Beyond Blonde (24 page)

“All you do is touch me and I lose it!”

His eyes danced and he gripped me tighter. “That’s bad?” he asked.

“Aargh!” I looked at the ceiling, examining the acoustic tiles. Then I faced him with my heart firmly planted in my feet. “David, you don’t know what you do to me. You may think you do, but you don’t, not really, because you’re not me, thing is, I’m so incredibly … but, you said yourself that there were lots of ways of being too young, and Anita and Janice and Susan and God knows how many others were not too young that way so that you must be used to getting … of course and why not, but I just can’t because I’m not like Alison, but then if you asked my body, I am, but on the other hand you know, maybe the religion stuff got to me after all at least for now, the next little while, I mean, you know?” I looked deep into his eyes and got lost a bit. Everyone was gone except us.

His dark eyes sparkled, playing with me. “Uh, is there a sentence in there somewhere?”

How to get the words out?

“I …” I gulped. How could I lose him? I just got him. I couldn’t bear to lose him. I looked at my feet. “Thing is, you’re so … and you would expect and quite right and I can’t just yet what you expect and Kit said I should say so. I want to kill her, but then I agree, the truth and all, no games, no lies, and I don’t blame you, ’cause I can’t, not now.” I watched him, watching me, tracking his reaction to whatever it was I’d said.

I take it all back!
I screamed in my head. I braced for a pain that I knew there was no bracing for.

“Kit,” he sighed, “is wise beyond her years. Are you saying you want me to be a
good boy
?”

I felt my eyes get prickly. What did I expect? Things like this don’t.… He shook his head.
No, don’t, don’t, please.…

David took my hand and put it under his cotton shirt. His heart was racing. “I’ve waited two years for you, Sophie. I’ll wait longer. I only want you.” He pulled me closer. “It’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you, Sophie. I’ll protect you.” He sighed, took my hand back out from under his shirt, and kissed it. “Even if it’s from me.”

I fell into him and he held us.

It was like my soul finally came home, sat on the couch, and made itself comfortable. I knew in that moment three big things were true and I would remember them forever. One, I believed this boy. Two, I loved this boy. And three, maybe things like this
could
happen to people like me.

Papa picked me up
after my shift at Mike’s on Saturday, the last Saturday in February. It was time for his present. He waited for me in the Luigi limo and kissed me as soon as I got in. Then he made a big show of trying to look semi-stern. “So, Sophie, tell me, how is your young man?”

“Unbelievable, Papa. You just wouldn’t believe it and even more unbelievable, my ‘young man’ is crazy about me! I think.”

“How could that be anything but believable, Sophie?”

“Easy for you to say.” I smiled. “You’re blinded by the parental obligation of loving me. Speaking of which, where are we going and what’s my present? I can’t wait. What a week, what a birthday week it’s been, Papa, the best week of my entire life! There’s really something to this praying and lighting candles and religion stuff, you know?”

Papa didn’t say anything as I was bouncing off the car walls, but he smiled when he turned the key. “I’m taking you to my AA meeting.”

“Oh goody! I …” Whoa, I was about to say how much I love those meetings when for once, miracle of miracles, I shut my mouth in time. “I can’t wait to see what it’s like and how it’s helped you. Thanks, Papa. Really great present.” I turned around to the back seat as if I had somehow missed her. “You didn’t invite Mama?”

He flinched. “She couldn’t make it.”

Mama couldn’t make it? Papa’s jaw set. In profile he didn’t look as boyish as he did full on. In profile, Papa looked middleaged. Maybe he looked like that full on too. I hadn’t looked lately. Not really. I used to examine my father’s handsome face for clues, search for traces of anything useful, despondency, frustration, joy, drinking, always the drinking. Make it? Mama would have crawled out of a hospital bed to “make it.” I felt like I had been run over.

I had had seven miraculous days. Seven days of as close as I was ever going to get to being at the centre of it all in a world that made sense.

