Page 131 of The Bet
Chapter 38
She hated getting those kinds of calls. The ones where her dad fell to pieces and couldn’t get out of bed or go to work.
They were lucky that his foreman at the local factory was good. He’d been one of the guys who’d worked for her father back when her father had a business that was thriving. But there was only so much slack the guy could cut him.
So she had gone home, hoping to help her father through another bad period. If it hadn’t been for the extra money she had been making working for Xavier, she wouldn’t have gone back so soon after her last trip. And, although she hadn’t told him the specifics of why she’d rushed back, she’d taken Xavier’s advice and got a flight over instead of taking the train.
“You didn’t need to come back for him,” her mother had said, the moment she had walked through the door.
“I could, so I did.”
“Won’t your studies suffer?”
They would, but what choice did she have? “I can’t stay long,” she replied. “Where is he?”
“In his room, where else?”
At least he didn’t drink himself to oblivion when his bouts of depression came—they were deep, and dark, and spiraling, and alcohol would have made things worse.
Too bad she had a statistics exam to prep for, but she knew her priorities, and knew she had to step in when her mother—bless her—had run out of patience with the man she’d fallen in love with.
So she sat with her father, and hugged him, and held his hand, and tried to buoy him up. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t looked especially happy to see her, and hadn’t asked how she was doing. He’d been a good dad, the best he could be, and sometimes the roles reversed and your parents needed you to parent them instead. Now was such a time.
She listened again, with a sinking heart, as he talked about being a failure, and how he could not provide, and what had been taken, and how different things might have been. And she did her best to counsel him, and move him out of living in the past, which was where he seemed to drift to, for it didn’t serve him to revisit that part, that relentless hamster wheel of negative thoughts of what could have been.
He always refused her suggestion to get counseling because he was too proud a man to want to think about getting help. “Nothing wrong with me, Izzy. He didn’t break me.”
“I know, dad.”
“A man can have his down days, can’t he?”
“Sure, dad.”
But don’t be having those down days where you want to start over.He’d said it before a couple of times, that he wished he could start his life over. That he wished he could reboot. Words like that scared her to death. Words like that made her push college out of her head, and get on the next flight out.
Her coming to see him had done him good. At least, she liked to think it had. But it wasn’t a quick fix. She knew that, too.
How could she get a proud man to admit to his depression? To not want to give up? She couldn’t. She could only be there for him as best as she could, and it was a lot more than her brother ever was. In the few days she’d been here, she’d only seen Owen late in the evenings, usually after soccer practice. He was only living at home until he graduated high school.
A few days weren’t enough. Sometimes she worried more than a girl of her years should have, and there were days when she envied Cara her easy life with two normal parents and a solid, loving family life.
“Aren’t you going to fall behind in your studies being here for him?” her mother asked two days later.
“If you were here for him I wouldn’t need to do your job.” She’d apologized straightaway, because after spending days trying to lift his spirits, her own spirit was sagging.
Four days she stayed with him, four days before she felt she could leave. She’d needed to leave two days ago, but what could she do? Stay and help him, or run back so that she could revise for another test?
So she tried to do both, and only gave half of herself to each. She wasn’t even sure if it had been worth it.
There would be hell to pay at college. Too much to catch up on, a test to do, and coursework piling up on top. As well, Savannah had called her earlier to ask if she could babysit Jacob but she’d had to explain she was out of state. Savannah had also asked if she could continue doing ad hoc days on weekends, and she promised that she would come and see her about it on her return.
And then there was Xavier. Apart from a few stilted conversations, and a couple of texts, she hadn’t shared much of what had gone on at home. It was better this way. It was better keeping the two parts separate—her family, and Xavier.
The Stones were from a different planet to most ordinary people.
~ ~ ~
“When did you get back?” Cara asked her the day after she returned. She’d returned late last night while Cara was sleeping.
