Part 16 (2/2)

I headed on into the kitchen. Dad was in there, wearing his ”World's Best Mom” ap.r.o.n, just taking the cake out of the oven. Gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free, because Sean was on a special diet. But, believe it or not, it would be pretty good. We'd all learned over the years to work around some things, and making food out of ingredients like tapioca and rice flour had become par for the course.

”Hey, Dad.”

”About time you showed up, punk.”

”Good to see you, too,” I replied, zipping open my backpack. Inside, I had two gifts for Sean, both of them newly released video games. ”Cake looks good.”

He grumbled, setting it on the counter to cool. ”Your mother will be here shortly. I want you on your best behavior.”

I took a deep breath. ”I promise, Dad,” I said in a low voice. ”Sean doesn't need any arguments.”

”I don't either,” he said equally quiet. Sean had uncanny hearing and would bring up conversations he hadn't been in the room for, sometimes days later. ”I've had it up to here with all of that. I wish you'd learn to ...”

”To what, Dad? To forgive my mom walking out? Leaving you alone struggling with Sean?”

”Why not? You left at about the same time, kid.”

”I couldn't take it any more,” I said.

He just stared at me. Which sucked, because about that, he was right. I was in trouble all the time back then. Drinking, partying, s.e.x, drugs. Got picked up by the cops repeatedly, which is pretty embarra.s.sing for your dad when he's one of them.

I looked down at the table and clenched my fist. ”I've done a lot of growing up since then, Dad.”

”I know you have, Dougal.”

”Why don't we change the subject to something more cheerful?”

”What do you have in mind?” he said. ”Funerals?”

”War?” I asked.

”Poverty,” he replied.

”The Simpsons,” I said.

He cracked a smile, and I grinned back. My dad and I didn't always see eye to eye. But he was my hero, all the same.

I heard a knock on the back door.

”I got it,” I said.

I stood up, and just as I did so, the back door opened, and I heard Tony's booming voice, ”Where's the birthday boy?”

My dad shouted, ”Oh, Christ, who the h.e.l.l let a dago in my house?”

Tony shouted back, as he thumped his way down the hall, ”Some drunken mick invited me over.”

A moment later, Tony entered the kitchen. Tall, with salt and pepper hair, he and my dad had been partners for nearly ten years. During the worst of the storms in my teenage years, there's been more than one time when Tony had provided a refuge for me, letting me crash on the couch in his tiny one bedroom apartment off Broadway. Tony and my dad threw ethnic and other insults at each other like bombs, but they loved each other, no question of that.

”Where's the beer?” Tony asked when he entered the kitchen.

”What, you didn't bring any?” my dad said. ”Christ, Italians are so cheap.”

Tony chuckled. ”I was coming to an Irish household, why the h.e.l.l would I need to bring alcohol?”

I groaned, and my dad cracked up.

”What are you up to, Crank? Still up to no good?”

I shrugged. ”Keeping busy with the band. Trying to stay out of trouble.”

”Yeah, I'll believe that when you get a brain transplant,” he responded.

I grinned, and then my dad had to chime in, ”Dougal's girlfriend is coming over for the party.”

”Dad,” I said. ”She's not my girlfriend.”

”Holy Moses, you got yourself a girlfriend?” Tony asked. ”How did that happen?”

”She's not my girlfriend.”

”Then why is she coming to your brother's birthday party?” my dad asked. He grinned.

”Because you asked her to come?”

”Eghhh, only because you wouldn't.”

I shook my head. It was going to be a very long afternoon. Tony went rummaging in the fridge for a beer, so I said, ”Toss me one, Tony?”

He did, and I sat back in my seat at the table. ”What time's Mom getting here?”

”Soon,” Dad said.

I nodded.

Let me clarify one thing. Yeah, I've got way too much hostility toward my mom. It's not that she was a bad mom. In fact, in some ways I'd say the opposite. She gave me my love of music and started teaching me piano years before I was able to reach the pedals. I've got a lot of good memories-of going with her to the park when I was a little kid, of her taking me to the museum, having picnics at the park, going out to Revere Beach. I was probably ten or so when Mom and Dad realized there was a problem with Sean, and the rounds of doctor visits started. Two, sometimes three times a week by the time he was six. Speech therapy, physical therapists, vision therapists, allergists. When he was six, we spent all night in the waiting room at Brigham and Women's while he was going through a sleep study to determine if he had sleep apnea.

My mom started to fade. That's the only term I can use. Her temper became shorter over time; she'd lose it over the smallest things. If I left a sock on the floor, that was worth a ten-minute lecture. What kind of example are you setting for your brother? What will your father think? Why can't you be more responsible?

By the time I was thirteen, my daily existence was trying to stay the h.e.l.l out of her way. Her face was set in a permanent frown, she was stressed to the hilt, and the mother who had taken me to Revere Beach, the mother who had laughed with me while making cupcakes as a little kid-she had all but disappeared. And it only got worse. I went from being trouble to being invisible. Everything was tied up in Sean: the endless round of doctor visits, therapies and interventions stole both of my parents.

My eighth grade year I got the lead role in the musical, and my parents didn't show. Sean had a meltdown, and they were tied up dealing with that. I remember standing backstage, peeking through the crack in the curtains, searching and searching for my mom and dad, wondering where they were, wondering why they weren't there, dreading finding out that my brother had somehow caused them to not be there.

Yeah. I'm not proud of myself. When I think about how I reacted to all that...to be honest, it makes me ashamed. But I was a frickin' kid and didn't know any better. When the second act started and my parents still hadn't shown, I got in my position on the stage. I looked out at the crowd, with too long a pause after my cue. Backstage, they thought I'd forgotten my line and stage-whispered it to me, urgently, as if that would help. But I hadn't forgotten. I'd forgotten nothing at all. I thought of my parents, both of them, somewhere else, missing the most important thing that had ever happened to me, and I called out in a clear, loud voice, projecting all the way to the back of the auditorium, the t.i.tle of a Gangsta Rap song I'd been listening to constantly for weeks.

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