Page 70 of Pity Play

“How would your life have been different had you known?” he asks. His voice is monotone like he isn’t feeling any emotion whatsoever.

“I don’t know, I might have felt like my dad wasn’t a stranger to me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he counters. “We always had a great relationship.”

“Until you decided to hate me.”

Several long hard moments pass before he says, “I don’t hate you. I’m just disappointed.”

“Why would you be disappointed in me?” I demand. “It’s a tribute to you that I followed in your footsteps.”

“You’re making your own path,” he says. “You’re not following mine.”

“Just because I don’t want to work at Pop’s doesn’t mean I haven’t followed in your footsteps,” I counter. “You were never disappointed in me when I was in business school,” I remind him.

“I’m not disappointed inyou,” he says quietly.

“You just said that you were disappointed. You can’t take that back now.”

He shakes his head. “I said I was disappointed. You just assumed you were the reason.”

I stand up and start to pace back and forth beside my dad’s bed and demand, “What are you so upset about then?”

I don’t know what I expect him to say, but I’m surprised when he starts crying. After a couple of minutes, he gestures for me to sit back down. He tells me, “My dad owned a restaurant called Pop’s when Bobby and I were little.”

What?! “How could you not have told me that?”

“He used to talk about how he wanted me and Bobby to work with him someday.”

“That’s nice,” I say for lack of anything else coming to mind.

“It was, but like you, I wasn’t interested.”

“Are you serious?” If he didn’t want to work with his dad, then why in the world would he expect differently from me?

“Bobby wanted to work with Dad. But that wasn’t good enough. Dad wanted us all together.”

“He didn’t live long enough to see if that would happen,” I say. “Maybe it would have.”

“I don’t think so.” My dad explains, “I had other plans. I was going to move to South America and become a soccer star.” I know my dad used to love to play soccer, but I had no idea he had such lofty dreams.

“Why didn’t you then?” I demand.

“Because my parents died and then Bobby died.”

I inhale sharply before saying, “I’m not following, Dad.”

The look on his face is one of pure agony. “The day before my parents were killed in that car accident, I told my dad that I hated him and that I was never going to work in his stupid restaurant.” The raw emotion in his voice hits me hard.

“How old were you?” I ask him.

“Ten.” I can’t imagine losing my parents so young.

“Dad,” I tell him. “Kids say stupid things all the time. Do youremember how I tried to get you and mom to sell Kelsey after she was born so that I didn’t have to share you?”

“You were only three,” he says. “I was ten. I was old enough not to say something as horrible as I did.”

“You were akid,” I remind him. “You were frustrated, and you just wanted your dad to be proud of you for who you are, not what he wanted you to be.”

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