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Chelsea stood again at the kitchen counter and gripped a mug of coffee. Her father remained in the exact same position he had fallen asleep in, as though, in his drunken state, his muscles were too depleted for any tossing or turning. As she sipped the hot liquid, Xavier stepped past her, clearly disgruntled. He swept a backpack over his shoulder then turned to follow Chelsea’s gaze toward the middle-aged man on the couch.
“You going to wake him up?”
“Yeah, I will. After you leave.”
Xavier gave her a dark look. Always, he was a bit too protective — something Chelsea had previously really liked about him. They had only kindled their romance after she’d fallen through that stupid hole in the back of The Hesson House and broken her leg. He hadn’t left her side for months, it seemed like. Now, he struggled to leave her side, and Chelsea found herself aching for breathing space.
“I can wait for you to wake him up. We can press him for info together.”
“We aren’t good cop, bad cop,” Chelsea told him. “I’m his daughter. I’ve known him my entire life. I think I can handle this.” Even as she said it, a wave of doubt crashed against her stomach. She sipped her coffee and forced herself to make heavy eye contact with Xavier, with the kind of expression that meant business.
“Okay.” Xavier dropped down and kissed her gently on the lips. “I love you, Chels. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will. I love you, too.”
When the door clicked closed, Tyler jumped the slightest bit into consciousness. He coughed twice, making his eyelids flutter open slightly and then close again. He exhaled into himself and seemed to weave his way back to sleep. Chelsea wouldn’t have it.
“Dad. Dad?” Her voice grew louder, more demanding. She stepped up to the couch as a wave of his smell — a mix of body odor and alcohol, crashed over her. “Dad! I need you to get up. Now!”
She sounded like her mother before school. She detested it.
Tyler sensed that “Olivia” vibe, as well, because he finally did draw back those eyes and blink up at her. Chelsea’s nostrils flared. She did not need this right now.
“Chels. Hi.”
Chelsea’s eyes threatened to spill over tears, but she wouldn’t let them.
“Dad, what are you doing in Brooklyn?”
Tyler brought his hands up to his face and rubbed his eyes. Chelsea had always loved his hands. They were big and capable, the kinds that could fix her dollhouse or her bicycle or the car in the dead of winter.
“Do you mind if I take a shower?” he finally asked. “It would clear my head.”
Chelsea nodded before she stepped into the bedroom to find the only clean towel there on the hanging shelf they’d bought from Target for thirteen bucks. She tossed it to her father, who caught it in mid-air. Apparently, his hangover didn’t affect his reflexes.
“There’s shampoo and soap in the shower,” she told him.
Tyler swept a hand over his five o’clock shadow. “Does Xavier have any other razors?”
Chelsea felt awkward handing her father one of the dollar brand razors, which Xavier purchased and used infrequently. She couldn’t begin to tell her father just how poor they were. Probably, he could sense it off the old couch he slept on and the general air of the place, as though it could produce a rat infestation out of thin air. But he wasn’t exactly in the position to judge, was he?
While Tyler was in the shower, Xavier texted Chelsea to check-in. She ignored it. She wanted to speak with her father first before she reported back. In the bedroom, she changed into jeans and a t-shirt and then changed into a dress and her second-hand leather jacket, which her mother had purchased for her for Christmas the previous year. If there was one thing Olivia had, it was style sense. She and all her best friends had it, and it had been engrained in Chelsea from an early age: if you want to feel your best, you have to look as best as you can.
Xavier was a bit smaller than Tyler, which made the clothing situation problematic. Chelsea grabbed a college sweatshirt from Xavier’s collection and tossed it his way as he sat in just his jeans on the couch.
“This is fine,” Tyler said. “I’ll make it work.”
But as Chelsea and Tyler walked down the streets of Brooklyn on this beautiful morning in mid-September, Chelsea couldn’t help but feel that she walked alongside an oversized fraternity brother. He looked completely out of place in that sweatshirt, with his hair disheveled from drying post-shower. They still hadn’t said many words to one another, and Tyler had expressed that he’d never been this hungover in his life.
“It’s a cumulative hangover,” he explained. “I’ve been drinking for a few days.”
Chelsea led him to a nearby greasy-spoon diner. It had a few elements of the diner she so loved back in Edgartown, with the added spin of classic New Yorker types. There was even a juke box in the corner.
They sat at a corner booth and ordered breakfast sandwiches with egg, bacon and cheese.
“Keep the coffee coming,” Tyler told the waitress as she sped away from the table.
Chelsea wanted to tell Tyler not to order the waitress around like that, but she held her tongue. What did he know about the service industry? Besides, he didn’t fully know what his tone was like just then. He was a mess.
After their coffee came, Chelsea wrapped her hand around her mug and peered into her father’s exhausted eyes.
