I come into the kitchen, late for work as usual, and that’s when my world falls apart. That’s when my Dad tries to hug me. I’d just finished my coffee and placed my mug in the sink when he comes up behind me, turns me around, and gently puts his arms around me. He’s never done this before. So I push him away, horrified, as if he’s just tossed boiling water in my face.
     But he smiles, embarrassed, new at this, not knowing how it’s supposed to be done. So I grab my keys and head for the garage, desperate to get out of this house.
     In the car, I turn the radio on full blast and sing, or actually scream, along with the Bee Gees as they’re stayin’ alive. I pound the wheel, searching for a beat, stalling for time, stifling my disgust—I’m not sure what I’m trying to do. All I know is some core beliefs are beginning to crumble in my head and I feel a need to protect life as I’ve known it for the past 27 years.
     All I can say is this is not what I expected.
     They told me the program would change him. He’d follow the twelve steps, take one day at a time, and turn into a different man—in two years, or three, maybe more. He’d find serenity, realize his powerlessness, turn his life over to God. And finally, I hoped, he’d become the father I always wanted him to be. But not this. Not this … gentleness.
     Then things get even worse.
     At work, my boss pulls me aside and says she’ll have to let me go if this happens again. “We can’t tolerate tardiness,” she tells me. “Your shift starts at seven. So we want you here at seven. Your patients need you. They deserve better.”
     I’m an aide at Sutton’s Care Center, and from seven to three I help take care of 21 old people on the sixth floor. It’s the dementia ward. And my boss is right; they deserve better. But this place functions like a machine, and giving these poor souls the care they really deserve will just gum up the works. So my boss is full of crap and I know it.
     What I’m expected to do is precise and straightforward: At seven o’clock, I get everyone out of bed, take them to the bathroom, dress them, wheel them into the dining room and feed breakfast to those who can’t feed themselves. At nine, I roll them into the day room to watch television, snooze or endure the activities director who urges them to sing along or toss around a beach ball. At 11:30, they go back into the dining room for lunch, where we feed, burp, baby and sweet talk them into swallowing their meds. And then I wheel them back to their rooms for afternoon naps. Once a week they get a bath. Twice a day they get their diapers changed. And that’s about it. We have no time for anything else.
     I get two 15-minute breaks and one 30-minute lunch hour. I spend them outside on the dock smoking cigarettes with Antonio, an aide from Ecuador, who has a drinking problem. I know that, because I just know.
     It’s the obsession I can spot a mile away. They’re so empty inside and so focused on filling up that hole, they have no energy left for me or anyone else. And I like that, because this is what I know. I’m comfortable with alcoholics. I can hide deep inside myself when they’re around. And they don’t even know I’m not there.
     Antonio is married and has a baby boy. But he likes to flirt and we’ve met at Burger Bill’s after work a couple of times for hamburgers and beer. Nothing has ever happened, but I like the feeling that something might.
       
     I am the youngest of three children, and I’ve always been this way—liking the lure of things I shouldn’t have. Seth, the oldest, was killed in a car crash at 17. I was nine at the time. Maryann is now 32. She got married right after high school and divorced six years later. She and her two kids live in Atlanta, too far away for them to visit—or so she keeps telling me.
     We grew up in a house where silence shook the rafters. No one talked, because the less we said, the better off we were. One wrong word would set Dad off and there he’d go, stomping off into the night, slamming doors and snorting like an angry rhino defining his turf. He’d return hours later, bloated and bleary-eyed, ready for a fight. Seth and Maryann felt the initial fury of his fists. I holed up behind the washing machine, so I was safe. By the time he got to me, he was too exhausted to pull me out and too drunk to even try.
     Pretty soon he was just too old and stopped trying altogether.
     By that time, Seth was dead and Maryann was gone. Mom was in the hospital dying from cancer and I was alone in the house with a shriveled-up alcoholic who’d walk through each room looking stunned. He disappeared after the funeral and then showed up a month later with the Big Book under his arm and AA pamphlets stuffed in his back pockets.
     We’ve been living separate lives under one roof ever since.
     It works out perfectly. I have day jobs, and he works nights as an airline mechanic. When I get home from work, he’s gone to one of his meetings. When I have a boyfriend over, or bring someone home from the bar, we have the place to ourselves. Dad doesn’t get home until after eight in the morning; and by that time, I’m gone. So we rarely run into each other, which is fine with me.    
     Except this morning—this odd, twisted Tuesday morning when he tried to hug me and life as I know it started slipping away.

