
In an older photo, Dad’s down on one knee at Disney World, a six-year-old me grinning on one side of him and Audra, who was four at the time, on his other side.
I smile as I remember that trip. He’d married Angie, and we were spending a month of our summer with them. Dad went out of his way to make sure Audra and I felt included, and the trip to Disney World was just him and us. He must have paid a bundle for the white-glove service we got, bypassing all the lines.
Audra got an ice cream cone with three scoops of ice cream covered with rainbow sprinkles on that trip, and before she’d even tasted it, her ice cream plopped onto the ground.
I shared mine with her. We used to be so close. Anyone who messed with one of us was messing with both of us, and Dad taught us how to stand up for ourselves.
I never imagined my sister would be the one to hurt me like no one ever has. It was Kyle who confessed their affair to me, and all I could think of as he told me about it was that Audra would never do that to me.
Not only did she do it, but they were hooking up in the apartment I shared with Kyle at the time. In our bed.
I hid away part of myself on the day Kyle told me. It was just too painful to feel it all. He told me they were in love and that he was sorry. Audra said they didn’t mean for it to happen.
Instead of the words sinking into me, I let them move past. I numbed myself with food and solitude. When my dad came to San Francisco in person to visit two months later, it was to break the news that they’d announced their engagement.
I cried for hours that night, Dad just quietly sitting on my couch with me. He’s the only one who’s seen me at my lowest. Mom sent both Audra and me an email telling us she loves us both and wouldn’t be taking a side in our “situation”.
Dad understood, though. My mom pulled the rug out from under his life with her affair, and then Angie did the same damn thing.
“Sorry, that took longer than expected,” he says as he walks into the office. “What’s up?”