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“And now, what?”
“Here I am, ground zero for memory lane. And honestly, staying sober would be a fuckuva lot easier if I wasn’t living here.”
“It’s hard?” she asked, her eyes softer and more understanding than my sins deserved.
I nodded. “Yeah. Every single fucking day, I think, ‘shit, I need a drink,’ just to try to stay above the memories.”
Her head tipped to one side. “Stay above the memories.”
“Yeah. I just mean—”
She cut in. “Oh, no. I know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean.” She was silent a moment. “I used to be treading water in the middle of an ocean of memories, and losing the battle to stay afloat.”
“How’d you get out? I mean, you seem like you’re not in that anymore.”
“I moved here,” she said. “I was still living in the home Darren and I had built together—and I mean that literally. He and I hired a builder, but we were involved every step of the way. I helped build the frame, pour the foundation, hang the drywall, install lighting, paint, hang cabinets…everything. It was our home from the ground up. I hung every picture, chose every cabinet pull and light fixture, painted every wall…with him. And then he was gone. My kids were gone, moved out and living their own lives, and I was alone in that house. Alone with the memories.”
“So you moved here?”
She shrugged. “Darren and I had gone on an Alaskan cruise, and spent a few nights here in Ketchikan. It was…it was actually the last trip he and I took together. He hadn’t really liked it here very much, but I had. He was always more of a homebody and a city sort of person. He was happiest sitting outside at a downtown cafe somewhere, sipping espresso and eating crepes. Whereas I was always more at home…” She waved a hand around us. “Out here.”
“Opposites, huh?”
She rolled a shoulder. “Sort of, in some ways.” A hesitation. “He would never have wanted to move here, but the moment we stepped off the ship I was in love with this place. I loved every single minute we spent here and was actually truly sad to get back on the ship and continue with the cruise. I just felt at home here, immediately. Eventually, of course, the cruise ended and we went back home, and I daydreamed about living here, even though I knew Darren would never go for it. Just like I would never go for his dream of getting a little condo in uptown Manhattan. He talked about that, and I talked about a little log house in the mountains somewhere, and were trying to figure out how to compromise when he retired and we were ready to sell our house and move.”
I couldn’t help a laugh of bitterness. “I have the opposite problem. My boys moved here after discovering they had family here. I…well, I had this idea of doing some traveling again. I’d gotten sober after the heart attack, and the boys actually got a little sneaky, sold the trailer and the ten and a half acres I owned out from under me, bought me a truck and a little used Airstream. I was almighty pissed at first, actually,” I said, laughing in amusement this time. “But then I hit the road and was thankful they’d forced my hand, or I’d never have left Oklahoma. I’d have been stuck there forever.”
“So they did you a favor.”
I laughed again. “Yep. I’m…well, I can be a little contrary sometimes.”
“No, really?” she drawled, sarcasm dripping from her voice.
“Ha ha,” I intoned drily.
“But then?”
I lifted a shoulder, flexing my knee again. “I was on the road for most of a year, just bumming around the country. Went over through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, up the coast to Maine, back down through New York and the Midwest, stopped for a while in Jackson Hole, and then headed up toward the Pacific Northwest. I was able to live off the proceeds of the sale of the trailer and acreage and not touch my retirement or savings, which was nice.” I paused. Thinking. Trying to avoid having to remember too much. “I, um…I was doing great, you know? Feeling good, sober, seeing the country again. Out of Oklahoma, and feeling like maybe I had a handle on life for the first time in a long time.”
“But then?” Liv repeated, prompting me to quit stalling and tell her what happened.
“But then I got to Seattle, and ran smack into a pile of bad memories. Some shit had happened in a certain park overlooking Puget Sound, and I…I thought I could handle it. I thought I could face…what had happened there. I thought maybe it’d help me to be there, to face things sober for the first time in…a long time.”
“No?” she asked, her voice hesitant.
