Mrs. Amador…Liz, strolled over to the fence that divided their yards. “He’s out fishing on the jetty. Least he has clothes on now.”
“I’m sorry. I’m gonna talk to him.”
She sighed, resting her arms on the fence. “Honey, I know he hasn’t been the same since your mom died, and I try to be understanding, I really do.”
“I know.”
“And I know I get up real early myself, and it’s not like there’s other people out on the beach at that hour except the occasional jogger. But I’d just like to water my geraniums and have my morning tea without seeing Jasper’s bare ass and…other things as he trots off down to the water.”
“I understand. I’ll have another word with him.”
“Okay then. You tell him I asked nicely, all right? Don’t need him snipping at me more than he already does.”
“I’ll tell him. Thanks, Liz.”
I rounded the front of the house. The vast blue ocean stretched out before me, hook of the shoreline visible in the distance. I could see the outline of the rollercoaster at the park and the three humps of the hillocks over on the seaside end of town. The hillocks appeared considerably smaller from here than they had last night on the boardwalk. I stepped up onto the seawall, spotting my father’s figure standing out on the rock jetty, a white bucket at his feet, fishing rod in hand. Thankfully his neighbor was right about him being dressed now, in long khaki green shorts, a checkered shirt billowing in the wind, as was his white hair, which he’d let grow to reach past his collar recently.
Mrs. Amador was right about something else, too. My father hadn’t been the same since my mom Donna died, and while I sympathized with whatever he was going through, the long-gone kid inside me held some resentment over his recent transformation. Because growing up, he’d always been such an uptight dickwad, super conservative, always on me to keep my hair short, to follow the rules. Making me feel ashamed for ‘letting one slip past the goalie’ as he called it when Violet got pregnant. Pushing me to go into the military, a ‘good career to support a family’ he’d said, then doubling his disappointment and scorn when I didn’t comply. He’d been a military man in his youth, then law enforcement, ultimately retiring as a U.S. Marshal, and seemed to think anyone not drooling over the same life had something wrong with them.
He’d always been a pain in my ass, but the past year he’d transformed himself into a very different kind of pain in the ass. It seemed he now embraced everything he’d so fervently rejected when I was growing up. Lawlessness—he and his crusty friends got kicked out of the pubs and nearly arrested for drunk and disorderly more than once. Carelessness—he didn’t seem to give a sweet fuck about anything or anyone, and did whatever he pleased regardless of the consequences. And free-spiritedness—something he’d discouraged the most in me. Even though I’d never been very wild to begin with, he’d perpetually acted like every decision I made without his blessing was reckless. Now he was the reckless one, enough to concern my sisters from all the way across the country. I knew I should cut him some slack, as he was getting older, and my mom’s sudden death hit him hard.
But the fucker hadn’t cut me an ounce of slack my entire life. I realized I was not the only man in history to grow up with a disapproving father, and didn’t really let it affect my life on an emotional level. It was more an ironic annoyance that I now had to look out for my former drill sergeant father because he was experiencing some kind of second adolescence. A lifetime of dealing with his judgmental bullshit, and now I had to watch as he played at being some hippie beach-Viking with his long hair, nudity, and drunken revelry.
The only upside was that now it was me who got to scold him, a factor of this role reversal I enjoyed, just a little. But I was still a genuinely concerned son, because his recklessness got him hurt sometimes. I noticed the occasional bruises and scraped knees. Plus, he definitely seemed to be hiding something from me. We’d never been cuddly close, but he at least always invited me in when I stopped by. But the last few times I’d come around, he stepped outside to speak to me in the yard, or suggested we go for a walk on the beach. With this in mind, instead of walking down to the jetty, I looked over my shoulder at his house, wondering if I should go in and snoop around while I had the chance.
Maybe it was a hovel in there. Maybe things were broken that he’d not bothered to get fixed and was too proud to ask me to do it. I could only surmise he didn’t want me to see how he was living, and that he’d stopped caring for himself so well since my mother died. He claimed he needed no help, but if he did? This was my opportunity to find out. This was what my sisters were always on me about, after all, to keep a closer eye on our dad. If I had to get a bit shady to do it, so be it.
Ten minutes later, I was wandering from room to room, invading my father’s privacy. Not much had changed since my mother was alive. The family photos were still on the wall above the fireplace. I chuckled as I looked them over. My sister Gwen’s Army photo, and my other sister Allison’s wedding picture. Multiple pictures of my sisters and their families, one of all the grandkids at Christmas, including my twins, Matthew and Mia. Several beautiful photos of my late mother Donna, and one of Mom and Dad together on an anniversary cruise.
But only one photo of me. I was seventeen in it, standing on the dock of the harbor, holding up a giant fish I’d caught. I studied my leaner, more boyish face, smiling and suntanned, my dirty blond hair too long and blowing in my eyes. I remembered that day, mostly my father screaming at me to get a damn haircut. But this was it—Kurt’s only spot on the wall. My father displayed no current photos of me, and there was a generic framed print of sailboat where mine and Violet’s wedding picture used to be.
I realized that if this was his wall of pride, that fishing photo of me at seventeen represented the last time my father was proud of me. Just before I got Violet pregnant. He’d frozen me at that age, left me in the past. But I was probably being a little melodramatic, because being inside the house made a pit of grief over my mom rise in my stomach, something I’d thought had numbed to dullness over the past year.
I snooped around a little more, but nothing in the house directly caused me any alarm. In fact, it was almost too orderly. The floors were clean and shining, every surface spotless, not a speck of dust anywhere. His office was organized, a neat pile of envelopes and bills on the left side of his desk, a ledger keeping track of his finances on the right. In his bedroom, clothes were neat and folded. The beds were made, and his bills were paid. There was fresh food in the refrigerator. He had fiber pills, over-the-counter pain reliever, and Viagra in the bathroom medicine cabinet. I wrinkled my nose at the Viagra, and quickly replaced it without checking the expiration date.
I hoped it was old, and that he’d had it since my mom was alive, but if it wasn’t, I didn’t want to know. I wanted my father to be happy, but thinking about him doing the nasty with anyone but my mom fried my brain.
I left the bathroom and stood in the living room, hands on my hips as I looked around. I was surprised to find things in such good order, but happy to be wrong about my suspicions. Shit, even the magazines and books on the polished wooden chest he used as a coffee table were lined up with mathematical precision, not a thing out of place. I took a quick look out the front window, spotting my dad still on the jetty. He looked to be wrapping things up, crouched over the bucket, likely carving up whatever he caught, because Jasper always caught something. I’d never known him to come up dry with a rod in my life, like even the fish were afraid to say no to him.