37
Lila
My father’s house looked exactly the same, which somehow made pulling into the drive worse.
The porch light glowed against the last of the daylight, the flowerbeds were neat, and the hedges sat in the same straight line Dad had maintained for years.
Usually the order of the place felt familiar.
Tonight it looked like proof that a house could stay perfectly composed while the people inside it came apart.
Jade shut off her phone and slid it into her pocket before we got out.
Considering that thing usually lived in her hand, the gesture told me she was more uneasy than she wanted to admit.
I killed the engine and looked at her, taking in the black jeans, boots, dark top, and eyeliner that made her green eyes stand out.
She looked entirely like herself, which should have reassured me more than it did.
Lately I kept checking for signs that something had shifted.
“Ugh, are we sure about this?” I asked.
Jade looked toward the house before answering. “No.”
A laugh threatened but never quite made it out. “Honest answer.”
Jade’s mouth twitched. “You asked.”
“I did.” We stayed there another second, staring at the front door as if either of us expected it to make the decision for us.
I had spent the week telling myself this dinner mattered.
Peace mattered. Family mattered. Jade deserved a grandfather and an uncle who could love her without making Jackson the price of admission.
Hope had been doing a lot of heavy lifting lately.
When we got out, I reached for Jade’s hand without thinking.
She let me keep it all the way up the drive, and that told me enough.
I made the decision somewhere between the car and the porch: if Dad or Matty made her feel caught between them and her father again, we were leaving.
Dad opened the door before I could knock. Relief crossed his face so quickly it stripped away some of the anger I had brought with me. For one second he wasn’t the man who had fought me over Jackson. He was just my father, looking at me and Jade like he had been afraid we might not come.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, and the softness in his voice made this harder than anger would have.
I tightened my hand around Jade’s for a second. “Hi, Dad.”
His attention moved immediately to Jade, his expression softening in the way it always did for her. “Hey there, princess.”
Jade gave him a small smile. “Hi, Grandpa.”
Matty appeared behind him, carrying so much of Dad in his face that the resemblance caught me off guard. Same dark hair, same broad shoulders, same tightness around the mouth when emotion was trying and failing to stay under control.
“Hey, Doodles,” he said quietly.
Jade’s expression stayed neutral. “Hey.”
I stepped inside with Jade beside me and turned to Dad before anyone could pretend this was an ordinary family dinner. “We need some ground rules first.”
His face tightened almost immediately. “Lila.”
“No.” I held his gaze and refused to let the sigh in my name do what it had done to me my whole life.
“You do not get to sigh my name at me like I’m overreacting.
Not tonight.” I tipped my chin toward Jade.
“You are not allowed to say one negative thing about Jackson in front of her. I don’t care how you feel about him.
I don’t care what history you think you have the right to be bitter over.
He is her father, they are building a relationship, and she cares about him.
You will not ruin that for her.” His jaw shifted, but I didn’t give him the opening.
“She deserves to know her father after all these years, and if you can’t respect that, we leave. That simple.”
Dad looked ready to argue. Control had always sat in his bones in ways I understood too well, which was probably why we could hurt each other so efficiently. Before he could start, I turned to Matty.
“And you,” I said. “You will apologize to her for what you said.”
He didn’t dodge it. The bruised look that crossed his face when he glanced at Jade told me he had been carrying the moment with him all week. “I was already planning to.”
I gave him a short nod. “Good.”
Dad exhaled through his nose. “Can we not do this right here in the foyer?”
“We can do it right here in the foyer, or Jade and I can get back in the car.” I looked at Matty because he had a better chance of getting Dad to listen tonight than I did.
“You better get him on board with keeping his mouth shut about Jackson. If he can’t manage that, this dinner ends before it starts, and we won’t be trying again anytime soon. ”
Matty nodded once. “Alright.”
I held his gaze long enough to make sure he understood, then looked at Jade. “Come on. Let’s go check dinner.”
We left them in the foyer and headed for the kitchen.
The smell of chicken casserole and roasted vegetables met us before we reached it, warm and familiar enough to pull at memories I didn’t need tonight.
