My dad lets me go and we sit next to each other on the sofa. I look at his hands and he still has the family picture we took when I was 8 years old, the last family picture when all the members of the family were alive, my smiling mom with her light brown hair and soft pink dress, my goofy looking dad with his blond hair and crazy shoes, Sean with his football uniform, brown hair and toothy smile and me with my emotionless face as always.
"Wanna hold it?" my dad asks me, and I nod. I don't see this picture often, my dad never leaves it where one can easily see it, after all, he always cries when he does. That's why I normally just see it in these moments.
"Sorry about before, I was just… wait… fuck no! I'm not sorry! This is your fault so no sorry for you!" my dad says talking to the two guys sitting in front of us.
I giggle lightly. "I wish we could all be together again…" my dad says absent-minded and I know the monologue has started.
"You know Allie, when I was young, I was really stupid… my parents died when I was 13 and that hit me pretty hard" he laughs "I coped with it in a really stupid way! I'm ashamed to say this but I was the typical football player that drank a lot, slept with anyone that said yes, and did a lot of stupid shit to prove himself! In all honesty, I was a jerk!" he laughs again.
"I met your mom when I was sixteen, she was fifteen. That year I was at my lowest if I'm honest! She was new meat in town" he laughs "just like you right now! And she was smart, the typical nerd, she was so smart she skipped a whole year! My friends tried to hit it off with her, but no one succeeded, that's why I bet I could make her fall for me! As I said, I was a jerk!" he's laughing but it's not a happy laugh, his looking outside the window, not making eye contact with anyone. I know that right now, he just needs someone to listen, he just needs to feel melancholic and remember the past.
Sean and I are listening to him, focusing all our attention on him "Let's just say it didn't work out, she didn't fall for me, I fell for her!" he kept laughing now looking at the photo, dragging his finger through my mom's picture while a tear falls down his face.
"I had to work really hard to get her. 2 months! That's what it took me to convince her to be my friend and another 6 to start dating. She was worth every single day" he smiled tenderly "we made it official on her 16th birthday".
"Then she got pregnant… I was seventeen and she was sixteen. We were freaking out! Me, an orphan barely making ends meet and her, a girl with parents that kicked her out the moment she told them. We were scared children out in the world completely alone. I didn't think we could make it, but she did" he now sounds proud.
"I told her we had to leave school and raise money, she told me we would do both. She told me we were not going to make our child believe one mistake meant you had to give up your dreams, isn't that cool? She was far stronger than me. You're like her on that. You look like me physically, but your attitude is definitely more like hers" he pats my head but still makes no eye contact.
"Then Sean was born, our beautiful baby boy, going through college raising a child was one of the toughest things I've ever done" he said now looking at Sean's face in the photo. My dad talks a lot about my mom, but Sean? we barely speak about him. He can somehow deal with the pain of losing my mom but the pain of losing Sean? He can't. That's why he only mentions him in these moments.
"We weren't planning on having more kids, you know? But ten years later, we got you, our cute baby girl and we couldn't be any happier. Sean loved you since day one, always asking your mom for you, he even stole you more than once! We would put you on your cradle and he would pick you up and hide with you in a cabinet!" he's laughing while tears run down his face.
"And eight years later I lost them both to a stupid drunk driver… I almost lose you too, but you survived" he's looking at me for the first time since he started talking "Thank you for surviving Allie, had you died with them that day… had you… I… I don't think I would be here".
I smile faintly "I'm not leaving you, at least not yet. I still want to spend time with my dad" I say calmly. He hugs me and we stay like that for a couple of minutes.
"Thank you for listening Allie. I'm sorry for burdening you like this every time. I really need to put my shit together; I'm acting like I'm crazy" he laughs embarrassed.
I tilt my head and say seriously "Crazy people enjoy life more, I'm crazy and I like to be crazy".
