41 - NECESSARY RISKS
Lacey
The next morning, I needed three cups of coffee to wake completely.
In my office after the first two patients, I had a full forty-five minutes in mid-morning.
Instead of doing paperwork, which I should have been doing, I brooded about Dad.
Janice had told me the scab torn off when I met Carol wouldn't sit quiet on its own, and she was right.
Especially now that I knew how it had warped me.
I sat at the desk and tried to script it in my head. Nothing came out clean. Every version was either an apology or an indictment, and I didn't want to hand him either one.
I couldn't do this down a phone line. Not this.
I put the phone down. Picked it back up.
My father didn't have much patience for being challenged, from me or from anyone.
I'd seen his temper. He'd never raised a hand in his life.
What he did instead was go quiet and go hard, keep the grudge for a decade, and never once try the other side of a thing on for size.
I'd already lost a husband this year. The easy thing was to leave it alone, keep the peace, keep my father-daughter relationship intact.
A year ago, that would have been the whole of it. Now he needed to know what he'd done.
I dialed.
"Hey, sweetheart. How are you?" He picked up on the first ring.
"Fine, Dad. I need to talk to you."
"Go ahead, Lacey. I'm here."
"No, Dad. In person. It's important."
I heard him hear it.
"This is about Carol," he said, defensive now. "You know she's not as young as she looks, don't you?"
"It's not about Carol."
"Wait. How old do you think she is?"
"Dad."
"She's fifty-two," he said. "Old enough to be your mother. Technically."
"I like Carol." I did, which had surprised me. "This is about you and me."
The line went quiet. When he came back, his voice had changed. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"
"No trouble, Dad. I just have things I need to say to your face."
Dead air, long enough that I checked the screen to see whether the call had dropped.
"All right," he said, slow.
"I'll drive up in a couple of weeks. If that works for you."
"Of course it works." A beat. "You can't give me a hint?"
"Not on the phone."
"Okay, sweetheart," he said. "Come up when you can."
"I'll text you before, Dad. Say hi to Carol for me. Love you."
I didn't feel proud for having the courage to finally do this. I felt dread and anger and guilt. No, this is something I have to do.
I checked my email. One from my lawyer's office had come in at 7:40 with the subject line RE: RESPONSE FROM OPPOSING COUNSEL.
Brad wanted another thirty days. Thirty days is roughly two thousand dollars of a man reading me the same paragraph in a different order, and Brad knows it, which is the entire strategy.
He wanted alimony and he was draining me to get it.