My dad had put up Christmas lights. That was a good sign. His driveway was shoveled, and it looked like he’d done it himself, because that orange, ergonomic shovel leaned against the side of the garage. There were paw prints in the snow in the front yard, which meant he’d taken his black lab, Jackson, out for a walk, and probably just within the last few hours, otherwise new snow would have covered the tracks already. All good signs. Dad was 75 and alone, and some weeks he had less energy than others, but so far no cancer, heart attacks, falls, or strokes. He seemed to be getting by alright.

It took a minute of standing on the porch, watching my breath swirl up to the exposed ceiling bulb, before I knocked softly three times, waiting in the quiet breeze. The cold made my fingers ache, since I was holding stuff in both hands, and wind blew fluffy snowflakes against the back of my neck. I was only wearing a sweater over my work shirt. I imagined Dad sitting at the kitchen table, looking up from some book on wildlife conservation, wondering if he should keep still and silent until I decided he wasn’t home.

Dad hadn’t yet pretended not to be home when I knocked, but I worried about it every time. I could and probably should have called first, but there were too many reasons he might have told me not to bother making the drive.

When I came to visit, it was usually after I’d spent a work day in bed because I couldn’t stand the idea of inspecting another building for mold. Or after I’d spent a Saturday on my kitchen floor depleting entire plastic sleeves of crackers, picking out the final crumbs like the innards of huge caterpillars, until my stomach felt dense and sour. Or, it was because I’d spent the day listening to coworkers talk about their spouses, travel plans, or goofy things their kids had said, and I’d left work scared that I’d dig into my arm with the first paperclip or jagged pen cap I found—whatever would do damage but not too much damage. Tonight it was that last one.

A few more seconds passed with no sound from inside the house. Maybe he’d finally decided it took more strength than he had to shoulder my burdens.

Usually, while I complained about a bad day, he’d sit on the couch with his arms crossed on his knees and his head bent slightly forward. His head would slowly fall lower and lower the longer I spoke. But when I was done, he’d always lift it back up to look me in the eye and say something like, “It’s good you came to talk to me. Now will you snap the hell out of it?”

His tone would say he wanted me to snap out of it for my sake more than for his sake.

I’d brought a bag of salt and vinegar chips and a box of smoked salmon tonight. I think my visits were still preferable to no visits—my brother hardly ever made it up from Dallas—but I didn’t exactly brighten Dad’s day when I showed up, so I always brought something nice to help balance things out.

I knocked again, louder, and cleared my throat.

Jackson started barking, and I heard him scampering on the floor. Then there was a thud and a shatter of glass. I let out a shiver-laugh. Jackson was mostly blind and always knocking stuff over. I shouldn’t have found it funny.

I heard Dad grunt. The light went on in the window right by the front door—his bedroom window. He’d been napping. Or maybe gone to bed early.

I was relieved just to know he was home. It was a very cold night.

Here’s what he would tell me after I’d agreed to snap out of it:

“Brett, you always get through these things. I’ve seen you do it a thousand times, and you never feel like you can, but you always do. I still remember that football game when you were in what, eighth grade? You were so down that you didn’t think you could even show up to the game. You wanted to—”

I’d interrupt him at that point, because I’ve heard that football story too many times to still feel proud about it. His first couple sentences would be enough anyway, so then we’d watch something. CSI probably. We’d play a few rounds of Boggle—we’re both big into word games—and then rag on my brother’s wife for a bit. I’d wrestle with Jackson for the few minutes it took to wear him out, then he’d flop over in front of the wood stove, and I’d go home. In the morning, I’d make coffee and go to work. I’d text Dad some funny memes over the next few days to buoy his spirits before I stopped by again to drain them.

Is it pathetic for a man of 40 to need to play Boggle with his dad in order to continue with life? I haven’t found another solution. And isn’t it better than if I was always going to the bar, or spending hundreds on therapy? Sometimes I wonder where I’ll go on these nights—who I’ll ask to repeat those sentences to me—when Dad dies.

When Dad dies.

The picture that comes into my mind is a rocky cliff’s edge at nighttime, with a path leading to it that you can only see with a flashlight, so when you get to the edge, the path disappears into total darkness. A big wall of black.

“Shit!” came Dad’s voice from inside. Then several more seconds of quiet.

I figured he’d found whatever Jackson had broken. Maybe he hadn’t actually realized someone was at the door. I knocked a third time.

“Just come in!”

I did.

It was warm inside, and messy. I stepped over a couple pairs of boots and a coat in the entryway. It smelled like campfire.

