The day my daughter was born, my dad was admitted to the hospital with chest pains. I spent the better part of six hours between two hospital rooms; Grace in labor, grunting and cursing in one, and my dad dying in the other. Nine hours after Emma was born, I snuck her down to my dad's room. We had just named her. Beaming proudly, Dad kissed her forehead, took her into his arms, held her against his chest, closed his eyes, and died.
It was the only time I've cried in front of my daughter.
Grace kept me around until she decided that my older brother was better looking. Frank and Grace both left their significant others and eloped to Cabo San Lucas. I broke my hand on our fireplace. Emma was six.
The divorce took the better part of a year. Emma and I stayed with my younger brother Ethan during the worst of it. His wife was under the impression that there was no ailment that could be solved by her cooking. I put on 60 pounds.
Frank killed himself four years to the day when he decided to start nailing my wife full time. Grace found him in their garage with the car running, a note pinned to his chest.
“Forgive me, Abe”, it read. I didn't go to the funeral.
Instead, I went to my dad's grave and shared a bottle of whiskey with him. I did most of the drinking. By some miracle, I made it home to my little girl who ended up caring for her puking father. The next morning, she made me promise never to do drink again. I put my hand over my heart and swore to her - “Never again.”
I lied.
She's forgiven me but won't let up on telling me that I should get help. I tell her that I'm ruining my life just fine on my own, thank you very much, and keep drinking. She doesn't find it funny at all. I blame her lack of a sense of humor on my ex-wife. And my drinking.
I've cut out drinking and driving and managed to avoid puking my guts out every night. I even went to a meeting (“Once”, my daughter reminds me) and stayed the entire time. The woman running the meeting cornered me afterwards and encouraged me to come back – sober next time.
I laughed and threw up on her shoes.
* * * * *
Emma turned on the radio as she made me breakfast and we sang along, substituting our own lyrics for most of the songs. She burned the bacon but I didn't care. I love her.
“I'm pregnant”, she said.
“It's not mine”, I said.
“I'm serious”, she said.
I rose from my seat. “You're pregnant?”, I asked.
“I'm pregnant?”, she asked.
I let out a huge sigh of relief. “Smartass”, I said.
“Wino”, she said, placing a plate in front of me. “Now eat your eggs, old man.”
I cleaned my plate.
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