Dad cooked when he wanted to repair something he couldn’t talk about.
It had taken me years to recognize that as one of the few forms of softness he trusted.
The casserole bubbled gently on the stove while the vegetables finished in the oven. Jade stopped beside the counter and lowered her voice. “I'm still wondering if this is such a good idea.”
“Yeah, doesn't remotely feel like it.” My answer earned the smallest smile from her.
I leaned one hip against the counter. “But I want there to be peace. Or at least less war.”
She folded her arms. “That depends on whether they can act right.”
I checked the casserole mostly to give my hands something to do. “Don’t you want to have a good relationship with your grandpa and your uncle?”
Jade’s expression sharpened with the same blunt honesty that had gotten me through more than one difficult conversation lately. “Not if they’re not going to respect my relationship with my dad. Or yours with him, Mom.”
That landed harder than I expected, mostly because some part of me had hoped my daughter saw less than she did.
Footsteps sounded behind us before I could answer. Matty came into the kitchen alone and went straight to Jade.
He stood in front of her for a second, all the defensiveness gone from his face. The weight of what he had said seemed to have settled where it belonged, and for once he wasn’t trying to explain it away.
“Doodles,” he said, his voice catching on the nickname before he pulled her into his arms.
Jade stiffened for half a second, then folded against him. For all her attitude, she had always loved deeply and forgiven faster than most people deserved.
“I am so sorry,” Matty said into her hair.
“I mean that. In no world did I have the right to say what I said to you. None.” He eased back enough to see her face.
“You are the brightest thing in my life. The brightest thing in this family. And I feel like absolute shit that I darkened that light for even one second with my own crap.”
Jade blinked hard but held herself together.
Matty kept his eyes on her. “What I said had nothing to do with you,” he went on.
“It had everything to do with me and what I haven’t worked through where your dad is concerned.
That is not your burden, and I had no right to dump it on you.
None. I would not blame you if you never forgave me. ”
Jade sighed with the long-suffering patience of someone deeply inconvenienced by sincere emotion. Then she squeezed him back. “Yeah, well. You’re lucky I’m deeply compassionate and annoyingly mature.”
The laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Matty’s followed, rougher around the edges.
Jade pulled back and pointed at him. “But you do need to man up and work your crap out with my dad, because the rest of us are getting tired of being collateral damage.”
Matty stared at her for a beat before shaking his head. “Sometimes you are wiser than your years.”
I scoffed. “She definitely gets that from me.”
Jade looked over. “Questionable.”
Matty managed a small, tired smile before turning to me. “I got Dad under a promise to keep talk of Jackson off the table.”
I studied him long enough to decide I mostly believed it. “Good,” I said. “Dinner’s ready. Go tell him to get to the table. Jade and I will bring everything out.”
He nodded and left. The kitchen door swung closed behind him, and I caught Jade watching after him with more softness than she would ever admit.
“You already forgave him before he walked in here, didn’t you?” I asked.
She picked up the casserole dish and made a face at me. “Maybe.”
I shook my head because she had never stood a chance against a sincere apology. “I knew it.”
Jade adjusted her grip on the casserole dish. “He looked like somebody ran over his soul, Mom.”
I reached for the serving spoon. “That is not an excuse.”
“No,” she agreed, already smiling. “But it is kind of pathetic.”
That got me laughing again, which at least loosened some of the tension before we carried dinner out.
The table looked exactly as it had through years of family meals, right down to Dad’s insistence on cloth napkins nobody had ever successfully explained.
Only the silence had changed. It wasn’t angry at first. Just careful, with everybody passing dishes and exchanging low thank-yous while the scrape of forks seemed louder than it should.
Dad finally looked at Jade. “So how’s the new school?”
She straightened a little. “I love it.”
The answer came quickly enough to ease something in the room. “The art program is great,” she went on. “I’m making friends. People there are way nicer.” Dad and Matty looked at her at the same time.
Matty leaned slightly toward her. “What do you mean, nicer?”
Jade glanced at me, and I watched her realize she had stepped into something larger than she intended. She looked down at her plate before answering. “Um. The kids here weren’t always great.”
Dad frowned. “How so?”