Recovery

Patrick Roche - 21

21. My father is run over by a car. He's passed out in the road with a blood alcohol content four times the legal limit. I do not cry. Four months later, the nurses lose his pulse and I wonder whose life flashed before his eyes ; rewinding VHS tapes, old home videos.

20. 

19. I haven't brought a friend home in four years.

18. My mother sips the word divorce, her mouth curls at the taste like it burns going down.

17. I start doing homework at Starbucks ; I have more meaningful conversations with the barista than with my family,

16. I wait for Christmas eve. My brother and I usually exchange gifts to one another early ; this year, he and my father exchange blows. My mother doesn't go to mass.

15. I come up with the theory that my father started drinking again because maybe he found out I was gay.

15. I blame myself.

15. My brother blames everyone else.

15. My mother blames the dog.

15. Super Bowl Sunday, my father bursts through the door like an avalanche picking up speed and debris as he falls ; banisters, coffee tables, picture frames. Tumbling, stumbling. I find his AA chip on the kitchen counter.

14. My father's been sober for 10, maybe 11 years? I just know. We don't even think about it anymore.

13.

12. 

11. Mom tells me Daddy's "meetings" are for AA. She asks if I know what that means. I don't. I nod anyway.

10. My parents never drink wine at family gatherings. All my other aunts and uncles do. I get distracted by the TV and forget to ask why.

9.

8.

7.

6. I want to be Spider-Man. Or my dad. They're kinda the same.

5.

4.

3. I have a nightmare. The recurring one about Ursula from The Little Mermaid. So I get up. I waddle toward Mommy and Daddy's room. Blankie in hand, I pause. Daddy's standing in his underwear silhouetted by refrigerator light. He raises a bottle to his lips.

2.

1.

0. When my mother was pregnant with me, I wonder if she hoped, as many mothers do, that her baby boy would grow up to be just like... his father.