Chapter 7 #2
Besides, I don’t know if I can leave this mess the way it is. Not when it’s a mess I had a role in creating. I’ll feel better once I see Maggie and know that she’s okay. That my words didn’t cause irreversible damage.
“Are you sure?” my father asks hesitantly. “Jacob and I can manage.”
And something about that phrasing, about the fact that Jacob and my father are so clearly a pair—that my father would rather rely on him than me, that he knows him better than me—makes me double down.
“I’m sure,” I say. “It’s not a problem.”
Jacob enters the address for the hotel on his phone, and the robotic GPS voice calls out directions.
After twenty minutes or so, my father leans his head against the window, his soft snores filling the space.
“He always could sleep through anything,” I say, remembering how he used to fall asleep through every movie he put on for me when I was a kid.
“He’s exhausted,” Jacob says sharply. “He’s been through a lot.”
“I know that.”
“Then just—just let him sleep.”
My hands tighten around the wheel. “I am.”
The air between us grows tense, and neither of us say anything for a while.
At the roundabout, take the second exit, the robotic GPS voice chimes, and I follow the directions.
I can feel Jacob’s gaze on the side of my face.
He leans back in his seat, his knees spreading farther apart. The movement makes his kilt climb higher, exposing more skin between the end of the fabric and the start of his knee-high socks.
I focus back on the road.
“They didn’t expect—” Jacob clears his throat. “They didn’t think you were coming to the wedding. You didn’t RSVP.”
“I didn’t see the invitation until later. I emailed, though, to say I would be there.”
“You couldn’t call?”
My mouth pulls into a grimace. That had been an option, of course, but phone conversations with my father have always been…tense. I wanted to avoid that. But maybe I should have called him. Should have given them some warning that I would be here.
Though I don’t know what business that is of Jacob’s, or why he thinks he can interrogate me like this.
“Did you memorize the guest list or something?” I ask.
He blinks. “What?”
“How do you know I didn’t RSVP?”
“Because I was the one in charge of it. I tallied all the responses.” He pauses. “Your dad asked about you every week or so, you know, to see whether you’d responded.”
I glance at the rearview mirror and catch my father still sleeping, his mouth slightly parted. My stomach twists.
“I didn’t know,” I say. “He didn’t tell me—I didn’t know he wanted me there.”
“Then why did you come?” Jacob asks. And there’s something about the way he says it, the frustration underlying his words, that makes the subtext clear: All of this is my fault. None of this would have happened if I’d just stayed home.
“I didn’t want to—if anything had happened to my dad—”
“Something did happen!” He keeps his voice low, but his tone is hard. Biting. “And you weren’t there.”
I frown. “You’re talking about the surgery?”
His brows fly up. “Of course I’m talking about the surgery!” He closes his eyes and releases a harsh breath. “Ajit always said…He made it sound like things between the two of you were…were strained, but you only have one father. You only get one—”
No. No. He doesn’t get to lecture me about this. He doesn’t get to lecture me at all. “You don’t know anything about my father. About how he’s been, or how I’ve had to—you don’t know anything about it.”
“Maybe,” he says, his jaw hard. “But you’re not the only one who’s gone through something difficult.”
“I know that.” I shake my head. “I’m not saying that I am.” I pause. “I remember what you told me.”
His shoulders stiffen, and I soften my voice.
“I understand that you’ve gone through a lot,” I say. “That you’ve lost a lot. I’m not trying to say our situations are the same—”
“No,” he says. “They’re not. And we certainly didn’t handle them the same.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that some of us have to work through our issues. We don’t have any other choice but to show up for the people who need us. Some of us have to grow up.”
My temperature rises. “Well, how fortunate for my father that he just happened to have you.”
He scoffs and turns away, looking out the window, while my blood continues to boil.
I think about the man in my hotel room. The one who listened to me without judgment, with understanding, who accepted me as I was.
Was he only like that because sex was on the table?
Because I don’t recognize this version of him.
This person who thinks he can tell me how I should think and feel about my father.
Who thinks I just need to grow up. As if I’m somehow to blame for my father’s decisions, for the way he acted when I was just a child.
We sink into silence, the car entirely quiet except for the occasional loud snore from my father. I fiddle with the radio, landing on something playing generic pop.
We pass through a few small towns. Old gray buildings and whitewashed homes. Expanses of green: trees and fields and gentle hills.
The scenery’s beautiful, but after a while it all blends together. My brain switches to autopilot as the minutes continue to pass, exhaustion starting to set in.
There are a few cows in the field to my right. They aren’t the infamous hairy coos Scotland is known for, just some ordinary dairy cows, but they’re incredibly cute all the same. A small calf runs to its mother, wobbly and awkward on its shorter legs, and it makes me smile.
Until bright red lights flash in front of me.
“Neelu, slow down,” a voice cries, and a hand lands on my knee, squeezing tight.
I quickly press on the brakes, the seat belt around my chest tightening, the car rocking a bit as it comes to a sudden stop, narrowly avoiding a collision with the car in front of us.
“What happened?” my father asks, a little groggy. He blinks as he wakes, looking around.
“Nothing,” I say. “Sorry.” My mouth tastes bitter, adrenaline pumping through me. “I didn’t notice the traffic.”
The fingers on my knee dig deeper, the skin above the knuckles growing white.
I turn to look at Jacob, and his eyes are wide, his cheeks ashy.
“Everyone’s okay?” I ask, still watching Jacob. “Right?”
“I’m fine,” my dad responds, and Jacob blinks, slowly returning to himself.
“You need to be more careful,” he says through his teeth.
I flush. “I got distracted.”
“Well, drive better.”
My temper flares. I have had it with him. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been driving all day. To the wedding, and back, and now this. If you think you can do better, why don’t we switch?”
His fingers flex, still on my knee. “I can’t drive,” he says.
“What does that mean? You don’t know how?”
“Neelu—” my dad says, his tone chastising, but Jacob continues.
“No, it’s just I…I can’t.”
The car in front of me starts to move, and I take my foot off the brake, slowly following.
I blow out a breath. “Okay. I can keep going, but I need a break.” I’d been running so late this morning that I didn’t have a chance to eat anything, and the jet lag’s starting to make itself known. “I’ll be fine once I’ve had some coffee and something to eat.”
Jacob’s hand relaxes, no longer gripping my knee, just resting on top of it.
And for a moment, I almost want to pretend. We’re on vacation, and we’re driving, and he’s the way he was when we first met. He’s touching me because he wants to, and he’s smiling the way he did then, laughing at something I said.
But the illusion breaks when he removes his hand, his expression alarmed, almost as if he hadn’t realized it was there.
The loss of warmth is immediate, the bare skin of my knee suddenly cold.
Jacob takes his phone, taps around on it, then sets the GPS back in place. “There’s a Tesco Extra a few kilometers away,” he says gruffly. “We can stop there.”
I swallow. “Okay.”
I keep my eyes on the road as we crawl through traffic, driving carefully. But I don’t miss the way Jacob drums his long fingers against his leg, a deliberate rhythm. A steady sound.
I tell myself that I don’t find it soothing. That I don’t miss those fingers. Or the way he used to be. Or the way his skin felt on mine.