Drowning in You by Rebecca Berto Read Free Book Online

continues to open and shut
but the weight of the sadness in my throat is impossible to speak
over.
    Dad waggles his fingers at me.
I lie by his side and he drapes his arm over my waist and hugs me.
Hard as I’ve tried to be strong, this moment and the last month and
a half have been the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced, and now my
dying father is the strong one because my mind goes like this:
    How dare you? How dare you
leave me? I need you, Dad. Dad? Stay here and be my dad. What’ll
happen after a couple of years when I don’t have a reason to say
your name anymore? When you’ll only pop up in conversations when we
talk about the guy who saved the Australian car industry with
Roycroft Engines? I don’t want you to be a memory, Dad. I need to
you live your life with mine, concurrent, so we can go on together.
What will I do when your life stops and mine continues the next
second, minute, day, year? How do I go on when you’re not there to
share my life?
    Some time
passes with Dad shhing me and rubbing my arm and mostly saying soothing things
through that gravel-rubbed voice again because he doesn’t have the
physical strength to do much else.
    “ Can you sit
up?”
    Yes, I’ll do
anything. I sit up, not bothering to wipe
my face this time although tears streak down my cheeks and land in
my lap.
    “ I don’t want
to hurt you, but I believe in you, Charlee. You’re my big girl.
You’re my gorgeous, beautiful young lady. I just needed to talk to
someone about these things, but I get it. I can’t imagine what this
is like for you, hon. I’m sorry.”
    “ Daddy, no…”
How insensitive am I? Who’s the sick one here? Guilt feels so much
worse when it eats up your mind and thoughts. In a memory, guilt
seems bad, but in the midst of experiencing it, it’s entwined with
unstoppable regret that I cannot hold, and so it crushes my
everything.
    “ Tell me. I
was distracted and silly and…tell me. Dad, tell me because I need
to know and I want you to tell me.”
    But I’m lying.
    He nods. “I’ll need those gummy
teeth first.” I bend to the floor and hand him the gummy teeth
candy. He shakes his head. “A whole set, if I may.” I hand him the
other one.
    Dad sets them in between his
top and bottom gums and the inside of both lips. Attempts a smile
but they fall out of his grin.
    We laugh, in a real and raw
way, which reminds me of Elliot and walking away from him with
pride and resolution. I take a breath and I’m better. Not fine, but
okay.
    “ My kidneys
haven’t worked since the accident, Charlee. I’m sleeping fourteen
hours a day. They say the dialysis can cause fatigue. The blood
poisoning has caused irreversible damage to my heart and liver,
too.”
    My mouth hangs open. I don’t
know what to say because I’ve made sure I hadn’t heard the
seriousness of Dad’s state for a reason. I don’t know why I was
worried. I’m not crying. Everything is dreamy. This room doesn’t
feel real. I pinch my skin and it doesn’t hurt all too much. Maybe
this will still work out.
    “ I want to
tell you so you can prepare Darcy. Now we don’t have to go talking
wills or other drastic things, but they’ve always been in place so
don’t you worry about the superficial stuff, okay?”
    Dad continues talking so maybe
I nodded to him. “I don’t want Darcy hating me for the rest of his
life because I thought he was too young. I don’t want the last
things I say to him to be promises I can’t keep. That would be the
most cowardly act of all and I don’t want either of my children to
remember me like that.”
    “ A-are you
scared?” I say. As soon as the question is out I regret even
thinking it, let alone saying it aloud. Insensitive, silly, bad
choice.
    “ More
disappointed than anything.”
    “ Oh?”
    “ I planned to
walk you down the aisle. You are going to get married, right?” I
nod. “Good. I planned to embarrass the hell out of Darcy at his
twenty-first, like Mel and I wanted to do to