A Matter of Unimportance

3. It

My father had a gambling problem. As far as problems go, I think that one was quite tame. He wasn't exactly hurting anyone but himself with it. It was more of an endemic thing in his life, but the fallout was rarely contagious. I think Daniel was at least mildly competent with it. He normally only risked his own assets.

He told me gambling was in his blood. His entire family worked in and around the casino in Grand Ronde, so it only made sense that he'd develop a proclivity for what he considered was essentially his families culture.

Unfortunately, Daniel was poor. I know from experience that poor people have a difficult time paying their debts. The week that Daniel disappeared from my mothers life was also the week he'd made what he thought was going to be a quick trip home to visit family. As soon as his father knew he was near the reservation, he called the reservation police and had him picked up for running out on an unpaid gambling tabs. He'd maybe cheated at a thing or two as well. Rumor has it, he'd maybe taken something that wasn't his from his family home. Him and his father still just didn't get along incredibly well.

He spent just long enough in jail for my mom to stop looking for him. They'd never exchanged phone numbers and he'd never walked her home. They lost eachother in the feast of life, so to speak.

I won't comment too heavily on what it was like to have both of my parents suddenly living under one roof, because I was still quite small. I know that it felt different than it did before. I know that my mom had more energy for things when a portion of the diapers were suddenly handed off.

After reconnecting at the market, Daniel moved in almost immediately. It was a bit of an unconventional transition. My parents hadn't exactly been together in over a year, but he wanted to be involved with me and my mothers Christian upbringing meant that Florence still innately craved the idea of a nuclear family under one roof. She didn't want to marry him, or anything like that. Her persistent independence wouldn't allow for such domestication right off the bat, but she did want him in my life and so she needed him in hers as well. They kept separate finances and shared the bed. Our studio apartment began to feel quite small.

I will also mention that Daniel was not notably consistent. He stayed out late some days, which was noticed specifically because my mother and I were already out late until the club closed several days a week. It was odd how often we'd beat him home considering all that. He also spent a considerable amount of days visiting the reservation. My mother told me he did that to attempt to repair the damage he'd made with his own father and that we had to let him do that. Sometimes he'd be gone for a night. Other times it was stretched out for a week, so long that I'd consider the possibility that he wasn't coming back again.

It was a formative time for me. I was learning to talk and explore and exist as an entity separate from my mother in smaller ways. I was noticing things for the first time that I'd never even blink at before. I was certainly noticing that although Daniel helped to care for me sometimes, my mother was the one to count on. She was who I went to when I cried. She was the one who slept in the center of the bed in the studio to separate me from the man I didn't know all that well. She was the one that read to me.

She was also the one that smiled so widely when he walked in the door. It was peculiar how he had that effect on her. She was smitten, like a school girl, and she was beautiful in that.

I think there was a disconnect between the three of us. It was almost like a love triangle of sorts, where Daniel and I loved my mother ferociously, and my mother loved the both of us, but Daniel and I were simply fond aquaintences. I like to think that maybe the both of us were aware that it would not last forever for our trio, but my mother was hopeful. She believed in us all together, and believing made her so unbelievably happy. Even as a child, I was willing to put up with almost anything if it made her happy.