“Papa?”

We pulled up to a pretty little church near Auntie Eva’s. He parked just down the block. It was a Unitarian church. Normally, I would’ve asked Papa what the heck a Unitarian was and whether I should add one to my altar. We would have done shtick. Not this time.

“What’s happening, Papa?”

He took the key out of the ignition and crumpled.

So did I
. I take it back. Don’t answer! I don’t want to know! Don’t …

“Sophie, your Mama and me …”

He didn’t have to say it. I didn’t need to hear the words. I already knew. I knew for months. I knew when I saw them together, at the funeral, at Christmas, and even at my party. I also knew that, if the actual words hit the cold, steamy air, I wouldn’t be able to pretend anymore.

“Sophie.” He squeezed my hand. “There will never be anyone else for me but your Mama.”

Could my mother continue without my father? Would the sun ever come out for her again?

“And you are everything to me. You were from the day you were born.” He dropped his head. “You must know this, Sophie.” Papa scrubbed his face with his hands. “But no, I can’t. I won’t be coming home.”

I saw them clearly now in my head, what I had avoided seeing each time. They would stand together, closely even, but while Mama was totally there and shining for him, Papa was on guard, like he was marking his exit. “Ever?” I asked.

“I am stronger, but I am not strong, not yet, maybe never.” I was about to pounce on that when Papa brought a finger to his lips. “It’s true. And it’s also true I’m tired of being a loser, Sophie. I have to be responsible for myself and take responsibility for my actions. I now know that I have to move forward, not back, if I’m going to get a chance at this sobriety thing. I’ve been a loser for the past twenty years, almost the entire time with your Mama.” He lit a cigarette with the car lighter and blew smoke into the rear-view mirror. Into his own eyes.

Loser? Did he say loser? My father was the sun king. Loser? Nothing was making any sense and still I was not surprised. I think I knew from the moment he packed up his little suitcase all those months ago. I never once asked him when he was coming home. I knew.

But I had kept it a secret from myself.

“You can’t blame Mama! That you feel like a loser, I mean. It’s not her fault.”

Was it?

“Of course not, Sophie. I’m the weak one, only me. It’s entirely my weakness, not hers, but see, together somehow we, I … and I’m still too shaky in this.”

“But what about Mama?”

“I believe your Mama knows this and deep inside of her she accepts.”

Like hell,
I thought. Sobriety had clearly impaired his judgment.

“She must know even better than I do. Seven years in prison, all the drinking before that, all the drinking after, the blackouts, the shame, the guilt, so much guilt, Sophie, so much guilt. Too much has, see sometimes what happens is that, too much …” He slumped over the steering wheel.

“… has happened,” I finished for him. I flashed to Luke that last day in the park. “Too much has happened,” I repeated. “You can’t find your way back.” This, I understood.

He nodded. “What matters in this is you, Sophie. We both love you so much.”

“You love me more.”

I might as well have slapped him. He turned away. “I’m
ashamed I let you think that. I love you
differently
because your Mama let me. She did all the hard work, the jobs, the moves, the scraping, the worrying, day after day with no help. Even before prison, Sophie, she did all the heavy lifting so that I got to come in with balloons and poems and magic mirrors for my princess.”

I didn’t say anything. We both knew it was true. We sat there for a bit while I tried to take it in. Just before I started to wallow, Papa jumped out of the car and ran over to open my door. He always had pretty fierce timing. “Will you do me the honour of accompanying me to my meeting?”

Dear Moses, Mama was going to be a train wreck. Worse. All right, well, I’ve seen that movie, and we got through it all the other times.
It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay, it’ll be
… I inhaled slowly and exhaled slower still. “The honour is mine, Papa.”

He took my arm and we walked into the meeting like we were walking the red carpet. I allowed the familiarity of it all, the warm feeling of the greetings, to wash over me.

“Welcome.”

“How’re you doing?”

“Glad you’re here!”