“All right, Dad. I think it’s time to fess up.” She tried to say it in a joking manner, but it came out rather hard.
Tyler swallowed a sip of coffee and then turned his eyes to the table. “I can’t begin to understand what it must have felt like to find me like that last night. I hardly remember it. I’m so sorry. Really, I am.”
The apology was almost enough. Chelsea nodded. “I admit that it was scary finding my dad like that.”
“I won’t do that to you again. I promise,” he lamented.
Chelsea wanted so badly to believe him that she just decided to go ahead and do it. She sipped her coffee again, then asked, “So, what happened?”
“You know. I’m not as strong as I seem, all the time,” Tyler began.
“I don’t think anyone is.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve made so many mistakes over the years, Chels. Leaving you and your mom, I mean, I don’t know if I’ll ever fully forgive myself for that. Your mother and I weren’t really in love anymore. Maybe we never were, I don’t know. We got off to a rocky start and it just continued to spiral out of control from then on out.”
“I know that. I heard you up fighting night after night, after all.”
“Sure. You were there for all of it. I know.” Tyler squeezed his eyes shut as though a pang of a headache had just struck him. “You know that Casey is about to give birth in just a few weeks.”
“I’m very well aware of that.”
“Well. Then, you probably figured already, because you’re a smart cookie like your mom, that I’m here because I’m freaked out about it. And Casey and I have started to fight like cats and dogs. Everything she does enrages me and everything I do makes her incredibly sad. We don’t mix anymore and to be honest, my drinking has taken a real turn.”
Chelsea wanted to say something sarcastic like, you don’t say? But she held it in.
“And so, I came back drunk the other night, and Casey told me I wasn’t allowed in. She had some guy there with her, this big guy, and he blocked the door. He threatened to call the police if I did anything. I asked him what the hell he could tell the police since this was my house. But he just stood there and overpowered me and I felt so, so small, stupid and drunk, Chels. And before I knew it, I’d checked into a hotel and ordered myself a bottle of whiskey. I drank that. And called Casey’s voicemail and screamed at her a few times. I don’t know if she heard them. I don’t even know what I said.”
“Jesus, Dad.” Chelsea had to admit, this was a side of her father she didn’t want to see. None of this should be put on her shoulders. She was the daughter, not his counselor. There was such darkness to this man; something she’d been able to pretend didn’t exist beforehand.
“Anyway, I suddenly found myself headed here. I checked out of the hotel and got on a bus and then suddenly, I was in Brooklyn. I knew where you lived because you’d sent me an email with your address in it. There I was, like an idiot, waiting for you to come home. And around then, I guess, I blacked out.”
Chelsea grimaced at the sight before her. Her father sat there looking like a very broken man. The waitress arrived with their breakfast sandwiches and refilled their coffees with a quick swoop of the spouted pot. The only thing Chelsea could think to do now was ask questions.
“Have you talked to Casey at all since you saw her at your house?”
“No. She hasn’t texted me or returned any of my calls,” Tyler replied.
“Do you think there’s a way you could fix things with her?”
Tyler shrugged and then bristled the slightest bit. “I honestly don’t know. I have no idea what to do. And right now, I want to eat this breakfast sandwich. Okay?”
Chelsea hated when her father got like this. She crossed her arms over her chest and turned her head as her father tore into his sandwich. The egg cracked, and the yolk of it smeared across the plate beneath. There had to be some kind of poem written about such an incident: the moment you realized you had more power over your life than your father, who was always meant to “take care” of you.
Tyler placed his sandwich back on his plate and swiped the napkin over his fingers. “Anyway, I was wondering if I could sleep on your couch for a few days, just until I decide what to do next.”
Throughout Chelsea’s teenage years, all she had wanted was her father to return home. She’d called him all the time and begged him to come home. He had always told her he couldn’t but that he would visit soon. Now, she had him there and the roles were reversed. Life was a funny thing.
“Sure, but only for a few days,” Chelsea said. “Our place is a shoebox.”
“We’ll make do,” Tyler said with a crooked grin.
A long time ago, Olivia had tried to explain to Chelsea why she’d fallen in love with Tyler in the first place. “He was so charming, endlessly charming. I had always felt so invisible until he looked at me and made me feel whole again. But Chelsea, I’m telling you. Never be like me. You’re whole in your own right. Don’t leave it to a man to tell you what you are or what you’re not. It took me a long, long time to learn that. But you’re stronger than me.”
Apparently, Chelsea wasn’t so different because she melted like butter at her father’s request. “I’ll just text Xavier to tell him what’s happening,” she said, praying Xavier wouldn’t be too upset.
Guess what, babe? We’re getting a new roommate. My dad!