He hadn’t been trying to beat anyone.
He hadn’t even known there was a competition until someone arrived and declared one.
My father pulled his hand back.
“You’re 17. You don’t understand everything.”
He looked at Mom.
“You’ve done a hell of a job turning him against me.”
Mom stepped forward.
“No. I never kept you away. I spent years making excuses for you.”
His expression changed.
She continued.
“Maybe your card got lost. Maybe you didn’t have our number. Then I stopped because he was old enough to know I was lying.”
I hadn’t known that.
Mom wiped her cheek.
“Don’t blame me because another man did what you kept choosing not to do.”
My father looked at me one final time.
“That car will still be here if you change your mind.”
“No.”
“What?”
“It won’t.”
I nodded toward it.
“You’re taking it with you.”
He did.
He tore the bow off first.
I don’t know why that detail stuck with me.
Maybe because it was the first thing he’d done that day that wasn’t for an audience.
He tossed it into the back seat, climbed behind the wheel, and drove away.
The neighbors suddenly seemed very interested in their own yards.
Mom went inside. I turned toward Ray.
He was already walking away.
“Where are you going?”
“Kitchen.”
“Why?”
“Dishes.”
Of course.
Ten minutes after my biological father had tried to buy his way back into my life, Ray was at our sink washing syrup from the birthday-breakfast plates.
I set the wooden box on the counter.
“You know we have a dishwasher.”
“Don’t trust it.”
“You repaired it.”
“Exactly. I know who repaired it.”
I stood next to him.
“Ray.”
He continued scrubbing.
“What?”
“Look at me.”
“Busy.”
“You’re washing a clean plate.”
He glanced down, then placed it in the rack.
“Next plate.”
I knew then.
