The house on Grandview Avenue hadn’t changed since I last walked away. The yellow brick still needed power washing. The railing still left a rusty residue on my hands. As I rang the doorbell, I looked behind me at my gorgeous hometown Pittsburgh landscape, colored in hues of ripe sunset oranges and pinks while deep blue rivers snaked their way through the skyscrapers and mountains. The city held an aloof cinematic splendor that I suddenly realized I had missed.

When Dad answered the door, I hardly recognized him. Had it been that long?

“Marin!” He hardly finished my name before he pulled me into a hug that I feared would break every bone in his body. I hated how skeletal he felt in my arms. When he finally released me, I looked him over.

“Daddy, you look thin. Aren’t you eating?”

“Eh, your old man is getting too old, kiddo. And I stopped drinking. Totally sober now. Been going to AA and everything. Once I lost my beer gut there wasn’t much left of me.”

“That’s great! I’m proud of you. Did you get a sobriety chip?”

“It’s somewhere in the house. My memory isn’t as sharp as it used to be.”

“When was your memory ever sharp, Dad?”

He wagged a gnarled finger at me. “True, true.”

He ushered me into the living room and urged me to sit down. “Let me get ya something to drink.”

“I can get it.”

He held his hands out to stop me. “No, no, you sit. You want a pop?”

I thought back to the time I used that word to describe a soda in LA. It was the last time I would say pop after the ridicule I received.

I stepped around him. “Dad, I’ve been sitting for fourteen hours straight. I need to stretch my legs anyway, and I’m capable of grabbing myself a drink. What’ll you have?”

“Same as you’re having,” he called from the living room. His recliner squealed as he dropped into it.

As I opened the fridge, on the bottom shelf was a six-pack of beer. Sober, huh? Last I heard, if you were trying to stay sober you shouldn’t keep alcohol in the house. And certainly not in the fridge nice and cold and ready to crack open. As I grabbed two orange pops—I was in a safe place to use it again—I decided now wasn’t the time to ask about the beer in the fridge, or the half-empty bottle of whiskey sitting out on the counter. I was too tired to entertain excuses.

I carried our drinks in, handed Dad his, and sat across from him.

“Cheers to my prodigal daughter returning home,” he said, lifting his can.

“Hardly prodigal, Dad. I didn’t have time to be reckless, but cheers anyway.” I leaned forward and clinked mine against his.