Picture Perfect

as I get home.”
    With one last quick kiss, she was gone. My heart hurt as I watched her walking away, a sight that I didn’t enjoy in the least. I was brought out of my reverie when a cop pulled up behind my car and honked. With a shake of my head, I got into my car and left.
    At the first red light, I checked my phone to find that I had four messages. The first one was from my manager, while the last three were from my dad. He didn’t sound like himself at all. Not upset, exactly, but completely shattered. All each of his messages said was that he needed to talk to me right away, and preferably in person. I panicked as I imagined the worst. What if he was sick, or if one of my grandparents was hurt? My palms started to sweat as broke damn near every law of responsible driving to get to my dad’s house as quickly as humanly possible.
    The sight of his Mercedes in the driveway calmed me down a bit, but I was still a nervous wreck.
    I was out of my car the second I had it in park, running into the house at top speed.
    “Dad? Dad! Where are you?”
    My steps came to an abrupt halt when I found him in the living room. He was sitting on the couch with his elbows propped on his knees, his head held in his hands. I’d not seen my dad so undone since my mother died, and it scared the piss out of me. My heart was beating so loud that I’m surprised the room wasn’t shaking with the vibration.
    “Shit, dad, what’s wrong?”
    He jerked his head up, surprised to see me standing over him. That scared me even more than how dejected he seemed, because I’d made a lot of noise coming into the house. Whatever he needed to tell me, it was serious. My mind was operating at warp speed as I tried to prepare myself for what was coming. I didn’t know what I’d do if he told me he was sick, or if something was wrong with my grandparents.
    “Oh Flynn… I’m so goddamn sorry.”
    “Dad, you’re literally scaring me to death. What the hell is going on?”
    Shaking his head and wiping his eyes, my dad gestured to the spot on the couch next to him. “You need to sit down son. I need to tell you something.”
    I dropped onto the sofa like it was the electric chair. He was scaring the bejesus out of me.
    “Dad, are you sick? Gram and Pop, are they okay?”
    Grabbing my hand, he squeezed. “We’re all fine, everyone is healthy. I’m sorry- I should have said that in my message. That’s not what this is about.”
    That calmed me down, but not as much as it needed to. Serious health issues not withstanding, something was still upsetting my dad, and I needed to know what that was.
    “I need you to listen to me son, and don’t ask questions until I’m finished. If you’re angry, you can yell at me then. Just let me get this out.”
    Well, that didn’t sound encouraging. I nodded my agreement, even as I wondered why my dad would think I could ever be angry with him.
    “It was agony to watch the love of my life die, and I don’t think there was anything anyone else could have done or said to help me prepare for what that did to me inside. Every day for two years, I watched Rachel get weaker, watched the cancer eat away at her body. Do you remember that there were times we couldn’t share a bathroom with her or really touch her much because of the chemo? That was a bitter pill to swallow. I lived to touch that woman, and then that was taken away. I saw the end coming for her and I knew nothing we did was going to make any difference. I live with that guilt every day- wondering if I’d been able to appear stoic if she would have stopped letting them dose her with things that were killing her from the inside out. We left no stone unturned and no treatment avenue was unexplored. I would have thrown myself in front of a truck to save her, given up my own life in return for hers, but cancer didn’t care about that. It took her anyway, and it left me behind to live a life without the woman I loved more than life itself. Part of my heart went down into that grave with her. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have done something drastic so that I could be with her again. The fact that you were a living reminder of our love kept me alive. If I’d been a better man, that would have been enough. Instead, I went off the fucking rails.”
    I had no idea where he was going with all of this, but he was really freaking me out. As a rule, my dad didn’t really curse in front of me, especially not the F word. That alone meant that he