Fighting for the Fairytale

Cole

I needed more than a minute. 

Hell, I needed forever.

I didn't want to go inside. 

Father Joe's words from mass popped into my head.

Hard times are also gifts from God that we need to thank Him for.

I don't think He meant the hard times with my family. 

But you're going to go inside because you're not leaving your wife alone. With your mother. Or worse, your father.

My stomach dropped.

Oh, God, why did I send her in alone?

Summoning up my nerve, I slammed the truck door just as the garage door began to squeak open.

Well fuck.

At least he's not inside with Nora. 

The garage door lifted with a final click, my father standing in front of it, a scowl on his face. 

"Happy Thanksgiving," I said, intending to walk right past him into the house. 

You can do this. You can do this. 

Dad snorted. "Hard to be thankful for a life like this."

Don't take the bait. If he's unhappy, it's his fault, not yours. Just keep on walking.

I was almost to the door when I heard, "Or with a son like you."

I tried to think of some song lyrics, but it was like my brain had froze. Overwhelming emotions flooded my mind; the two prominent ones sadness and anger battling for supremacy. Anger won. 

I whirled around. "What the hell, Dad? I just got here. What could I have possibly done wrong already?"

Dad shook his head. 

"No, tell me," I persisted. "What did I ever do to you?"

"It's what you don't do!" Dad shouted, pointing at me as he advanced. "You don't think! You just feel! You're too much like your mother!" He threw up his arms as he brushed past me.

I stepped back in front of him, right into his face. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're too damn soft! You make decisions based on whatever the fuck you're feeling at the minute! You don't fucking use your head! You pick music or whatever other fucking fantasies that woman filled your head with, knowing that you'll never make a living from it. Then you get all fucking sad and depressed when you finally fucking figure that out! Do you know how many times I've had to bail your mother out of the messes she put herself in? How many people I've had to pay off because she couldn't keep it together? We had to fucking move from everything and everyone that we knew because no one else would hire her! Because no one else would hire me because of her!

"And then she got her fucking claws into you, filling your head with those stupid dreams and hopes! I tried everything I could to get her to stop drinking, to get her back to fucking Earth, but she wouldn't have it! She wouldn't do it! Still won't do it, and now you're following her down the same fucking path with this pathetic excuse of a career. You're gonna end up just like her, drunk off your ass at fucking eleven o'clock in the morning! I've tried everything I could to help you, to ground you in reality, but you're just like her."

"You've tried everything to stop her?" I shouted. "You think yelling and punishing her, punishing me, is helping? Jesus Christ, Dad, she's sick! She's got a disease! And she didn't fill my fucking head with anything. I chose music. Me, not her."