Chapter 10 Three Weeks after the Party
THREE WEEKS AFTER THE PARTY
“Well, that’s the last of it,” Laurie announces, taping the last box and scrawling Bedroom - Dads H on the top in black sharpie. She gets to her feet and gazes around the room that was her teenage bedroom, before her eyes land on me. “I can’t believe this is it.”
“Me neither.” I cross my arms and lean against the door frame. “I mean, if you’re really nice I might not rent it out right away. I might even let you come home for Christmas sometimes.”
“How generous of you, thank you, father.” Laurie grins as she picks up the box, shaking her head when I hold out my hands to take it from her. “I got it, dad.”
I follow my extremely capable daughter down to the U-haul she rented to move her life across the country to Seattle.
“You going to be OK driving this thing?” I ask as she slides the box into the back.
“Yeah I’ll be fine.” She rolls the door down and dusts off her hands. “Mom said she’s driven these before too, so I’m pretty confident we’ll be all set.”
“I wish I could be the one to drive you, peanut.”
Laurie waves me off with a smile. “It’s fine, dad. Mom’s really excited to do this with me. Besides, you’re coming to see me before the summer’s out, right?”
“I sure am.”
Laurie’s phone pings, and she pulls it from her pocket. “Aww, poor Amber.”
My stomach does a flip. “Everything alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, she’s just…” Laurie trails off as she taps out a response. “Having a hard time. I thought it was the break-up with Ryan, but… It seems to be something else.”
“Oh, jeez. I wonder what it could be.” I hope I sound fucking nonchalant, because I feel anything but. The guilt has been eating me up for the past three weeks, since that awful night at the graduation party.
Laurie sighs. “I think it’s the move to Boston.”
“Yeah, probably.”
Laurie looks at me with raised eyebrows and heads back into the house. “I’m thirsty, let’s get a drink before I go.”
I follow her into the kitchen, and Laurie gets out two glasses and pours us both a lemonade.
“You know,” she says slowly, sliding the glass towards me. “I think Amber wouldn’t be so nervous about moving to Boston if she was going with someone.”
“Oh, yeah?” I take a sip of the lemonade, and don’t meet Laurie’s eyes. “Which someone?”
“Dad.”
I try to swallow down the lemonade, which is about as easy as swallowing broken glass, and raise my eyes to Laurie’s. Her eyebrows are still raised, and she’s tapping a finger against the counter.
“You can drop the act, Dad.”
My head whirs. Blood roars in my ears. My mouth is dry even though I just had a drink, and Laurie’s eyes bore into me.
“Wh-what act, peanut?” I shake my head, and Laurie puffs out a laugh.
“Dad, come on. It would only be more obvious if you were wearing a t-shirt saying, I’m in Love with Amber Pope.”
My stomach turns into a stone and drops through the floor. My throat swells up and I scramble to say something, anything. But I just gawp like a damn fish, staring at my daughter, who sighs and shakes her head.
“Dad-”
“I’m so sorry.” I reach across the counter to take Laurie’s hand, shame welling up in my chest. “I know you must think I’m disgusting, and a pervert. But you have to know, I never meant for this to happen. I never thought of her that way when you were kids, I swear. I never once-”
“Dad, it’s OK.” Laurie dips her head to meet my eyes, and smiles. “I promise. I’m not angry. Really, I’m not.”
I exhale heavily. “How can you be alright with this? It’s… It’s wrong.”
“Two people loving each other isn’t wrong.”
“It is when one of them is as old as I am,” I scoff. “I never should have done it. She came over, and was so… Pretty, and… I was stupid, and weak. And now… Now I just hurt her.” I look up at my daughter’s narrowed eyes, and instantly feel ashamed all over again. “How did you even figure it out?”
“I had my suspicions when you suddenly wouldn’t be in the same room together anymore.” Laurie chuckles when I cover my face with my hands. “But the whole, You hate Boston thing just sort of confirmed it.”
“Fuck.” I drag my hands down my face and meet my daughter’s sympathetic gaze. “It can’t happen. It just can’t. I can’t do that to her.”
“Do what, dad? Make her happy? Make her feel loved?” Laurie throws her hands up.
“I am really failing to see what the problem is here. The only thing that pisses me off is I can’t ask her about all the gory details because, Eww.
” She wrinkles her nose for a second. “But that’s it.
There is nothing standing in the way of this. ”
“Laurie, come on.” I get to my feet and stalk along the kitchen counter, raking my hands through my hair and despite feeling intense shame, I’m also so relieved that someone knows, even if that someone is my daughter.