I see Sean smiling at me. I smile back. Sean was the only living person close to me that knew the whole truth about me, he was my hero when I was a child. He believed me and now that he's a ghost he stays always near dad just like Blacky stays with me, but unlike Blacky, Sean can't interact much with our plane, he can only move small things and for a really small period of time.
"You don't have to say it thunderstorm, I'm here and I'll tell you if something happens with dad. You can relax, I'll protect him for you" Sean says once he sees my troubled face.
"Have you done your mischief?" he asks me casually, taking me by surprise.
"Mischief?" Dylan asks curiously, I completely forgot they were still here.
My dad looks at Dylan's curious face and laughs "Alright, you haven't. Gentleman, you're in luck because today I will tell you a funny story!" my dad says excitedly. "When she was 10 years old, I was just getting out of my depression after a lot of therapy, so I felt grounded enough to get a full-time job, before that it was just a bunch of part-time jobs and a lot of childcare assistance programs" he says casually as if he didn't just drop a feels bomb on them.
"I started working for the company I'm still working for to this day and Ummm… I was assigned to this overbearing boss. He would say and do really cruel things to his employees, and he didn't understand that I was in a… delicate state. A lot of projects, a lot of hours, some of them not even paid and I would come back home a wreck. The worse is that all that time I left Allie home alone"
"Ummmm… you don't have to talk about it if you don-" Dylan started to talk but my dad cut him off. I think Dylan just wanted to end this uncomfortable situation as soon as possible.
"Oh no! it's all in the past! I'm not angry about it and you should listen, this might save your ass" he snickers and winks at me "so you see, this kept going on for about… 3 months?" he asks and looks at me for confirmation, I nod.
"One night I came home and had a breakdown… I'm not proud of it, it was really bad. I threw a glass of wine next to Allie's face… she didn't get hurt but…" he sighs with a regretful face.
"Well… continuing with the story, the next morning Allie came up to me and said 'Dad, I'm planning a mischief', that's all she said, and I was confused as fuck" Theo looks confused but Dylan looks at me wide eye remembering what I said the night my dad went to 'rescue' me.
"I ask for who and she replied 'your boss'" he starts laughing loudly "After she told me about the mischief thing, things started to go wrong for my ex-boss, first it was silly things like losing his lunch or the elevator getting stuck with only him inside, we had to call the firefighters on that one".
"Then it escalated, I don't know exactly what happened to him, but he started losing hair, he had big dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, he looked pale and far skinnier than before, and his fingers had bite marks he made himself out of anxiety. A week passed, and he started to avoid me, not even looking my way. Two weeks passed and he apologized to everyone, three weeks passed, and he begged the higher-ups to let him quit. At the time, I didn't know why he asked for permission, it's not like they could deny him his resignation. On his last day he came up to my desk and apologized to me, he looked like shit, so I decided to walk him out of the building".
"Do you know who I met at the entrance? My little 10-year-old girl was there just staring at my ex-boss. He literally screeched and cowered in fear behind me. 'Did you ask for permission before leaving?' she asked in that casual but monotonic voice she uses all the time. Like she owns the place".
"My ex-boss nodded so much I thought his head was going to fall. 'That's good' she replied and walked towards us. My ex-boss ran towards the exit but stopped when my daughter started to talk again 'Remember, this is a lesson. Be good to people and this will not have to happen again'. I swear I thought he was going to shit his pants! After he left, she turned to face me and said 'I'm done with my mischief' while smiling satisfied… that's when I learned to not get on her bad side" my dad finishes his story.
Theo and Dylan look pale by the time my dad finishes talking but before they can't say anything my dad starts talking again "That's why, deep down, I feel slightly sorry for you, and I really want to know what's left of you after this whole… mischief" he snickers.
"I'm going to walk for a while" I get up from the couch since my dad looks fine now, and this is a chance I'm not going to have in the next couple of days, to just walk and forget about everything.
"Wait… I can't let you go alone" Dylan tries to stop me, but my dad stops him.
"She'll be fine, let her go. Allie, you have to come back in 1 hour" I nod at my dad's instructions and get out of the house.