“Not so much.” I swallowed, pausing. “I…well…it got the better of me. I couldn’t deal, couldn’t—facing it was too much. I ended up with a big ol’ bottle of booze, drank it all, quit caring, and…got behind the wheel. Dumbest thing I ever did. Pure blind luck I didn’t kill myself or someone else.” My face burned, and I swallowed hard. “Woke up in the hospital, laid up with a broken leg, broken arm, cracked ribs, cut up, hungover, knowing what I’d done. What I could’ve done. How I’d fucked up.”
“God, Lucas.”
“One dumb decision, and…” I shrugged, lifted my palms up. “My boys brought me up here, rented me an apartment, gave me an allowance, took turns watching me like a hawk while I recovered, got out of the casts, worked on staying sober again. I built myself a little life here, but this is where I grew up. This is where things really started to go sideways a long time ago and that led me to that park on Puget Sound which, in turn, led me to…to being a fat useless old alcoholic bumpkin with a bum leg and no car.”
“Hospital bills?” she guessed.
I shook my head. “Nah, I’m solvent enough. I had insurance—have insurance, through my retirement plan. I just…I can’t bring myself to get behind the wheel again, even though I’m sober and a pretty damn good driver.”
She eyed the sky. “You up for hiking some more?”
I nodded and heaved myself to feet, hauling myself up on the walking stick. “Let’s go.”
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” she asked, the picture of concern.
“Yep. We’re out here, on the trail, might as well finish the hike. A few more miles won’t kill me. Probably.”
She stopped, her face pale, shoulders drooping. “Lucas, I know you meant that as a joke, but I don’t find it funny.”
I cursed myself mentally. “Shit, Liv, I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me, and I’m sorry.”
She stared at me, eyes hard, fierce. “You know, you spend a lot of time talking about being a fat useless old man with a bum leg, but not a lot talking about what you could do to change that. You’ve been rather honest about not caring whether you lived or died, and I appreciate that honesty. But I have to be honest with you, Lucas—I can’t be friends with someone with not only no will to live, but no will to improve themselves. To become better than they are.” Her eyes bored into me, the compassion and concern gone, now replaced with something very much like anger. “Yes, you’re overweight. Yes, you have a history of heart disease and alcoholism, a bad diet, and a bad leg. All that is true, I grant you. The real question is, what are you going to do about it?”
And with that, she turned and walked away with an angry stomp in her step, arms swinging, Nalgene bottle bumping her hip. I followed, a bit more slowly, both because my leg was aching something fierce, but also because my gut and my heart were aching even more.
The easy camaraderie we’d shared at the beginning was gone, and the rest of the hike was consumed by a hard, cold silence from Olivia, and a tense, thoughtful, uncomfortable silence from me.
She carried the anger with her all the way to her truck, and the entire ride back to my house. It wasn’t until I was about to climb out that she spoke.
“Lucas…”
“Let me stop you right quick, okay? You didn’t say anything but the truth. Now I gotta think on what you said. Did I like hearing it? Not s’much. Did I need to hear it? Probably. Definitely, if I’m gonna be honest.”
“I wasn’t going to apologize.”
Liv traced the stitching on the steering wheel leather with a fingertip. “I was going to say that what I said was borne more out of anger at my husband than you, but that doesn’t make it any less true.” A long, thick silence. “I want to be your friend, Lucas. But I’m not sure I can, if you’re not able or willing to be healthy. To get healthy.” She shook her head. “The way I lost Darren? Lucas, I simply cannot go through that again. I cannot, and will not.”
I nodded. “I understand that. But you know as well as I do that changes like that have to come from me, not you. I couldn’t have stopped drinking for you, and I can’t change my diet and start exercising for you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
I tilted my head. “Mmm, you sort of are. It’s complicated, is what it is.” I held up a hand to forestall her. “I want to be your friend. I like spending time with you. So what I’m saying is, I need to think on some things.”
She nodded. “Okay. I have client meetings and designs to work on that will take up most of this week.”
“I did enjoy the hike,” I said.
