Things We Didn't Say

Chapter 45

Michael



My father, silhouetted in the light from the gas fire in his den, taps the edge of his glass, but is otherwise silent.

After we settled the kids down to various activities resembling normalcy, after my dad checked out Jewel’s breathing and peered down her throat to make sure she was fine, after my mom started baking cookies, after I gave him a summary of the brutal events since he dropped us off at the house, my dad and I collapsed into silence near the fire with a drink. Club soda for me.

My earlier bravado in the SUV about not needing his help has evaporated. If I have to be dependent on my father for the rest of my days in order to keep my kids with me, then I’ll hand him my balls on a platter.

“I’m sorry,” my father says, staring into the fire.

“For what?” I ask, assuming he’s going to say something about not having clean sheets on the bed in my old room.

“For trying to run your life. For what I said in the car. Forget it. Take whatever time you need, and I’ll help you. And I’ll do my best to stop making you feel like shit about it.”

I do a double-take, at both the content of his apology and the curse word.

“What brought this on?”

“When you called me, you were on the brink. I could hear it. And then you told me just now what happened, and I saw your kids coming in here looking like shock victims. I’ve been holding you to an impossible standard. All this time I’ve been looking at your surroundings, your bank account, the car you drive . . . A proud man, a foolish man—after that big speech in the restaurant about not needing my help—would have done anything at all to keep from coming back here. But.” He holds up one finger, like he’s giving a lecture. “You knew what was best for your kids was getting them out of that chaos. And you were right. They started relaxing the minute they walked in the door. Dylan stopped stammering. Angel and Jewel smiled. The color came back to their faces.” He pauses, staring still into the fire. I dare not speak and break the spell. “It takes a man to put his kids before himself in everything, all the time.” He winks at me, but his smile is sad, his voice with no mirth. “Here’s to my son, the real man.” He leans over and clinks my glass.

My business is words, but words have left me, utterly.

“Dad.” It’s Angel, looking angelic indeed in the firelight. Her features are soft instead of pulled into a sneer or an eye-roll. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

My father gets up immediately, and gestures to the chair. He bends down and kisses her forehead. Angel looks at me in surprise; physical affection is not generally in his repertoire.

Angel lowers herself into the chair. It engulfs her.

“I’m sorry about reading Casey’s diary and talking about it to Mom,” she begins, picking at her fingernails. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”

“I know you didn’t. It’s not your fault.”

“I think you should know that I think Mom tricked Casey.”

“Tricked how?”

Angel shifts in her seat. “Well . . . I told her about how Casey always used to drink Jack Daniel’s, it was in her diary. And then Mom went out and bought some. She must have, because she went to the store after that. And she brought it out after me and Jewel went to bed. So I think she got Casey drunk.”

I put my head in my hand. Of course she did. “But she didn’t force it down her throat, Angel. And you can’t accidentally drink whiskey and not know it. You and I have talked about peer pressure. It’s still your call in the end. She still made the decision.”

“I guess.”

“Well, didn’t she?”

Angel shrugs. “Sure. But I mean, she was up all night with you, wasn’t she? And all day? Trapped in the house, in a blizzard, with your ex-wife. She was exhausted. And you know how charming Mom can be when she really turns it on.”

“How is it you’re Casey’s advocate all of a sudden?”

Angel sinks lower in the chair, her head almost disappearing within the deep arms. She stretches out her legs, crossed at the ankles. “I feel a little bad, is all. About the diary. And she did save Jewel’s life.”

And the first thing I did was accuse her of letting it happen in the first place.

Angel sits up again, leaning forward now, toward the fire. She’s threading her fingers together and apart, toying with her rings. “It’s just hard. In a year my mom moved out, and she moved in. How could I not feel like she was replacing Mom? And she can’t be my mom, she’s too young. And then when I read her diary I thought . . . wow, she hates me. Just like the bitchy girls at school.”

“She doesn’t hate you. And she can’t replace your mom. Your mom is one of a kind.”

I mean this as a weak joke, but Angel ignores it.

“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning for the joke, but also for everything. “I don’t think I handled that well, moving her in. I thought you’d welcome her, the normalcy, the help around the house.”

“You welcomed that.”

Her tone is sharp, but she’s right. I did. My dad says I always put my kids first, but in this case he was wrong. I just assumed they wanted the same things I did.

Angel softens her voice. “But you like having her around, don’t you?”

I smile sadly. “Yeah. I do. I did.”

“Did?”

“I don’t think she’s coming back.”

“You sound sad.”

“I am.”

“You could call her?”

“She doesn’t have her phone. The cops found it in your mom’s pocket.”

“Well, you’re a reporter. You can track her down.”

“I’m a former reporter at the end of the year. Anyway, you’re thinking of a bloodhound. My specialty is City Commission meetings. Got an ordinance vote you want covered?”

“You know, Dad? Sometimes when I storm up the stairs to my room and slam the door and I yell to leave me alone? And you charge up there anyway?” She whispers now. “Secretly, I’m kind of glad. I know you’ll always be there, even when I sort of don’t want you to be.”

She gets up and heads toward the kitchen, where I hear my mother singing out that cookies are almost ready.

I’m not hungry, though. Instead I go looking for my coat, pulling my car keys out of my pocket as I head for the car.