He was laughing about something stupid, something we probably wouldn't remember later on. I felt safe with him, something I hadn't felt with a grown man in the house for a while, so I leaned into the feeling. He would tape his mouth shut when we watched Tv shows in the living room so he wouldn't ask questions he knew I didn't like having to answer. He would move his hands around, while watching, and I would know he would want to say something but he withheld it for me. I'd see it in the corner of my eye and I'd laugh, and I'd let him take off the tape so he could ask his question. He'd ask and I'd answer, and it'd spark a conversation that'd last longer than the actual show. We were so different, but it worked. 

He would be so hilarious, but he'd drink every day continuously. I wasn't used to someone being so open about their addiction yet never doing anything to help it. I was used to quiet and apprehensive confessions from mom that dad was a big drinker and addicted to his bipolar pills, but that he was doing better now, a long way away from the old days. But watching him make his mixed drink every morning made me feel like I was witnessing the source, like this would be the last moment getting to be with him before he went completely bad. All the good moments had sparked a thought that I was seeing firsthand a story that would be told at his funeral. He was the type to have such a soft heart but always putting it in the wrong places. And my mind would always go to a disappearance and the news that he's in jail or a coffin with flowers at that funeral home. 

Safe to say, I had the right idea, and I was caught off guard when I was even half right. Mom called me at college to say he was finally out of the house, he sold his small red Mercedes and was on his way to california. I listened to the words, chewed on them, and made sure to note how good she sounded. She went on to say that he told her he's happy he left, he's sorry about how it went down, and we were just going to be another one of his addictions. I swallowed hard, with the phone against my ear. 

He didn't die, and I'm not sure if it would have been better if he did. I'd be happy to be the one to tell the story of his life, or really when he was with us, and all I had to do was tell the stories of how he would buy a new thing from amazon every day, and there would always be big giant boxes outside the door, and it would always be an 'as seen on tv' like object, that didn't work half the time, or a new phone case because the old one was filled with flour, or a surprise gift for me that I didn't like half of the time, but i always was grateful to be thought of in that way. It was always more effort than Dad had put in. How he had such interesting thoughts and behaviors that sometimes, I thought, bordered on schizophrenia, but the way he talked pulled everyone in, although sometimes I would tune it out. He didn't know when to stop talking, but it gave us noise in the house, the thing I was always scared to lose moving out of a big house with 4 siblings. He was a perfect example of change turning out to be a better thing than staying the same. He lived with us for years to the point where it felt like he was always there, or rather the years where he wasn't living with us didn't matter, wasn't worth the thought. I'd be happy to say all of this if it ended there, if all there was to our relationship was those funny stories and conversations about film and me fueling his shopping addiction. If time had stopped right before the second to last night before I moved back into college. If we didn't get so close to the point where he had trusted me with his dark secrets. Secrets about me.