“Until things sort of blew up?”
I laughed. “Yeah, up until that. But I bet you could get me on another hike, and maybe the next time, things won’t go boom.”
“I’d like that,” she said, her voice low and quiet. “A lot.”
“Me too.”
“Come on, Dad! Move your tubby ass!” Roman stood twenty-five yards away, at the end of the alley behind my nephew’s gym, encouraging/insulting me as I flipped a giant tractor tire over until it slammed down, heaved it up and lifted it on end, and flipped it over again.
I was shirtless, clad in a pair of ragged, ratty, stained old shorts and a trashed pair of old running shoes. I was sweating like a pig, gasping for breath, and wishing I could heave this damn tire at Roman’s stupid face.
“I am moving my tubby ass, you fuckin’ annoying pencil dick punk!” I snapped back.
“You’re lazy, is what are, old man,” Roman bellowed. “Flip it faster!”
The asshole knew what he was doing, I had to give him that. Nothing could get me moving faster and working harder than being pissed off, and he was intentionally needling me. The more he teased, ridiculed, barked, insulted, and annoyed me, the angrier I got, and the angrier I got, the harder I worked to get this shit over with.
I had been recently cleared by my doctor for more vigorous activity like this, as I’d spent the last two weeks regularly working on my weaker leg, strengthening and stretching—it still got sore and achy, like it was now, but I could tough it out.
I’d already flipped the tire twenty-five yards one direction, and now I was flipping it back to where Roman stood; the bastard was built like a god, and that was as much motivation as anything he could say. I used to be just like that, and I’d lost it. Wasted it. He stood there all six feet four inches of heavily muscled, ripped to nil body fat, toned, tanned perfection, looking like a blond mirror image of me thirty-some years ago.
It pissed me off.
I was determined to be that again.
So, with the giant-ass tire on the ground in front of me, heavy as hell, and me hot from the sun, I summoned willpower, summoned anger at myself, snarled like the fat shaggy bear I resembled, and heaved it up to shoulder height, reversed my grip, and pushed it forward until it slammed down with a ringing thud. I repeated it again and again without pause until it slammed down inches from Roman’s toes.
He grinned at me. “Good job, Pops.” He checked the stopwatch on his phone. “That’s a record, by the way.”
I controlled my breathing, wiping sweat from my eyes. “Yeah?”
He nodded. “Beat your best fifty-yard tire flip time by a whole ten seconds.”
I looked down at myself: I wasn’t willing to step onto a scale just yet, but I knew I was making progress: I could almost see my toes. Almost.
Roman watched me for a moment. “Dad, it’s time.”
My eyes snapped up to his. “Time for what?”
“To weigh in.”
“Fuck that. I ain’t doin’ this to weigh less, I’m doin’ this to get rid of the fat and look like I used to look.”
He nodded, serious in a way he rarely was. “I know. But to do that, you need some kind of metric for your progress.”
“Last time I stepped on a scale, I damn near barfed at the number. Ain’t going there. I know where I’m at—still real fuckin’ far from my goal. For now, the only metric I need is to look down.” I slapped my belly.
Roman growled. “Pops. Listen to me, okay? Having more specific goals will help. Can you just trust me on this?”
“Why? Because you’ve ever had to lose eighty pounds?”
“No, but because I know what the fuck I’m talking about!”
I spun away. “I ain’t havin’ this conversation with you, goddammit!” I kicked the tire, and immediately regretted it, hopping around to alleviate the sting in my toe. “Just tell me what to do next.”
I heard a door open, then, and my monster of a nephew sauntered out. “Yo, Rome. Maybe you two oughta let me take over. Some objectivity and all that.” Baxter was four full inches shorter than both Roman and I, but was bodybuilder bulky, yet shredded like an athlete. It was ridiculous, honestly.
Roman eyed Baxter. “You think you can make some headway with the stubborn old grizzly, be my guest. I’m just getting pissed off.”