     Mr. Bileski is having a bad day.
     I hoist him out of bed and, with his baritone voice and flailing arms, he bellows out that I should go to hell and fuck off, which upsets Mrs. Edwards across the hall. She tries to drown him out with her moaning, which gets Miss Elgin singing, “get me up, get me up, get me up,” over and over again. And she won’t stop until we get her out of bed and into the dining room, where she’ll start singing “give me something to eat, give me something to eat, give me something to eat.”
     I am known for my patience and a soothing voice that can calm these people down. I’m good at handling the chaos they throw my way. So I coo at Mr. Bileski like a reassuring mother, “You’re having a bad day, aren’t you. You’ll be okay. I know you will. I know you will.”
     At my last evaluation, my boss struggled to find something positive to say about my work. So she told me I was good with patients. “We keep hearing good things about you from the families,” she said. Thank God for that, because without their support, I know I’d get fired. This is my third job in two years and my inability to tolerate stupid bosses is one reason I never last long. Following orders feels like being stuffed into a box with no air to breathe. Eventually, I have to burst out, blow their little rules to smithereens and then, of course, start looking for another job.
     Unfortunately, I’m always broke, and that’s why I still live at home.
     Mrs. Bileski, who visits her husband every day, seeks me out. “I hear he had a bad morning,” she says. “I’m so sorry. It’s so unlike him. He was always such a gentle man. He would never think of swearing in front of a woman.”
     I smile and tell her it’s okay. “I can see he’s a good man,” I say. “It’s not him. It’s the illness.”
     Tears well up in her eyes and she pats me on the arm. “You’re a good girl,” she says. “He’s so lucky to have you here.” Then she tells me how he’s disappearing in front of her eyes, how happy their life had been, how the kids won’t visit him any more, how the bills are piling up, how lonely she is. What she doesn’t tell me, and what I see in her face, is the horror of having to watch the deterioration of a kind man who is turning cruel—and her inability to do anything about it.
     “It’s so unfair,” she tells me. “It’s so hard to see him go this way.”
     “I know,” I say, patting her hand, “I know.”
     Then I see Akeesha, my co-worker, who looks at me with murder in her eyes, letting me know I better end this conversation soon. I’m so caught up in Mrs. Bileski’s anguish that I’ve fallen behind in my work, and Akeesha has been asked to pick up the slack. So I know I’m in trouble again.
     At lunch, Antonio tells me about his wife, how she’s getting fat and won’t learn English. “I want better things for myself, you know?” he says, blowing smoke in my eyes. “She’s holding me back. I want a better life.”
     “I know,” I say.  “I know.”
     Later, as I’m leaving work, I find my boss’s note taped to my locker. “Come to my office tomorrow morning, seven sharp,” it says. Now I feel sick to my stomach. My rapport with families probably won’t save me this time. Her note is not a good sign.

     “Why were you disgusted?” Marilyn asks after I tell her the story.
     Marilyn is a therapist I meet once in awhile after work, and this is our sixth session together. But I may be dropping her, because she’s not giving me what I want.
     I came to her after breaking up with Sammy, my last boyfriend, who said I was getting too serious and then dumped me for a 19-year old waitress. I had met him at Shamrock’s, a singles bar down the street, where I spend most of my Friday nights.
     At our first session she asked, “Why are you here?”
     For some reason I started sobbing and couldn’t stop. It felt like I’d been walking thousands of miles in the sun and here, at last, was a shady place to stop and rest for awhile. Eventually, I said, “because I don’t know how to make relationships work with men. I don’t know how to make them love me.” And, feeling the shame of it, I continued to cry.
     After asking a lot more questions, Marilyn finally said, “No, this isn’t about the men in your life. This is about growing up in that house with your Mom and your Dad, with Seth and Maryann. And we have a lot of work to do. I hope you come back.”
     I did, of course. I wasn’t getting the answers I wanted, but I liked the lightness I felt every time I left her office. I liked being listened to.
     So I repeated her question. “Why was I disgusted? I don’t know,” I say. “I’m still trying to figure that out. Maybe because that’s not who he is. He’s trying to be affectionate; and he’s not an affectionate man.”
     “And what kind of man is he?”
     “He’s an asshole. That’s who he is. He’s a coward and a bully. He likes to beat up little people.”
     “Do you think he could be more?”
     “More what? Like a good person?”
     “Sure.”
     “I seriously doubt it.”
     We sit in silence for awhile. She lets me think about what I just said, which drives me crazy. My mind works better when I can put people in boxes and label them as black or white, good or bad. Marilyn keeps talking about shades of gray, and urges me to consider this way of thinking. But such mushiness makes me nervous. If blacks and whites blend together and those orderly boxes fall apart in my head, lord knows what will ooze out into the light of day. If that ever happens, who will be in control? Who will put everything back together again?
     “Are you taking his side?” I ask.
     “What makes you say that?”
     “Because you’re always asking me to focus on his good qualities—as if you’re trying to make excuses for what he did.”
     “I just want to know why you felt disgusted this morning. You also said you were terrified. I’d like to know more about your fear and what’s behind it.”
     So we dance around the issue for awhile and I’m getting angry. This is not going the way I want it to go. Pretty soon the hour is over and I’m too agitated to set up an appointment for next week. I won’t look her in the eye and I’m overly polite as I leave. But her eyes are kind and she watches me with interest.
     As I slam her door, she makes one final try. “Think about that terrified feeling. Try to figure out what your fear is all about.”
     I walk to my car, stiff with a rage that has settled in my bones. I feel brittle and taut, like a wire ready to snap. I want to punch someone. The lightness I expect is eluding me today and I’m angry at Marilyn for causing my discomfort. I’m angry at myself for being angry. But most of all, I’m angry at my Dad for changing everything.

