“You what?” Jubilee’s eyes go wide. “Your daughter?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t my finest moment.” I take another bite of my sandwich and chew, carefully, as if I’m counting the bites until I get the requisite thirty before swallowing. Jubilee just stares at me, waiting.
I turn my ear toward the den, but all I hear is Aja’s faint tapping on the screen. I let out a puff of breath. “About a year ago, Ellie started hanging out with this girl, Darcy. She was just one of those kids, a troublemaker, broken home, the whole bit—the kind you hope your child never aligns themselves with.” Although saying it out loud, I now see the irony—Ellie’s from a broken home, too. “Anyway, in our small town, the rumor mill was rife with accusations about Darcy—she hit on male teachers, was into drugs—not just weed, but harder stuff, like oxy and Ritalin. I mean, I know that kids can be cruel and that rumors are just that . . . rumors. But there were so many—there had to be some truth behind them. So on my weekends with Ellie, I wouldn’t let her hang out with Darcy. It’s something Stephanie and I didn’t see eye to eye on—she took this whole ‘kids will be kids’ approach, ‘you have to give them room to experiment.’ I think it was a backlash to Stephanie’s own strict upbringing. It infuriated me. We’d have these massive fights about it.
“One weekend when Ellie was with me, I thought she was in her room, listening to her headphones—she always had them on. And I was fighting with Stephanie about not letting Ellie go to Darcy’s birthday party. She had apparently already said yes without discussing it with me, which pissed me off. Then she asked me why I had to be so controlling all the time. I got carried away and yelled: Because our only daughter is becoming a drug-addled slut just like Darcy, and you don’t seem to care about it.”
Jubilee sucks in her breath. “Ouch.”
“And when I turned around—”
“Ellie was there.”
I nod. “She heard the entire thing. Well, enough, anyway.” I shake my head. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes. It was pain, not the familiar flare of anger I was used to seeing. Anger I could handle, but hurt—and knowing I was responsible for it—was gut-wrenching. “I apologized immediately, of course, but she wouldn’t listen. Told me she was going to pack her things and wanted to go back to her mother’s. I wouldn’t drive her, I couldn’t let her go without her understanding, or at least forgiving me. But finally, on Saturday, when I realized it was hopeless and keeping her there was making her even more angry at me, I drove her back to Stephanie’s. She hasn’t talked to me since.”
“But don’t you have some kind of custody agreement?”
I sit back in my seat and swipe my hand down my face before answering. “Every other weekend. I gave Stephanie full custody, because I didn’t want Ellie to be shuffled around. I knew stability was more important for her. But after I said . . . what I said, she didn’t want to come anymore, and I felt like forcing her would only make it worse. And honestly, I thought she’d come around. I know what I said was horrible, but she’s a kid. I’m her dad.” I shrug. “I guess too much damage was done. She already hated me for the divorce.”
I pick up the hoagie again, and Jubilee does the same. We sit there, listening to each other chew, until the silence becomes unbearable. Part of me wants to know what she’s thinking, but part of me is terrified to hear the truth.
“That really sucks,” she says, finally. “But if it makes you feel any better, you’ve still got my father beat.”
I try to recall if I’d seen any pictures of a man that could possibly be him on the walls or among her stacks of books. I can’t. “Where is your dad?”
She shrugs. “I don’t even know who he was. My mom never told me.”
I take this in. “Oh, good,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “So I’m not the worst father in the world, just the second worst.”
“Exactly. See? Chin up.”
I chuckle and pick up my mug. While I take a sip of coffee, I watch Jubilee out of the corner of my eye, my gaze traveling to her lips. I follow the curve of them, my eyes the wheeled cart on a roller coaster, rising in the peaks, dipping in the valley between. They’re beautiful. Her lips. And I wonder at the thought that she gets to see them every day, every time she looks in a mirror, a car window reflection. How does she tear her eyes away?
It’s then that I notice the mayonnaise—a little glob clinging to the corner of her mouth.
I reach my hand out, thumb extended to wipe it for her, puerilely excited at this unexpected opportunity to touch her. Jubilee freezes, eyeing me.
“You’ve got a—”
At the last second, she jerks her head back just out of my reach and puts her own hand up to her mouth, leaving my thumb hanging in midair, dejected. “A little mayo,” I say, bringing my hand back to my own lip, mirroring for her where she should wipe.
Her cheeks turn pink, flushed, making my breath catch in my throat, as she dabs at the greasy glob with a napkin.
“Did I get it?” she asks.
I nod.
We sit there for a minute, staring at each other.
And then, because I can’t stop myself—or because I don’t want to anymore—I reach out again, overcome with the need to close the distance between us, to connect with her somehow. She freezes again, the muscles in her shoulders tensing, but this time, I don’t care. My hand finds a lock of her hair. I gently wind my fingers around it, in it, swaddling them in the soft hammock of curls, my gaze now lost in the endless auburn currents.
I hear a sharp intake of breath, and it brings me back to myself. I’m invading her space, being too bold. Suddenly embarrassed by my lack of control, my ragged breath, I drop her hair like it’s on fire and straighten my spine. But before I can apologize, before I can find the words in my muddled brain to explain my bizarre actions, she catches my wrist with her hand. Her grip is strong and I swear I can feel the heat of her fingers through the material of her gloves. I meet her gaze again. And out of my peripheral vision, I see her chest heaving, inhales and exhales as ragged as my own.
And then her lips part. And it’s the only invitation I need.
My left hand captive, I lean toward her, bringing my free hand up to palm her cheek, already imagining the sweet relief of my mouth on—
“Stop!” The high screech does just that. Stops me cold. I turn—my hand inches from her face, my head a jumble of confused desire—and I see Aja standing in the door frame, eyes wide, his mouth forming words I’m trying to follow.
“You can’t touch her! Move your hand, move your hand!” He’s pulling at my arm now, shrieking. Is he having some kind of episode? I stand up, grabbing him by the shoulders, trying to get him to look at me, to calm down. But he doesn’t. He just keeps screaming, his panic mounting on itself, until he finally reaches what appears to be the chilling climax of his confusing, delusional rant: “You’ll kill her!”
eighteen
JUBILEE