Read Online Notes from the Blender by Trish Cook - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Trish Cook
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Carmen Foster, maybe there’s something to what he’s saying.
“Yeah, I’d like to not have to wait till I’m forty to have a girlfriend, thanks,” I said, and then I nearly clapped my hand over my mouth. That one sentence was more information than I’d given Dad about my inner life in the last three years. He kind of beamed at me, which made it much worse.
“You won’t have to wait that long,” he said.
“Yeah, right. ‘Hey, baby. Want me to retile your bathroom?’ Not exactly a great pickup line.”
Dad laughed. “It is if you use the phrase ‘lay some tile.’”
It was at this point that I actually hooted with laughter. I don’t know if it was the manly act of sweating together, but my dad was suddenly approximating somebody cool. And we were spending all kinds of time together and having fun and stuff, which made it a lot harder for me to believe that the whole Carmen thing was about him wanting to get rid of me.
Ah, Carmen. I knew there was something I could stay mad at Dad about. He was happier and cooler than I could ever remember him being, but we were still packing up our house, the place where I could actually remember Mom being, the place where some part of me was convinced her ghost would be hanging around the house looking for us after we left.
Not that Dad didn’t try to outflank me on that score, too. I was in my room with Demonic Stain cranked up on my headphones, when the last track, “Blood of the Demiurge,” finished, and my ears took in silence for a few seconds.
And I heard something weird. It sounded like this: “Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo!” All I could think was that Dad also had headphones on and was singing along to “Sympathy for the Devil,” which is one of the only geezer rock songs I can stand. I thought the sight of my dad rockin’ out Mick Jagger–style might be pretty funny, so I snuck over to his room to have a look.
I took my camera.
And then I had to kind of hide my camera behind my back, because Dad was there on the floor of his room, not singing along with Mick at all, but crying. And not some manly, tears-trickling-down-the-cheeks crying, but full-on girly sobbing, complete with the aforementioned “Hoo-hoo!” I was embarrassed for him and for me, and I was getting ready to bail when he looked up at me. He was on the floor in front of Mom’s closet, and he was putting stuff into a box. Not important stuff like her ashes or anything, just stupid stuff that he’d never gotten rid of—the shoes she’d worn when she went running, a hairbrush, a People magazine she’d bought and never gotten a chance to read.
Dad looked up at me like the smallest, most pathetic creature on the face of the Earth. “I’m sorry,” he said, snuffling back his tears. “It’s just…I just had this thought that I’m putting her in a box again.”
Well, that was it for me. Boom—instant waterworks. I kind of slumped down on the floor and cried, and Dad scooted over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “I hope you know,” he said in this calm voice, because apparently me losing my shit helped him find his, “that I love Carmen, and I am excited about this new life we all get to have together, and that every single day of my life, your mom’s absence is a knife in my heart. It’s not something I will ever forget or get over. You understand? It’s a scar on my soul. So I don’t…I don’t want you thinking I’m forgetting her. I will never forget her. Never.”
Well, that was a hell of a speech, but I wasn’t convinced. “Then why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Because I love Carmen, because I love the child we’re having together, and because…because I’m still alive.”
I stood up because that just sounded so disloyal to Mom that I couldn’t stand being in the same room with him. “It’s not like she wanted to die, Dad. It’s not like she ran off with another guy or something.”
“Don’t you think I know that? What the hell do you want from me,
“Yeah, I’d like to not have to wait till I’m forty to have a girlfriend, thanks,” I said, and then I nearly clapped my hand over my mouth. That one sentence was more information than I’d given Dad about my inner life in the last three years. He kind of beamed at me, which made it much worse.
“You won’t have to wait that long,” he said.
“Yeah, right. ‘Hey, baby. Want me to retile your bathroom?’ Not exactly a great pickup line.”
Dad laughed. “It is if you use the phrase ‘lay some tile.’”
It was at this point that I actually hooted with laughter. I don’t know if it was the manly act of sweating together, but my dad was suddenly approximating somebody cool. And we were spending all kinds of time together and having fun and stuff, which made it a lot harder for me to believe that the whole Carmen thing was about him wanting to get rid of me.
Ah, Carmen. I knew there was something I could stay mad at Dad about. He was happier and cooler than I could ever remember him being, but we were still packing up our house, the place where I could actually remember Mom being, the place where some part of me was convinced her ghost would be hanging around the house looking for us after we left.
Not that Dad didn’t try to outflank me on that score, too. I was in my room with Demonic Stain cranked up on my headphones, when the last track, “Blood of the Demiurge,” finished, and my ears took in silence for a few seconds.
And I heard something weird. It sounded like this: “Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo!” All I could think was that Dad also had headphones on and was singing along to “Sympathy for the Devil,” which is one of the only geezer rock songs I can stand. I thought the sight of my dad rockin’ out Mick Jagger–style might be pretty funny, so I snuck over to his room to have a look.
I took my camera.
And then I had to kind of hide my camera behind my back, because Dad was there on the floor of his room, not singing along with Mick at all, but crying. And not some manly, tears-trickling-down-the-cheeks crying, but full-on girly sobbing, complete with the aforementioned “Hoo-hoo!” I was embarrassed for him and for me, and I was getting ready to bail when he looked up at me. He was on the floor in front of Mom’s closet, and he was putting stuff into a box. Not important stuff like her ashes or anything, just stupid stuff that he’d never gotten rid of—the shoes she’d worn when she went running, a hairbrush, a People magazine she’d bought and never gotten a chance to read.
Dad looked up at me like the smallest, most pathetic creature on the face of the Earth. “I’m sorry,” he said, snuffling back his tears. “It’s just…I just had this thought that I’m putting her in a box again.”
Well, that was it for me. Boom—instant waterworks. I kind of slumped down on the floor and cried, and Dad scooted over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “I hope you know,” he said in this calm voice, because apparently me losing my shit helped him find his, “that I love Carmen, and I am excited about this new life we all get to have together, and that every single day of my life, your mom’s absence is a knife in my heart. It’s not something I will ever forget or get over. You understand? It’s a scar on my soul. So I don’t…I don’t want you thinking I’m forgetting her. I will never forget her. Never.”
Well, that was a hell of a speech, but I wasn’t convinced. “Then why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Because I love Carmen, because I love the child we’re having together, and because…because I’m still alive.”
I stood up because that just sounded so disloyal to Mom that I couldn’t stand being in the same room with him. “It’s not like she wanted to die, Dad. It’s not like she ran off with another guy or something.”
“Don’t you think I know that? What the hell do you want from me,
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