Chapter 19 #2
It was then that Kendall turned on another lamp, which spilled light onto his face.
Although she’d just seen him, slinking around the gas station parking lot and also outside the burger place, it both terrified and shocked Minnie to see her father here.
He looked thinner than he had back in Miami, and his hair was long and slightly greasy. She’d never seen him like this.
“Dad,” she breathed, love for him beaming out of her. “Dad, what are you doing here?”
Kendall was wearing a pair of sweats and a baggy T-shirt. “Did you tell anyone you were coming?” he asked, his voice low. “Are you wearing a wire?”
Minnie didn’t really understand what wearing a wire meant. But she shook her head. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Good,” Kendall rasped. “Because people would get the wrong idea, Minnie. People have the wrong idea about everything. Do you get that?”
Minnie took a small step away from him. Her nostrils burned, maybe from how he smelled. She’d never known her father to miss a day of showering. “Do you have any food?” she asked, because she was becoming more and more panicked, and she needed to be able to think.
Kendall rolled his eyes just the slightest bit, then walked over to open the mini fridge. He removed a plastic container of caramel-flavored high-protein pudding. This was not exactly Minnie’s idea of nutrition, but she accepted a plastic spoon and sat on the edge of his mussed bed.
“Take a bite,” Kendall ordered.
Minnie did as she was told, trying not to wince at the gross preservative taste. The omelet her mother had made for her this morning felt like a completely different species from whatever this was. She took another bite, watching as her father relaxed the slightest bit.
“You know your mother set me up, right?” he asked suddenly.
“I know that.” Minnie felt her shoulders tighten. “I can’t believe she did this to you.”
“Have you told her that?” Kendall asked. “Have you told her how angry you are?”
Minnie nodded, thinking it best that she didn’t mention that she and Hannah had been growing closer as of late, that she’d been thinking of forgiving her. “I can’t believe it,” she repeated. “Where have you been?”
Kendall let his eyes flicker into the back of his head.
“You don’t want to know. I’ve been through the worst days of my life.
Nobody should have to go through this. And it’s all because of your mother.
I never should have married her. I should have listened to my own mother.
She told me, ‘You’ll never be happy.’ And she was right. ”
Minnie remembered the wedding portrait of her mother and father. It had hung in one of the rooms that nobody really used in their massive Miami house. As a little girl, she’d loved looking at it. She’d loved imagining herself as the flower girl at her own parents’ wedding.
“But through it all, I missed you, honey,” Kendall said, his eyes returning to Minnie.
“I knew I couldn’t leave you with her. Not for long.
So that’s why I’m here. I’m here to take you with me.
” He offered a smile that very nearly brought Minnie back to the days before Nantucket, to the days when she’d been a total daddy’s girl.
She was still a daddy’s girl. Wasn’t she? She took another bite of pudding and felt the silence collapse onto her shoulders. Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them away.
“Of course, things are different from what they were,” Kendall said.
“Because of what your mother did, I can’t be myself anywhere we go.
I’ve had things set up for a long time, just in case something like this happened.
I created separate identities for myself and built different lives all over the world.
Around a year ago, I had another identity made for you, too, sweetie.
” Kendall dropped to a squat and rifled around under the bed to find a folder, within which he kept a passport.
He handed it to Minnie, who opened it to find her own photograph, plus the name STEPHANIE HITCHINS.
“Stephanie?” Minnie warbled. The name felt so foreign to her, so unlike her. Why had her father picked it? Of all the potential names? She’d always wanted to be an Aurora, for example.
“It’s just a name,” Kendall said, his tone darkening.
Minnie closed the passport. Her hands were shaking. “What’s your name?”
“Bruce,” Kendall said simply. This made sense to Minnie. Her father had always loved Bruces: Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Willis. Could she still convince him to give her another name?
“But we need to leave as soon as possible,” her father stated.
Minnie stuttered with panic. “I can’t leave. Not yet.”
Kendall arched his eyebrow and remained silent.
“I mean,” Minnie went on, trying to fix it. “I need to figure a few things out first. I need to pack?”
“We can buy everything later,” Kendall said.
Minnie thought of her mother, alone in that creaky old house, waiting for her. She thought of Viggo, who would probably go back to Stacy after she left. Maybe he would think of Minnie every once in a while. Or maybe their love had been so brief that he’d never think of it at all.
Minnie didn’t know what to say.
Kendall crossed his arms over his chest. “I guess you don’t believe me, then.”
Minnie was stricken. “No! I do. I believe you.”
“Then why don’t you want to come with me?” Kendall demanded. “Would you rather stay here with your mother than live with me? I have money, Minnie. You have a future with me.”
Minnie didn’t say what she was thinking. The future with her father was not her future. It was Stephanie Hitchins’ future.
“I want to come,” she said quietly. “I just need, like, twenty-four hours. Give me twenty-four hours.”
For a moment, Minnie felt sure that her father was going to say no. But then, he took a deep breath and spread his hands out on his thighs. “Twenty-four hours,” he affirmed. “After that, I’m taking off with or without you. There’s no going back.”