Dad was in the kitchen in his gray pajamas, crouching beside Jackson and holding his snout in one hand while wiping the floor with a clump of paper towels. Beside Jackson lay a Smirnoff bottle with the neck broken to pieces.

Dad was swearing. I set my chips and salmon down.

“Call the vet,” he said. “I don’t know how much he drank.”

My first thought: This probably means we won’t be playing Boggle.

“How much would be bad?” I said.

“Any much. Call right now please.”

I looked up an emergency veterinary clinic, dialed the number, and stood in the kitchen while I waited for someone to answer. All the usual stuff covered the kitchen table. Stacks of newspapers and ads from the mail, and also printed photos of naturey things like western bluebirds, slot canyons, the moon. Photography had been Dad’s retirement hobby, but then he’d started driving a school bus and stocking produce to supplement his income. I always hoped to see a new set of photos on the table, but it’d been the bluebirds and canyons for months.

“Come on baby,” he said, pulling Jackson to his feet. The dog huffed and whined quietly. “We need to get this stuff out of you.”

It always seemed odd to me that he called Jackson “baby,” but I guess you have to call something “baby.”

A woman answered the phone. I said we had a dog with possible alcohol poisoning. She asked some questions about when, how, and what, and said we should bring Jackson in immediately.

“Oh. Wow,” I said. “Okay. We will.”

I thanked her and hung up, surprised and relieved that the phone call was so brief.

Now panting as though he’d just been running, Jackson resisted as Dad tried to nudge him along toward the garage door. Then Dad turned to me with desperation on his face. I hardly recognized him.

“Can you carry him? We’ve got to hurry. This’ll kill him.”

He had gray circles under his eyes like he hadn’t been getting enough sleep. Everything about his face and his worn, thin voice made me colder than I’d felt standing on the porch.

All at once, the possibility of Jackson’s death stabbed like an icicle into my chest.

I strained to lift him up and cradle him in my arms. He was a relatively small and slight labrador, but still a handful. Luckily, he hardly moved or struggled as I carried him to Dad’s truck.

And I had the thought that this was the kind of thing you’d expect to happen to the dog of an alcoholic. Dad wasn’t an alcoholic. He kept an unopened bottle of bourbon on the top shelf in his pantry, and he took a couple shots of cheap stuff on weekends. That was one very important thing about him—Mom’s death didn’t make him a drinker.

That’s why I didn’t drink either. How many sons can say that their mother’s death didn’t lead their father to drink? I’d be an absolute shit to become a drunk. I would have no excuse.

Jackson lay flat on Dad’s lap as I drove us to the animal ER, which was over an hour away. He whined at times, but his body remained mostly still, and he’d stopped panting. His breathing sounded off though—too labored, or too rapid. I couldn’t tell.

I kept asking questions. “Is he okay? Is he twitching? Is he still breathing?”

Dad said, “I don’t know” and “he’s not twitching,” and “his heart is beating real slow,” then didn’t say any more. He picked bits of bark out of Jackson’s fur, rubbed his sides and ears. We were driving through the canyon, so there were no streetlights or houses around. Just dark snowy woods.

“I think he’ll be alright,” I said.

Dad took a deep breath and shook his head. A car passed, and in its light I could see that he was stone pale, his eyes wide under thick, pink lids.

Jackson vomited on the seat beside Dad just as we were getting close to the animal hospital.

...

I never had a pet as a kid, but when I was six, I found a snake in my backyard. Two or three feet long and dark gray. It had been sliced almost in half—I never knew how. Someone might have tried to kill it, or maybe a cat had clawed at it. But I watched it wriggling, bleeding, opening and closing its mouth, and I realized I could do nothing to help it. It died, slowly, then I sat down in the dirt and cried like the world and life itself had played an awful trick on me. Dad came outside, lifted me to my feet, and I don’t remember what he said, but I wouldn’t be surprised if “snap the hell out of it” was in there somewhere. That’s probably what he told me when I didn’t want to play in that eighth grade football game too. All I know is that I buried the snake, and later that same day Dad took me to the dinosaur museum to show me the skeletons and explain that death was natural. I loved the Stegosaurus and the sand pit.

When Mom had her accident, Dad heard about it over the phone while he and I were out getting some groceries. He fell down in the middle of a parking lot as though his legs had just stopped working. I was sixteen, and I cried then too, but Dad was the one on the ground, and he didn’t want to get up. That was my first glimpse of the darkness at the edge of the cliff. Mom had died, and I’d also lost Dad for that moment.

Not only does losing a parent make you appreciate what you have in the other parent, it also puts you in a state of perpetually fearing and waiting for the next loss. I’ll bet losing a wife does something similar.

