The Humdrum Life of a Hero

Chapter 8.

He's late. He's really late, I check my phone for the eighth time in the last ten minutes. He better not screw this up.

Bridgette's hand places itself on my shoulder, which is shaking from the late October frigid temperature. She lays her head on top of the hand on my shoulder and says, "Don't worry. He'll be here."

"How can you be sure?" I ask, my voice shaky. "You know how much of a flake he is."

"Sarah, trust me. He's probably just running behind." She lifts her head and puts her hands on both sides of my face, moving it so we're nose to nose. "Please, just calm down. You're going to give yourself a panic attack, and I really don't want to deal with that right now."

I shake her hands off me and take a deep breath. She's right; I need to pull myself together. I definitely don't want him seeing me like this, all jittery and flipped out. I smooth down my extremely wrinkled jeans and fix the collar of my fleece zip-up, which I'm quickly realizing I should've ditched for an actual coat. I tousle my limp curls one last time.

When I see him walking through the gates, I roll my shoulders back and stand up straight, and as he approaches, I realize he didn't even change out of uniform.

"Captain Crunch," Bridgette laughs and salutes.

To humor her, my father falls back into Army-mode and snarls back at her. "That's Staff Sergeant to you, Private Valencia."

My father messes up Bridgette's hair and then turns to me. At six foot four inches, he towers over me and Bridgette, and well, most people he meets. He's still dressed in his fatigues, which, for him, is highly unusual, because he swears he knows the difference between his work clothes and casual clothes. Tonight, though, he must be forgetting the difference.

"Sarasota, how's my girl doing?" he says with a big toothy smile. He outstretches his arms, and I walk into them. The last time I hugged my father was well over a month ago, before Jay entered my life and made me forget how much I missed my father. Now, with my head against my father's chest, I'm remembering how much I miss him.

In the parking lot of Chuck-E-Cheese's last Saturday, my father called to tell me that he has this entire weekend until Tuesday off and that he'll be able to make it to Tony's Senior Night. I had called him the week prior to tell him about how he should really try to be there, but if he couldn't we'd understand.

"I'm okay," I tell him as I break our embrace. He cocks his head to the side, his close-shaven haircut making me wonder what he'd look like with longer hair. He's the tree from which the apples of Nick and Tony fell with all of their matching brown hair and bright blue eyes. "Why just 'okay'?"

I shrug, because I'm afraid if I open my mouth a harsh couple of sentences that have to do with his excessive work and my raising of his kids might escape. I love my dad, I really do, but sometimes I can comprehend why my mom got so fed up with him because he can be gone for an entire month and come back and just pretend like everything is just dandy. Still, it doesn't justify her leaving four kids to fend for themselves.

The scoreboard buzzer sounds, signaling halftime and the time my father gets to escort Tony down the 50 yard line. Usually the mother and father escort their son down the yard line, but clealy, we adhere to that tradition.

"We should probably get over there," I grab my father's hand and all three of us walk to the fence where all the parents of seniors are gathering. I spot Tony, Jay, and Marcus just inside the fence. They're sweaty, but all of their sweat is paying off because we're up 21-2.

Tony's eyes light up when he sees our father. He meets us at the fence and they embrace just like he and I did a minute ago. I see Tony's face when they break apart, and if I didn't know better, I'd believe the couple droplets of water running down his face were sweat.