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Back At Dawn Save as PDF
Chapters (39)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
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  39. Copyright

I went to the table and did as I was told, watching closely as my mother approached. He leaned over the bar and kissed her, handed her the flowers, said something that I assumed was an apology. She put the roses in a pitcher and poured my father a beer, and just like that, all was forgiven. He walked up to Danny. The two men shook hands and talked for a minute or two, and then he came down to me where I’d been waiting at the table with the balls already racked. We shot two games. He let me win both and then we drove home. My mother arrived an hour later, cooked a nice dinner, and afterward the three of us piled into my parents’ bed and watched a movie together. I don’t recall what the movie was, but what I do know is that I had learned something that day even though I was still too young to understand it. My father’s outbursts were common, but so too were the grief and sadness that followed in their wake. Even if it took him days to reconcile in his mind what had happened, he always apologized, always made certain we knew just how badly he felt, and assured us that he’d try to do better while somehow making it up to us. And he’d be fine for a while, but of course his violent swings always returned. And my mother and I knew they always would.

eleven

1

I WOKE AHEAD OF the alarm on Monday, rolled over, wrapped myself around Carolyn. She moaned, burrowed against me.

“You don’t have to get up yet, do you?” she asked.

The clock read 5:14. “Not for another hour.”

“Good,” she cooed. “I wish you didn’t have to go today.”

“Me too. But I have to make money to pay for that expensive bottle of wine you made me buy on Saturday.”

“Hey!” she said and elbowed me in the ribs. She had come straight from work the day before, and aside from her seven-hour shift, all of our time had been spent together since meeting Friday night.

She rolled over and faced me.

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” I said.

“Will you still be up when I get back?”

“I’ll stay up,” I said.

She had to work at four and wouldn’t get off until eleven. The commute back would take another half hour. What she didn’t know was that I planned on surprising her at her work after my own workday ended.

We stayed awake and made love before I crawled from bed. I showered, and when I walked out of the bathroom, Carolyn had just finished making breakfast. She looked adorable wearing light blue pajama pants covered with little white clouds, a maroon tank top, her hair in a ponytail.