Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 85399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“You know what?” Dad says. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah.” He takes a drink. “It’s good that boy broke up with her.”
I sip my coffee. “I can’t say I’m torn up about it. But she’s over there crying her eyeballs out. That’s what gets me.”
“To hell with that kid.”
I place my mug on the table in front of me. “What’s gotten into you, Pops?”
“Nothing has gotten into me, Jack. She just doesn’t need no damn boyfriend.”
“Well, I happen to agree with you. But she had one, and now she’s upset. There’s nothing good about that.”
He chuckles.
His nonchalant attitude about this situation surprises me. And it makes me mad. Maybe it’s because I’m tired—after a fantastic night with Lauren—or that I haven’t processed seeing my daughter truly cry for the first time, but his indifference to this topic gets under my skin.
My baby girl is hurting. Am I similarly glad she’s no longer dating Daniel? Yes, especially after he had the audacity to break up with her by text. But I think I’m more surprised by the two unexpected reactions—Michael jumping to Maddie’s defense and my father’s apathy.
Today is making no sense at all.
“You know what’s wrong with people these days?” he asks.
“I’d love for you to tell me.”
“They get too focused on shit that doesn’t matter in the end.”
What? My brows pull together as I try to make sense of the old man.
“Oh, come on, Jack. It’s not that hard to understand.” He takes another drink. “How many times a day do you get so absorbed in something that you won’t even remember the next day?”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
He stops rocking. “It has something to do with everything.”
I lift my coffee and then stand, needing to move before I crawl out of my skin.
“Maddie’s sad,” Dad says. “I’m sorry to hear that. But she’ll be all right, and she’ll probably be better later because she’s gotten this out of the way. It’s a stepping stone of life, to lose your first love. It’ll happen at some point. Might as well get it over with.”
“When did you become so coldhearted?”
“It comes with age. You stop giving a shit about things that don’t matter. I don’t have enough energy to use worrying about everything anymore.”
I stop next to my mom’s bookcase and observe my father from across the room. His hair is lighter than I’ve seen it. I’m not sure if it’s the time of day or the shadows in the room, but his skin looks pale. Lines gather along his forehead and around his mouth, and I can’t help but wonder, When did he get so old?
“I sit here, or at home, and watch people scurry around like little ants,” he says. “They hurry over here to do something. Then they run over there and do something else. They’re always moving, always in a rush to go on to the next thing. Why be in such a frenzy to do more when you’re so damn busy that you don’t get to really do any of it?”
“What are you getting at?”
He sighs and shakes his head. “When I was growing up, we didn’t have all the opportunities you kids do now. There wasn’t that much to do. Our lives were simpler back then, and I suppose they were less fancy and all that. But you know what? We may have been playing dominoes and not computers, but we played dominoes. The neighbor kids would all come together on the sidewalk or someone’s porch, and we’d play all afternoon. Together.”
The sun moves in the sky, coming through the window at a different angle. Dad squints against the sudden brightness.
“Now you all have so many things you can do that you think you have to try them all. But you never get to really experience any of them,” he says. “And you’re so inundated with information and possibilities and connections that you lose sight as to what life really is.”
I take my seat on the couch and look at my father. I’m beginning to worry about him. What Lauren said is resonating with me and—
“I worry about you, Jack.”
He what? “You worry about me? Why?”
He pulls the handle on the side of his chair and lowers his legs. Then he gets to his feet. “You’re a better man than I ever was. Smarter. More intuitive. More like your mother, thank God.”
What?
“Don’t do what I did,” he says, walking gingerly across the room. “Don’t tie up who you are with what you can accomplish. I did that. I killed myself for a company that didn’t give a shit about me. Missed out on so much—practically my whole life—because I thought that the paychecks, the promotions, the accolades were somehow worth it.”
I can barely breathe. “You’re a good man, Dad.”
He scoffs. “I have a lot of regrets. A lot of them.” He stops at a rollback desk in the corner. “My biggest one, though, is that your mother missed out on living her life because of my choices. I kept thinking we’d travel when I retired. We’d come up here and stay all summer together. We’d make up for lost time. But then she died . . . and the time was already gone.”