Page 67 of Wilder Love
“Now I have to report my every move to you?”
I ran my hands through my hair and let out a frustrated breath. I didn’t like him driving and unless he walked or ran the five miles to the marina, he had to have driven.
“Sam and I went out on his boat. We went diving.”
“You went diving,” I repeated. “Should you be diving?”
The answer was no. Fucking no he should not. “What if you had a seizure—”
“I didn’t, Shane. I’m okay.” His voice was firm but gentle. I gritted my teeth. “Look at me.”
I eyed my dad, noting the color in his face. He was always tan. Had always spent time in the sun. He was gaunter now, but he still looked okay. If you didn’t know him well, you wouldn’t notice anything was wrong. But I noticed. “Do I look like I’m ready to die today?”
He didn’t. Looking at him, you wouldn’t realize he was dying. In some ways, that made it harder to process. He didn’t look sick. Even though he’d lost weight over the last few months, he wasn’t frail or haggard. He was out fucking riding on his buddy’s boat, deep-sea diving.
“Did you talk to Remy?”
“She came over to me, yeah. She’s back for you, Shane.”
“Did she tell you that?”
He chuckled, seeing the humor in something I failed to see. “She didn’t have to. I know she still loves you.”
We sat in silence for a while, my dad smoking his joint, while I tried to process his words. Was it really love? Maybe she thought she still loved me, but she didn’t know me anymore. I wasn’t the same guy from seven years ago and it wouldn’t take her long to figure that out.
“And I’m guessing you didn’t tell her what you’re going through?” I asked, eyeing him.
“Nope.”
I shook my head. “You’re a pain in the ass.”
“So are you,” he said, his voice affectionate, his smile warm.
My dad loved me. Always had. He was the least judgmental person I’d ever met and the best damn father anyone could ask for. In some ways we’d been more like friends than father and son. He had never disciplined me. Had always let me find my own way in life. But he’d been there whenever I had needed him. He had taught me to surf. Had nurtured my love of the ocean. I owed him everything and had repaid him by going to prison. All his hard work shot to hell. All his dreams for me destroyed.
Because of my actions, he’d lost everything too, and it killed me that he’d sacrificed so much for me.
He wanted his last months to be a celebration of life for as long as he could live it fully. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to turn off the thoughts that someday in the near future he wouldn’t be hanging out on the back deck with me, smoking a joint and shooting the shit. Sharing his life’s wisdom, albeit warped at times, but always welcome.
Prison was a cakewalk compared to this. I was angry all over again. Angry at the world. Angry at the precious years I’d lost with him. Angry at him.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I asked, my frustration so pent-up I wanted to punch a hole in the wall. Like that would solve anything. He didn’t answer for a few minutes. He knew what I was asking. Knew damn well what I was talking about. I could have had more time with him.
“I wasn’t ready to accept it yet,” he said simply. He had always been honest with me, sometimes painfully so. Except the one time I had needed him to be. “I was still in denial.”
I let out a ragged breath. He offered me the blunt. I shook my head.
“No more diving,” I said, trying to exert some authority I didn’t have. He wouldn’t listen. Never had. Never will. He didn’t listen to the doctors either, thinking he knew best.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it? Yeah, okay. I won’t worry about you collapsing or getting rushed to the ER. I won’t worry that you’re taking your meds and eating your meals. I won’t worry about a damn thing.”
“You’re struggling, Shane. You barely have the money to keep yourself afloat. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and let my son carry my burdens along with his own. You might think you’re taking care of me by mollycoddling me, but I can tell you right now, you’re not.”
“Don’t worry about the bills. I’ve got that covered.” I sure as hell didn’t. Every day they piled up. I had a mountain of bills, but I paid off what I could. The hospital and the doctors had set up a special payment plan for me. It sucked that you couldn’t even get sick without accruing debt. Insurance didn’t cover everything. I had been the one who begged him to get the operation, holding out on the slim hope that it would give him more time. Or that they’d be able to remove the whole tumor. He hadn’t wanted to let them do a craniotomy. But he’d done it. For me. He’d suffered through rounds of chemo and radiation that made him weak and nauseous. That fucked with his quality of life.
Until finally, one day, he said he was done. He was going to live out the remainder of his life on his own terms which was what he had wanted to do from the start. How could I argue with that? It was his life to live as he chose, right to the bitter end.