...

We arrived at the animal hospital. The vet said she’d need to put Jackson on an IV and bring his body temperature and blood pressure back to normal. We waited in the lobby as she did all that. It was pretty much like an ordinary hospital waiting room, but smaller, with a trickling fountain on a table and pictures of dogs, cats, and a parrot on the walls.

I watched Dad fidgeting with his keys, closing his eyes and breathing slowly.

“Are you going to be okay if he doesn’t make it?” I said.

“No.”

“But––” I paused. The force of his one word stopping my breath. It took a moment before I could say, “You’ll need to find a way to be okay if he dies.”

“Why? Why should I?”

“That’s what you always tell me—like, when I worry about losing my job, or whatever. You tell me I need to find a way to be okay. So why should I have to do it and you not have to?”

“I don’t want to.”

I swallowed, feeling sick and heavy inside. Dad was 75. Life is supposed to have become good and easy by then. You’re supposed to have already faced all the things you didn’t want to face and earned some time to relax. Otherwise, it’s like you’ve gone through all those years just to realize it wasn’t worth it.

“You would never let me say that,” I said.

“So?”

I swallowed again. This time it hurt, like I’d taken a big pill without enough water.

“You never talk to me this way.”

Dad shrugged. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

I felt like I was about to fall right off the edge of the cliff and lose sight of any light anywhere. What would I do if Dad said this to me next time I came to his house after a bad day? Or what if I showed up with new cuts all over my arm, and he had nothing to tell me?

Long minutes passed. We didn’t talk.

...

I don’t know if it was a miracle, but I felt ready to sing praises or kiss someone’s feet when the vet said Jackson would almost certainly be okay. Dad gave a huge sigh and smiled without moving his mouth. The vet said the recovery process could take up to 24 hours though, so we had to leave Jackson to stay the night at the hospital. It was weird seeing him lying on the little hospital bed with a tube in his arm, but he looked surprisingly calm and even wagged his tail before Dad and I left and drove home.

I kept saying “Thank God” and “I’m so relieved” during the drive. Dad nodded, but seemed pretty stiff, like his muscles had been frozen and still needed to thaw a bit.

As happy as I was about the dog, I couldn’t forget Dad’s matter-of-fact admission that, were Jackson to die, he would not, in fact, be okay.

Why should I?

It was almost midnight when we got back to the house. I took a seat in the armchair and took off my sweater, since I’d actually gotten pretty sweaty. Dad drank a big glass of water and sat at the kitchen table. He sorted through some of his photo prints, dusted them off on his jacket, stared at them like he was looking for Waldo.

“Are you going to do more photography next summer?” I asked.
 
“I’m not sure.”
 
“Do you go for walks still?”
 
“What?”
 
“You were doing a couple miles a day. Do you still do that, even in the cold?”
 
“No. I’ve been pretty worn out lately.”
 
I shifted on the couch and folded my arms tight, though it wasn’t cold. There were still several red glowing embers in the wood stove.
 
“I’m so glad Jackson’s okay,” I said.
 
“Yeah,” Dad set the photo down. “Me too. I guess he won’t be around forever though.”
 
“No, I guess not,” I responded automatically, quick enough that I didn’t have to consider the words for too long.
 
He sat quietly for a few seconds, nodded off for a moment, then shook his head and took a sip of water. I could tell he was exhausted and probably wanted nothing more than to go back to bed. But after a moment, he stood up, came and sat down on the couch with his arms crossed on his knees and his head bent slightly forward.
 
“Well, what’s on your mind?” he said. “Has it been one of those days again? Do you want to talk? Do you need something to eat?”
 
I hadn’t expected that, but I suppose Dad knew as well as I did the reason I’d come to visit (I’d like to say that Jackson getting drunk on vodka had made me forget my own troubles, but it hadn’t). That Dad was still willing to listen to me complain made something swell in my chest, and I’m not sure if it hurt.
 
“I’m alright actually,” I said. “Do you want to just watch something or play a game? I brought smoked salmon.” I paused. “Actually, I’ll just take off and let you get to bed. It’s late.” 
 
He looked concerned for a moment, then smiled and exhaled like he’d been holding his breath.
 
“You can stick around for a bit. Smoked salmon is exactly what I need.”

Dallin Hunt is a Utah-born and Idaho-raised writer who received his MFA in creative writing in 2021 and is now working on his third novel. His stories will appear in forthcoming issues of SORTES magazine and The Colored Lens, and he was named a finalist in the 2023 Owl Canyon Press Hackathon. He loves mountains, snow, Mario games, hockey, dogs, and libraries