“Welcome!”

Papa knew everyone and it was like I did too. That’s what they do.
Welcome! You belong. You’re safe here.
That was it! The feeling I had been chasing the whole year. It was the reason I loved that very first AA meeting. Wait, if I stopped being a drama queen for a minute, I had to admit that I felt safe with my Blondes, I felt safe with the Aunties, and I sure
felt safe in David’s arms. Mama and Papa? Not so much and not for years, if truth be told.

“Hi, my name is John and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hi John.”

John outlined the evening’s program, reminded us that we must respect the anonymity of every single person at the meeting and then led us into that prayer that I like so much.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”

Papa caught me reciting along with everyone and raised an eyebrow.

I broke down instantly. Pathetic spy, I’d make. “Auntie Eva led us on a fact-finding mission back in September, and I’ve been a couple of times since,” I blurted as we sat down.

Papa shook his head, but I could tell he was biting the inside of his cheek.

After some announcements, John made way for the guest speaker for the evening.

“Hi, my name is Kurt and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hi Kurt.”

Kurt was a hippie, circa 1969. He looked like John Lennon, complete with long, wavy hair parted in the middle and granny glasses. Kurt told us that he was honoured to be telling his story at the request of tonight’s celebrant, Slavko. Papa grabbed my hand and put it on his jangling knee.

“Papa?”

He nodded and I did the math. Sweet Jesus! It had been a year since me and the Blondes went tearing around the city looking for him, a year since his last bender, a year since he
moved out. It had been a
year
since my father had had a drink. I squeezed his hand hard as much to stop myself from crying as to acknowledge his mind-blowing achievement.

Kurt had been sober for seven years, one day at a time. He was a Vietnam vet who came to Canada to escape his demons, only to find out that they had a passport too.

Kurt talked about damn near killing his brother-in-law over a hockey game and about living on the streets for five months. He talked about “getting it” in this room and how he was privileged to be connected to such amazing human beings, of whom one of the most amazing was Slavko. It had been a long time since Kurt had encountered such a trough of shame in one man countered by such a willingness to be open and receptive to help and to work the program.

“Slavko, please come up and receive your one-year medallion to mark twelve months of continuous sobriety.”

Thunderous thumping and heartfelt applause carried Papa to the podium. Years melted away with every step, and by the time he got there, Papa was young again. He thanked his sponsor, Kurt, and everyone in the room. He also thanked God, which was pretty shocking, but even more shocking was that he went out of his way to thank Mama
and
Auntie Eva. Papa’s greatest enemy had turned into his greatest friend.

“People cared for me, despite what I did or did not do for them,” he said. “They cared when I least deserved it. They cared when I was the most ashamed and rightly so.” He paused, to control himself. “And the one who cared the most is the one I hurt the most, my baby girl, Sophie.” Papa extended his hand toward me. “I have so, so much to be thankful for, but I am
the most thankful for you, my wonderful daughter. You, dear girl, are the reason I am standing here. God bless you, Sophia, happy birthday, baby girl, and thank you, thank you all.”

Kurt gave him a back-smacking hug and then every single person in the room stood up for my father. Papa smiled back at us through tear-smeared eyes. Oh sweet Jesus, Buddha, and Moses, he was going to be okay. I have been watching and waiting on my father since I was seven years old. Even during all those years we didn’t see each other when he was in prison, I carried him as best as any little girl could. And now he would be fine.

I could let go.

When Papa got back to our row, he hugged me so hard it hurt.

“Happy birthday, Sophie!”

“I love you Papa. This is the best birthday present of my life!”

The meeting wound down and Papa was swarmed. Everybody came by to shake his hand or slap him on the shoulder and offer a gruff “congrats, man.”

We were pretty well the last ones out. “How about we get some milkshakes to celebrate? There is a ‘surprise dinner’ celebration at the Lobster Trap tonight at eight for all of us. But how about a milkshake with your old man now?”