Page 24 of Heaven Help Me

He stares at the side of my head while I drive. When he speaks again, it’s that unhurried Southern drawl I love so much. The cadence is so slow, some might think the mind is slow also. That couldn’t be further from the truth. My father is a brilliant man.

“That must be why I heard you have a girlfriend after forty-one years of dodging that bullet?”

I shiver at the term, a tell my father doesn’t miss. “It really hasn’t been bad.”

Dad guffaws, now staring out the windshield. “Benadryl, taken for more than the recommended time, can cause gastric discomfort.”

I pull up to the hospital and start the task of looking for a parking space. “Thank you for the pharmaceutical warning. Do we need to pick some up for you?”

Dad points to a space two aisles over. I gun it, throwing him back against the seat with a grunt. I’ve seen these senior citizens. They’ll fight dirty for a parking spot. I whip the car around to the right aisle and jam on the brakes when an old lady in a Buick slides her boat of a vehicle into the space. She looks over at me and cackles, taking forever to pull all the way in.

“No, not for me,” Dad says as I creep down the aisle, once more on the hunt for an open space. “For you. To help you deal with the allergic reaction to being around Valentina.”

He knows about her, of course. I spent several summers half in love with the girl and told him all about her when I got back home. He also had to tend to my knife wound when I came back that last summer. The summer visits stopped after that. I never asked what happened, but I’m pretty sure Dad threatened Bettina over her lack of parental oversight, bartering her guilt for no more mandated visits. One more reason I owe my father.

I snort. “I’ll take that under advisement. So far, she’s been annoying, but tolerable.”

I hit the accelerator again as a red Corvette pulls out of a space just ahead of me. I hit the turn signal, indicating this one is mine just as a car pulls into the aisle coming from the other direction.

“Oh no you don’t. I’ve got my signal on!” I yell at them through the windshield.

Dad just shakes his head in amusement. “There is no law about signals reserving spaces, son.”

“It’s etiquette, Dad. Everyone knows this.”

The Corvette finally backs out and I take the turn too fast, pulling into the space before the other vehicle can take it away from me unfairly. An old man drives by, beady eyes aimed at me and his gnarled fist shaking at me out the lowered window.

See what I’m saying? Old people are aggressive in parking lots.

Feeling like I just went to battle, I get out of the car and come around to help Dad out. This car is low to the ground, perfect for slinking through the back country roads like a race car. Not great for elderly getting in and out.

He takes my help, pausing to pat my face as he looks at me with a proud smile. “Just don’t go falling in love with her, boy. That path leads to destruction. Ask me how I know.”

The warmth I feel at him calling me boy when I’m a middle-aged man is washed away by the guilt I feel over his words. He could have washed his hands of Bettina long ago if it weren’t for my existence. He’s told me over and over he wouldn’t trade me for anything, but I know joint parenting with the Mafia Maven hasn’t been easy.

“Don’t worry, Dad. Valentina is too hardened by a life of crime to want romance.”

I huff a laugh just thinking of her accepting flowers or a soft touch. She’d search the blooms for poison and break my finger for touching her. We head across the blacktop, the heat radiating off the surface and threatening to melt our shoes.

Dad’s quiet until we get to the door of the hospital. He turns and stops me from opening the door where we might get a nice rush of cooled air.

“You didn’t live that life, not most of the time, but you might be more similar to your mother than either of us would like. I worry you’ve taken on a bit of the hard heart too.”

“Dad,” I say, shocked. He’s been very careful to never compare me to her or to suggest I’m like her in any way because of my biology. “I’m not hard hearted. I genuinely enjoy dating all kinds of women and I care for them quite a bit. I just haven’t settled down with one because I’ve never seen love work out for anyone.”

Dad puts his hand on my arm, looking older than I’ve ever seen him. “I should have protected you more from that woman.”

I turn to open the door and help him inside out of the heat. “You did a fantastic job raising me. All you should be worrying about right now is getting well so we can keep going to Angel games this fall, you hear?”

Dad grumbles, but eventually pulls out of his bad mood when the normal nurses see he’s arrived for his appointment. They all love him. Of course they do. He talks to them like real people instead of order takers. He knows their kids’ names and wedding anniversaries. He pulls even the quiet ones out of their shells with a genuine, slow kindness that eventually seeps into me too. I sit back in my chair and watch him, a little smile pulling at my lips.

He’s a good man. The best, really. Whereas many people look up to Bettina simply because they’re scared of her, I look up to my dad because he’s good to his core.

Dad eventually drifts off to sleep, his head tilted away from the door. The nurse comes in quietly to check on his IV drip. She shoots me a thumbs up and whispers that it’ll only be another thirty minutes before I can take him home. I settle back in the chair and close my eyes. It’s a shame I see Valentina on the back of my eyelids when I do. She’s infiltrated my home, my business, and now my mind like some kind of replicating virus. I smell her perfume all the time. I hear her sing off-key in the shower. I have to be on guard at all times to deflect her verbal barbs. And now I have her whispered confession of panic attacks in my mind. A blemish in her otherwise perfect armor.

It only makes me like her.

Okay, not like her entirely. Just five percent like her. There’s still ninety-five percent of massive dislike. Surely I can tamp down the five percent until it’s back to a full hundred percent of contempt, right?