Page 1 of Keeping the Single Dad
Chapter 1
Lana
Nausearoseinmygut at the sight of the hospital entrance. A nurse directed me to a side room, where Dad sat on the bed. His skin looked ruddy and pink over the elegant ridges of his cheekbones. Blood smeared his face and crusted the strands of white hair that fell over his lined forehead.
Mel stood by the window. Her red hair gleamed in the bright hospital lights. Her crisp blouse and smart pencil skirt hugged her slim, elegant frame. No matter the hour, my older sister always looked perfectly polished and ruthless, as though she’d just stepped out of the boardroom after having dismissed her entire staff without notice. I had no idea what she did at the fancy job I’d swung for her at the football club, or why the hell she was power-dressing after midnight. It was to do with contracts, or finance, or something involving spreadsheets. She’d explained it before, but I’d always been too bored to follow, and now I couldn’t ask without looking like an arsehole who didn’t know what her sister did for a living. ??
Dad’s lips parted in surprise, and his glassy eyes met mine. “Lana? You didn’t have to come. This is all silly.” Dad shook his head ruefully. “I was gardening, and I tripped over a gnome. A bloody gnome of all things!" His Scottish burr was slow and slurring. Even after all these years in England, he’d never lost his accent. “I bashed myself on the wall.”
He turned his head, and his overpowering scent of cigar smoke and liquor filled my nose. I did my best not to recoil. A knot tightened in my chest.
Oh, Dad. Not again.
I can’t go through it again.
Mel watched us from the corner, still and serious. Her face was its usual mask of stone. Dad had been sober for five years. He’d had the odd slip and got straight back on the wagon, but he’d been doing well. Why now?
I cleared my throat and held his clammy hand. “It’s okay to tell us if you’ve been drinking.”
“Not you, too.” Grimacing, he snapped his hand away to prod the bandage wrapped around his head. “Your sister has already been on my case.”
Mel’s unimpressed gaze raked over my outfit. I’d dashed directly from Skylar’s hen party. A bridal veil flowed from a pink tiara on my head. A black and pink sash emblazoned with the words ‘Same Penis Forever’ was draped over my short pink dress. Mel wouldn’t approve. She didn’t approve of anything that could be remotely construed as fun.
I shrugged. “Skylar’s hen party.”
Mel loaded her words with ridicule. “I see you’ve kept things classy.”
The back of my neck heated. Even though I’d got Mel a job at the club, she still loved talking to me like I’d crawled up from the sewer. Great. Some things never changed. At least she was consistent. I took off the veil and slipped off the little plastic penis earrings that Miri had insisted we all wear. Fuck Mel. As if it wasn’t enough of a downer seeing Dad like this.
Mel moved to Dad’s bed and smoothed the blanket. “Remember what they say at Alcoholics Anonymous. Relapse is part of the process. Recovery is not linear, it’s a cycle. You think about what triggered this and you learn.”
Mel had the thin, strained voice she used when she was about to explode and snap over the slightest thing. God. I hated that voice. I hadn’t heard it in so long. Memories of all the times we’d had to deal with Dad’s drunkenness flooded my brain. At his worst, he’d disappeared and slept rough on a park bench. My lungs moved sharply behind my rib cage. He’d been so much better since then. The question drummed in my skull again. Why now? The realization hit me like a football boot in the shin. I pulled out my phone and checked the date. Shit. It was my parents’ wedding anniversary. My stomach dropped.
How could I forget?
Mel shot me a sidelong glance. “You can go. I’ve got it under control.”
Screw that. It had been a while since we’d done this dance, but I hadn’t forgotten the steps. Of course my older sister wanted to be the martyr and bear the brunt of a relapse.
Dad rolled his eyes. “Got what under control? Me? She’s always been a worrier, this one. Not like me and you.” He reached for my hand and squeezed it. “We know how to have a good time, don’t we, lass? Don’t either of you worry about me. When Logan Sinclair leaves this world, it won’t be at the hands of a bloody gnome.”?
Mel sighed. “We won’t get any sense out of him tonight. Let’s get him home and deal with it tomorrow.” Her disparaging gaze fixed on the veil I held low in my hand. “I’ll take it from here. You can get back to whatever you were doing.”?
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” My voice came out sharper than I’d intended. “I’ll help you get him home and then I’ll head back.”
She stiffened and tossed her hair haughtily. I got it. Mel had always been better than me at all of this stuff. When Mum died, Dad had fallen apart and so had I. Mel had held everything together. Even grief and an alcoholic father couldn’t knock Mel off her stride. She was the golden girl, and I was the wild child. She was a straight-A student, whereas the teachers had sat me at the back of the class with a coloring book during math. We’d been stuck in these moulds for so long, whether or not we wanted to be.?
Dad threw his arms open and burst into song at the top of his voice.
I straightened the sash over my dress. “At least someone is having fun.”??
Tentatively, Mel approached Dad as though he was a wild beast and she needed to find the right spot to aim the tranquilizer dart. “Well, come on then. Don’t just stand there. Let’s move him. If you’re sticking around for a change, make yourself useful.”
Chapter 2
Alexander
“Daddy!”