“I’m pushing fifty. She’s just turned twenty-two.
Her whole life is ahead of her. She doesn’t want some old man at her side, weighing her down. ”
“First of all, you’re not old,” Laurie says, holding up a finger in the air. “Further to that, you are not the average dad. You work out every single day. Your legs are the size of a small child. You’re fit, and you’re healthy, and I don’t think a walker and a bed pan are in your near future.”
I can’t help but laugh at her words and the indignant look on her face. “Fine. I’m fit and healthy. So what? People die all the time, even when they’re fit.”
“Fucking exactly.” Laurie throws her hands up again and groans. “So Amber marries some finance bro and he gets hit by a Maserati on Wall Street the next year, was she never supposed to get married in case that happened?”
“That is not the point,” I say, rubbing my temples with a sigh.
“Of course anyone can die at any time. But Amber deserves a full life, with the best chance of having a partner at her side for a long time. I might only be able to give her another twenty-five years, what then? You want her to be a widow when she’s in her forties? ”
Laurie folds her arms over her chest and fixes me with a look that makes me feel very much like the child being taught a life lesson.
“Let’s flip that around. Say you really only do have twenty-five years left.
Twenty-five more Christmases. Twenty-five more summers.
Twenty-five more days of going down to the pumpkin patch and picking out your carving pumpkins for Halloween.
Who do you want to spend those twenty-five years with? ”
I huff out a frustrated breath as I lean on the counter. “It is not that simple. Her family will not approve, her father will kill me, her brothers will probably help and can you even imagine what your mother would say?”
“Umm, hello?” Laurie waves her hand directly in my face. “What about what I think?”
I stutter out a breath, trying to come up with another argument, but feeling more and more defeated in the face of my daughter’s determined reason. “What do you think?”
“I happen to think it’s just fine.” Laurie puffs out a breath and runs her blond braid through her hands.
“But you are way too caught up on what everyone else thinks, and not what Amber thinks, or what she wants. Anyone who loves her will accept you both, even if it takes a minute, because she’d be happy.
You parentals talked our whole lives about our happiness being all that mattered. Was that true or not?”
“Of course it was.”
Laurie’s eyebrows shoot back up into her bangs. “But?”
“Only if it doesn’t hurt you,” I say weakly.
“You’re not going to hurt Amber.” Laurie’s expression softens. “I always tell her she deserves the best, because she does. She’s my person, you know? And, if it came down to the best men in the world that I know would treat her right, you’d be at the top of that list.”
I collapse back into the stool and drop my head into my hands. “Too late. I broke her heart at the graduation party. I was an idiot, and she won’t forgive me for what I said.”
“Dad, seriously, you need to stop guessing what people are going to say before they say it.” Laurie gets to her feet, and puts her arms around me. “We all make mistakes, right? But nothing that can’t be fixed.”
I hug my daughter, and want to tell her that some things just can’t be fixed.
Some words cut too deep and can’t be taken back.
But I don’t want to disillusion her, and maybe I really am just a coward who doesn’t want to confront all of this.
Who’s too scared of what this will all do to his reputation, rather than worrying about the woman he loves.
Great partner material I am.
“You should hit the road,” I say after a minute, and kiss the top of her head. “Your mom will be waiting for you.”
“OK, daddy.” She hugs me tighter for a second, and I hug her back. My kiddo. My little girl. Leaving the house for good. “I’ll let you know when we stop for the night.”
“Do that.” I keep my arm around her shoulders as I walk her back out to the U-haul. “And I’ll see you in August.”
“I can’t wait.” She climbs into the truck and guns the engine, giving me a wide smile as I close the door for her. “Try not to miss me too much.”
“You know I will.” I tuck my hands into my pockets as I step back from the truck.
She puts on music, singing at the top of her lungs as she pulls out of the drive, waving madly out of the open window. I can’t help but laugh, shaking my head as the thumping music fades away in the distance.
I stand in my driveway for a long time, the hot sun beating down on my shoulders.
I look down the street in the direction of Amber’s parents’ house.
I don’t even know if she’s still there, and I can’t very well go over there.
Hello, excuse me Aaron, I’m in love with your daughter and I’d like to see her.
That’s a great way to get my nose broken.
I rub the back of my neck with a sigh, turning to go back into the house. I fucked up. I know I did. I hurt an amazing woman who made me feel more myself than I ever have in my life, all because I’m a fucking coward.