Bax slapped Roman on the shoulder. “Go hit the bags or something. I got this.”
Roman yanked open the door to the gym, frustration in every line of his body. “Dad, I’m just—”
I flipped him off. “Get outta here, Rome. Bax has a point. We’re too much alike for this to work anymore today.”
He nodded. “I just want to see you succeed at this.”
“I will.” I met his eyes. “I got no choice, you know? I ducked the hand of Death twice. I won’t get a third chance.”
He let out a breath, nodded, and then shot a grin at Bax. “All yours, cuz.”
Bax eyed the equipment Roman had used for our session: the tire, a pair of thick ropes, some big weights shaped like balls with flat bottoms and a wide handle, and a small but heavy leather ball.
“Rome was on the right track,” Bax said, nodding. “But let’s get some basics down. First, I don’t give a shit what you weigh. It’s just a number. You want to cut the fat and build muscle, get back to being the big bad beefcake you used to be. Yeah?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He dug a tape measure out of the pocket of his athletic shorts. “We’re going to do a few things, okay? One, measure the girth of your arms, shoulders, waist, and thighs.” From the same pocket he took something like a pair tongs or pincers. “This is a body fat caliper. There are some calculations involved, and I’ll spare you that, but it measures your body fat, and that’s what we need to know.” He pulled a phone from his other pocket. “Third, we’re going to take pictures—side and front.”
I winced. “First two, fine. Third? Nuh-uh.”
Bax lifted his chin. “Yes. You’re doing it.” He arched an eyebrow, hardened his jaw. “Like your kid said, it’s a metric. It’s a marker of where you are now, and when you get frustrated with your lack of progress—or rather, your perceived lack of progress, you look at the progress pics and realize, damn, I am getting somewhere. My experience as a trainer has proven that your shape changes before the numbers do.”
I sighed. “I guess I gotta face myself so I can change myself, huh?
Bax nodded. “Truer words have never been spoken, Uncle Lucas.”
So, we spent the next half an hour taking measurements with the tape measure and then using the calipers to pinch my fat in various places, after which Bax would type things into his phone and do calculations, and then, finally, I posed for front-facing and profile photos.
Bax set the calipers and tape measure on the ground, tapping his phone against his palm. “You wanna know?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“
Your body fat is just over forty percent.”
I winced. “That’s…not good.”
He scoffed. “No, Uncle Lucas, that’s not good. At all. And I’m not gonna sugarcoat it for you.”
I wiped my face with both hands. “Where should I be at?”
“Well, that’s a relative and subjective question. Better question for you to ask is what’s your goal?”
“Okay, then…what’s my goal?”
He laughed, shrugging. “That’s up to you.” He slapped his belly—or rather, the twenty-four pack abs. “This is around eight to ten percent—I’m pretty good at maintaining at this point, so I don’t measure it too frequently. I think for now, a good and reasonable goal—meaning attainable if you stay committed and consistent—would be around fifteen to twenty percent.”
I scoffed. “So I just need to drop twenty percent of my body weight in fat.”
He shrugged. “It sure as fuck was never gonna be easy. Hell, I do this for a living and it’s not easy maintaining this body. What you’ve got to do, now? Shit, man. It’s gonna be really fuckin’ hard.” His dark eyes bored into mine. “You gotta want it. You gotta need it. You gotta be a million, billion percent committed to it.”
“I almost fuckin’ died from not caring what happened to me, or what I looked like.” I swallowed hard. “I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t even know I had nephews. Now I’ve got you, your brothers, all those women you fellas have snagged. And all of you fuckers look like Olympians and Greek gods, and here I am, fat a fuckin’ walrus. But more’n that, I…shit. I just…I care now. I care if I live. I care if I look like shit. So yeah, Bax. I don’t just want it, I really do honestly need it.”
“Heard you may have another motivation on your mind, too.” His eyes twinkled, a grin on his lips. “Of the variety which comes with curves and a sweet smile.”
“Ain’t none of your fuckin’ business, Baxter.”