“I’m sorry,” she said, moving an exercise ball off the general area of my pillow. “If you want, I can get you some cleaner sheets. I changed them after you were here the last time—but I know that was months ago.”
Mercifully, there wasn’t any rebuke in her recitation of this fact. At least not until my father walked by and seized it.
“Yes, it hasn’t escaped my attention that your presence has been scarce here, Dashiell,” he said from the doorway. “It’s been that way for the whole year, no? About the same time you met Lily, if I’m not mistaken. I know what teenage hormones are like, but family is family, and it’s about time you realized that.”
“Now, now, dear,” Leeza said, armfulling some yoga mats into the closet. “We love Lily.”
“We love what we’ve seen of Lily,” my father replied. “But I have to say—first, a year ago, she lands you in jail. And now she’s landed you in the hospital. It makes we wonder whether Lily’s the right kind of girl for you to be spending so much time with.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said.
“I’m not kidding at all.”
I stared him down with my one good eye. “You don’t know Lily at all and you don’t know me at all, so your observations, while delivered with conviction, are just so much horseshit to me, Dad.”
My father grew bright red. “Now you look here, Dashiell—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Stop. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to pass any judgment here.”
“I am your father!”
“I am all too aware of that! And it’s bad enough for you to treat me like an idiot. But don’t you dare slander Lily in the process. It takes both her and Mom to balance out the seesaw with you on the other end.”
My father laughed. “Ah—I knew your mother would factor into this. All of these things that she’s told you—”
“No, Dad. These are the things I’ve told myself. Over and over and over again. Because, surprise! I am actually capable of coming to my own conclusions.”
“Boys,” Leeza interrupted, “I know it’s been a really long day for all of us. And Dash needs rest after everything he’s gone through. So why don’t we call it a night?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I need to know if he even wants me here. Otherwise I can just go home.”
“No, Dash,” Leeza said sternly. “You are not staying alone tonight. Eventually, whatever drugs they gave you at the hospital are going to wear off and you’re going to find it’s not particularly comfortable to go to sleep with a bandaged eye. You need someone to take care of you.”
I didn’t tell her, but at that moment, she sounded exactly like my mom, in a way my mom would actually approve of.
“Listen to Leeza,” my father said.
“There’s no school tomorrow, right?” she went on. “Invite Lily over for breakfast. I’ll make gingerbread pancakes.”
“You’ll order gingerbread pancakes,” my father snarked.
“No,” Leeza corrected, “I will make them. It’ll be nice to have some people around who deserve them.”
“Good lord, I know when I’m not wanted,” my father huffed. “I’ll see you in the morning, Dashiell.”
“He loves you,” Leeza said once he was gone.
“You shouldn’t be the one telling me that,” I replied.
“I know.”
While she went out to the closet to get some new sheets, I texted Lily with the invitation to breakfast. It was late, so I wasn’t expecting her to be up. But she responded right away, excited.
“Lily’s on board for gingerbread pancakes,” I told Leeza when she returned. Then I took the sheets out of her arms; I could make my own bed.
“Lovely!” she said with compensatory cheer. “Is there anything else I can do for you before I head to bed?”
Tell me why you’re married to my father, I didn’t say. Tell me that when I make mistakes they’re going to be my mistakes, not his mistakes.
“I’m good,” I told her.
She brought me a glass of water for my bedside anyway, and a few Tylenol. After she kissed me on the cheek good night, she pulled back and considered me one more time.
“It’s actually not a bad look for you. More bounty hunter than pirate, I’d say. Work it while you can.”
I dug out my pajamas from a drawer.
“And Dash?” Leeza said from the doorway. I looked back up at her. “You’re right about Lily. She’s a keeper.”
But why, I wondered as I began the long, long, somewhat tortured road to sleep, would she ever want to keep me, if paternity was destiny?
Tuesday, December 23rd
I hadn’t told Lily about the gingerbread pancakes; she arrived with freshly baked gingerbread muffins. I was going to explain this coincidence to her, but I was interrupted by her crying out, “YOUR FACE!”
“What about my face?” I asked. “You can’t honestly see it under all these bandages, can you? My goal is to haunt an opera house by the time I’m twenty-three.”
“It’s not funny!”
“Actually, it is. And I think in this case, we can agree that I get to be the one to determine the humor of the situation, no?”