The Ugly Truth by CL Walters

Author:CL Walters [Walters, CL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781734256864
Publisher: Mixed Plate Press

WAY BEFORE

Chapter Nineteen

THE THING ABOUT HOPE. . .

* * *

A

nother good day. I smile, happy, but I don’t dare drop my guard. That could change on a dime. I slide out from under the rusty, red truck and glance at my dad grateful he’s smiling.

“Here,” my father hands me a shop rag. “Use this to clean off your hands.”

I take the blue cloth. “Thank you, sir.” I sit up and wipe my hands.

“Super important to be as clean as possible. Especially when it come to the lubricants in engines. My dad–” He stops, and I tense. I see him frown and then swallow. He glances at me and shifts back to a tentative smile. “Well, never mind about that.”

He walks over to the other side of the truck, to the workbench.

I stand, pick up what my dad taught me is called a creeper, and turn to look at him.

He’s standing and staring at the pegboard above the counter of the workbench. Everything is perfectly ordered. The tools are all in their places, nothing astray. He opens a drawer and places the tool inside.

“Dad?”

He turns. “It’s nothing,” he says, but he’s frowning.

I drop it, knowing better than to push. Even if he hasn’t had a drink in a little over a month, I don’t want it to change. I say instead, “That wasn’t too bad—changing the oil.”

He shakes his head, as if shaking away something inside of it, and looks at me. “Yes. You did a good job. I think we’ll have it running in no time.” He runs his hand over the hood of the ancient Chevy. “This is going to make a great first vehicle.”

He brought the truck home with the promise it could be mine when I got my license in a couple of years, but we’d have to work on it together to get it running. It’s a piece of shit, but I’m not complaining. Ever since he brought it home, he hasn’t touched any alcohol. Things have been so much better. Mom’s even smiling.

I have a feeling, and told Gabe as much, that I think my dad brought the truck because he was trying to stop drinking.

“Is he doing one of those programs?” Gabe had asked.

“I guess.”

“Does he have a sponsor?” Gabe knows a lot about that kind of stuff because of his life before. Not since Dale and Martha, his life now.

“I think. Sometimes he stops whatever he’s doing and makes a call. And there’s this guy named Mitch who visits sometimes. He doesn’t drink either.”

“I bet that’s it,” Gabe had said, and then proceeded to kick my butt playing basketball.

That was a couple of weeks ago. Now, I put the creeper in its place. “What next?” I ask.

My father walks around the front of the truck and holds something in his hand. “Here,” he says and holds it out to me.

I walk to him, trying to be confident when I’m close to him, unafraid.

He opens his hand and in it is a pocket watch. “Take it.

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