     It’s dinner time and it’s Tuesday night, so Shamrock’s is almost empty. I’m the only woman there, and I order something strong to blur the edges off a bad day. A guy sitting at the bar buys my second drink and then walks over with a beer in his hand. He says his name is Terry and I can tell he’s been here awhile.
     Our conversation is familiar and safe. We flirt; we laugh; we drink; we lie about our lives. We pretend we’re someone we’d like to be, and we try to ignore what’s really going on. Or I am, anyway. But everything seems different tonight. I’m sensing a sadness I never experienced before, and it’s hanging in the air like cigarette smoke. I see lonely men hunched over their drinks—doting Dads protecting their precious child. I hear forced laughter coming from someone trying too hard to be happy.
     Then I realize that laughter is mine; and I figure it’s time to leave.
     So when Terry heads for the bathroom, I grab my purse and go. I sit several minutes in the car, trying to recapture the blissful blur of happy hour, but it’s gone. Instead, I remember my Dad’s hug this morning and grow tight with dread. I realize some dam has busted inside my heart, and my old survival tricks won’t work any more.
     I realize I’m probably at some crossroads right now where I have to change or make some difficult choices. Going left will take me down a safe, familiar path—but one that no longer feels good.  Going right will lead me into some wild, uncharted terrain, where I might find misery, or happiness, or maybe something worse. I don’t know.  And it’s the not knowing what to do or what to expect that is scaring me half to death.
     But then I realize my real fear is about annihilation. I am who I am because of my Dad. If he’s changed, then who am I? And what do I become around a gentle man who doesn’t drink anymore?
     But these thoughts are giving me a headache. So I check the mirror for cops and start my car, driving home with the caution of a woman who is a little bit drunk.

     When I get there, Dad is sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. He nods hello as I stumble through the back door and try hard not to show surprise.
     “You okay?” he asks.
     “Sure, I’m okay. I’m always okay.”
     “Coffee’s fresh; I just made it.”
     I pull out my mug, pour myself some coffee and plop down in the chair across from him.  I keep smiling, just to let him know I can catch whatever he’s about to throw at me.
     “I’m sorry about this morning,” he says. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
     I blow on the coffee, test it with my tongue.
     “This is all so new to me,” he says. “I feel like a baby taking my first steps.” He pauses, chews on his lips for awhile, choosing the words. “In this program, in AA, we make amends to those we hurt. And Lord knows I brought nothing but hurt to this family.”
     I stare at him, mug in hand, trying to recapture the sweet buzz I felt in the bar, trying to keep that smile on my face.
     “So I guess that’s what I’d like to do—to you—to make amends.”
     “Make amends,” I snort back at him.
     “Yes,” he says. “I’d like to make amends. I’m just so sorry. So sorry. For everything I’ve done. Just everything. I can’t tell you …”
     And then my Dad does a terrifying thing. He starts to cry. Not the controlled kind of crying where tears flow gently down your face and earn you a consoling word or two, or maybe a pat on the back. But crying that starts in your stomach, jerks up through your body and smacks you right in the face, making it ugly and distorted and embarrassing everyone around you. You spit and hiccup and drool and moan and then cover your eyes, trying to protect the real, raw you that is now naked and fully exposed; and you’re suddenly aware that one mean word, one angry retort, one demeaning sneer, will crush you to the core. You don’t ever want to feel this vulnerable again.
     What I do next surprises me. I reach out to take his hand, but he pulls away, as if I burned him with a match.
     He stops crying and apologizes.
     “That’s okay,” I tell him, remembering this morning. “I know how you feel.”
     We look at each other for awhile.
     “We have a long road to go, you and I, don’t we,” he says, wiping the dribble from his nose. “We have a lot of work to do.”
      Then, when I don’t respond, “Are you okay?” he asks.
     While we blow and sip on our coffee for awhile, I think about what he just asked me. Finally, I say, as truthfully as I can. “I think so, Dad. But I’m not sure. I don’t know any more. I’m not sure what to do. I just don’t know.”
     “That’s a good start,” he says, trying to smile. “That’s a good place to be. Want to come with me to my meeting tomorrow night? See what it’s all about?”
     And I nod my head, noticing with sadness, how sharp-edged the world has suddenly become. There’s no more blur to hide behind.
     Then I watch him warily as he rises from the table and returns, refilling our cups with steady hands.