Play On by Michelle Smith

Author:Michelle Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spencer Hill Contemporary
Published: 2015-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

chapter fourteen

On our way back from the cemetery on Sunday afternoon, Momma won’t even look at me. It’s the first time we’ve been to Dad’s grave together since Christmas, and this visit went about as well as the last. After I pull my truck into the driveway, she stays put in the passenger seat, staring at our house through the windshield. Her disappointment is kind of a given. I just wish she’d say something, anything, because the silent treatment is the worst punishment ever created.

“Momma,” I venture. “I’m sorry.”

She scoffs. Shakes her head. Keeps her eyes trained on our house, the same house that Dad’s dad, my papa, built with his bare hands. And I’m sure she’s thinking about that, about how our house is full of so much heart and so many memories, and wondering how I can be so insensitive about my own dad’s memory, especially on his birthday.

Her words from earlier. Not mine.

“I can’t do it,” I continue, loosening the collar on my button-down church shirt. “I know today’s his birthday, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, and I tried, but I can’t get out of the truck at his grave. I can’t—” I sigh. I can’t mourn someone I half-hate. But I’m not going to tell her that. “I just can’t.”

She nods slowly, as if she’s thinking about my words, and unbuckles her seatbelt. “I know you’re still having a rough time with this. But at the end of the day, he’s still your daddy. One day, you’ll regret holding on to the bitterness. It’ll eat you alive.”

It’s not the first time she’s told me that. It won’t be the last. “I think I have a right to be pissed—”

She cuts me off with The Look. You know the one: the one that says to shut your mouth while you have the chance. She shifts in her seat, facing me. “You listen to me right now, Austin Michael, and you listen real, real good. You need people in your life. People you can count on, people who love you, people who you love. And when you find those people, you hold on to them for dear life. That’s why I still hold on to your daddy, and that’s why I make sure you get time with your friends. With Marisa.”

Oh.

“The way your daddy left this earth was horrible,” she says. “I don’t understand why, and I know you don’t either. But don’t you dare, for one second, speak ill of him now that he’s gone. Maybe you should think about the years he spent teaching you how to throw a ball. Think about every single one of those games he showed up to since you started T-ball. Think about how that man used to be your idol. Think about how you were his everything.”

My throat tightens. I can’t think about those things. I can’t, because they’d reduce me to a pathetic, sobbing mess. And I clearly wasn’t his everything, considering I wasn’t enough for him to stick around.

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