Graveyard. Dad always worked graveyard. That made it hard for Mom to threaten us like our friends' moms did. By the time Dad got home, like 8 in the morning, the Dad-worthy transgressions were all forgotten or buried in our dreams far, far away.
"Wow, are you lucky!" Nick would say after one of those big chewing-outs he got from his Dad. "It's like having no dad!"
"No way," I'd explain loudly. "He yells at us good, it's just during the day."
But no one believed me, even if my brothers tried to confirm it by showing their ripped shirts and black eyes. We didn't want our dad to be weird. But the truth was, the little guys ripped their own shirts and gave each other black eyes, like boys do. It was never Dad. Not only did he work graveyard, but he didn't whack us around, or Mom, and he hardly ever yelled even when he hit his own thumb with a hammer.
We wished we had a normal dad, but we didn't, so the other kids teased us and called us the lucky ducks, and it took us like forever to realize they were right.
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