99% of the world's lovers are not with their first choice. That's what makes the jukebox play. (Willie Nelson)

My parents came back and tried to scold me for being so rude to our dinner guest but I showed them the caterpillar on the windowsill and instead of sitting through a lecture I sat with my parents and watched a fuzzy caterpillar making its way across the windowsill.

When Uncle Tony returned he interrupted the ad hoc nature show we were watching in rapture.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. How am I supposed to be with someone who smokes grass? That’s crazy.”

We sat together on the other side of the table and watched him freaking out. He ranted and roared and asked for our thoughts but didn’t wait for answers. We nodded and shook our heads appropriately when it was required. I don’t know about my parents but all I could think about was how long his arms looked.

In the end, he decided he couldn’t bridge the gap between their worlds. I think my father was disappointed. He thought her ideals were quite fanciful. He talked about the things she had said as if it were gospel long after the dinner debacle.

I think Uncle Tony was disappointed with his decision too. He missed her. He got high and drunk more often, which speaks volumes in itself because it was already a pretty frequent occurrence. In the weeks that followed Scotch’s visit I don’t remember ever seeing Uncle Tony sober. He seemed to stop sleeping altogether too. My father was never big on sleeping so they kept each other company. Sometimes they would wake me up in the middle of the night with their shouting and shenanigans. Senior didn’t like it. Uncle Tony was a mess and Senior really didn’t like that. Uncle Tony bailed on my father when he was supposed to go to Washington and so my mother replaced him.

Another time she was at school (she was a substitute teacher at the time) so Senior had to accompany my father on the trip. Senior really, really didn’t like that.

Senior fired up his engine when he returned home. He revved the engine and left tire marks on the floor of the garage as he sped out. Rarely did he make a scene like this. When he came back he had Scotch with him. She was, more or less, a permanent fixture in our house after that. I loved her. She was like the big sister that I never had.

Scotch came with baggage though. She was a lovable girl and she had received plenty of love in her day. Her ex-boyfriends were constantly coming around. They would bring their acoustic guitars and play love ballads barefoot outside our house. They would call her name. They would cry, no wail, like starving babies who had no other way to ask for food. One night Senior took a gun and opened fire all around one of the poor mopes. He didn’t hit him but he didn’t come back. He must have spread the word because the lovelorn traffic depleted significantly after that incident.