6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
“Okay, sweetheart,” I said. “What’s going on?"
Savannah had chosen a little hole-in-the-wall sushi place for our lunch meetup.
The waitress had just finished taking our orders and made her way back to the kitchen, weaving between tables the whole way.
From how crowded the place was, I figured this had to be the best place to eat on campus.
Neither Savannah nor I had been interested in going far after I picked her up from class—I had the second half of my work day, she had her afternoon lectures, then some kind of hang out with Lina.
My daughter’s gaze flickered to the plate, then back to me. Her chopsticks sat unsplit next to her place setting, along with an unopened can of LaCroix. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked this nervous.
Hell, I was nervous, too.
Please don’t let the word ‘Bailey’ come out of your mouth, I thought, my jaw clenching. Don’t let that be the reason you asked me to come here today, sweetheart. If it is, we’re all in big trouble…
I told myself that wasn’t the reason my daughter had asked to meet with me. And that if she really knew that her best friend and I had started a relationship, she’d have brought it up at home instead of waiting for now.
But even if it wasn’t Bailey, it was something bad.
Fathers can always tell.
“Dad…” Savannah began. She trailed off, her bottom lip already trembling.
Oh hell. I leaned over and took my daughter’s hand.
“Sweetheart, whatever it is, we’ll get through it,” I said, sounding more certain than I felt.
In a way, that was half of what fatherhood was—projecting the image of a stable, unchangeable rock in a world that was prone to flipping people’s lives upside down on any random Tuesday.
It’s what I’d been doing since the beginning.
“I love you, Savannah. That’s never going to change, no matter what it is you have to say to me today.
” I hesitated, a spike of anxiety piercing my gut.
“If there’s something I’ve done that’s made you feel uncomfortable, I… ”
Savannah made a confused face. “It’s not you, Dad,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s… it’s Mom.”
I relaxed a fraction. She didn’t know about me, then.
“Okay, angel. What about your Mom?”
“Dad.” Savannah’s lips peeled back over her teeth. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
A horrible thought occurred to me. “Sweetheart, is this about Bailey?”
Savannah was already shaking her head. “Mom’s getting married,” she blurted.
Oh.
Oh, well.
My daughter froze, watching for my reaction. A pair of college students bumped the table as they passed, moving to avoid colliding with a waitress. The moment lengthened, the silence stretching out.
“Dad, I said…”
I let out a sigh. Suddenly I felt very, very tired.
“I know what you said, sweetheart,” I said, glancing to the side.
“Are you… okay?”
Was I? I searched my feelings. Pastor Kevin, the McMansion, the bed that Bailey and I had christened long before my ex-wife and her new beau got to spend their first night in it as a married couple. Did this upset me? Offend me?
It’s been all of nine months, a part of me whispered. Nine fucking months since the divorce. That should’ve pissed me off, even if nothing else did.
And yet…
“I’m… I’m okay, sweetheart,” I said, sounding like I’d only just realized it.
Savannah blinked. “You sure?”
I nodded slowly. “I think so,” I said, forcing out a chuckle. “I mean, I can’t really say I didn’t see it coming. That dinner your mother invited us to last weekend definitely felt like she was soft launching something. And her and Kevin seem very close.”
That was a diplomatic way of putting it.
“It’s so messed up,” Savannah said, shaking her head with contempt. “She’s the one who left you, and she’s the one who ripped our family in half. I mean, you’ve only just started dating again! And she really thinks I’m going to—”
Savannah bit down on whatever it was she was about to say. The waitress had just arrived with our appetizers: miso soup for Savannah, a little plate of potstickers for me.
When she left, my daughter remained staring at her plate. Through her plate, more like it. She was sitting right in front of me, and she might as well have been on the moon.
Do something, Tom, a voice whispered. It was the same voice that told me to cancel Brenda’s meeting—that said it was okay to have Bailey swear the promises she’d made last night in bed with me.
“Here,” I grunted, taking the chopsticks. The sharp snap sound they made as I pulled them apart brought Savannah back to reality. “I’ve got that for you.”
I also popped the cap on her sparkling water. Savannah shook herself a bit, like she’d been in a trance. “Thanks,” she whispered.
“Sweetheart, what is going on?” I asked. “I know you did not ask me to come out to lunch with you just to tell me Debbie’s getting re-married. Even if you wouldn't have said that in front of Lina, you would’ve told Bailey and McKenna as soon as she left the house.”
“Thank you for letting them stay with us, Dad,” Savannah whispered.
I sat up a little straighter. I shouldn’t have felt guilty, but shouldn’t and didn’t were two different words. “You don’t need to thank me—”
“Yes, I do.” Savannah ran her fingers through her hair, chuckling ruefully.
“It was a huge ask. Letting three college girls take your man cave? Having to listen to us coming and going at all hours of the day and night?” She shook her head.
“Most Dads wouldn’t have put up with that.
I realized when I saw what Kevin did to Mom’s basement—when he said that thing about wasting space or whatever.
” She grimaced. “I don’t know how I’d deal with all this if I didn’t have them, Dad. ”
“I’m not Kevin,” I said, chuckling. Truer words had never been spoken. “And I like having you girls under my roof. I’m happy you have somewhere safe to stay. And honestly…”
Now it was my turn to trail off. I’d been about to say too much—say something that might have pinged my daughter’s radar.
“Honestly what, Dad?” Savannah cocked her head to the side.
My mouth caught up with my brain. “It’s been a lot less lonely,” I admitted.
“The house empty every night after your mother left… I’m not going to lie.
Those were dark times, angel.” I watched Savannah’s face fill with sympathy.
“Having those two girls downstairs helped. Having you in my life helped a whole lot more.”
There. That was close enough without being too much.
Part of me still felt guilty—after all, Savannah had no idea exactly how much Bailey and McKenna were helping me get over my ex-wife—but nothing I’d said was untrue.
Even if Bailey had never been standing in the hallway at the Armada—even if McKenna never saw me as anything other than Savannah’s Dad—I wouldn’t have regretted doing what I did.
“Having all four of us under the same roof let me feel like I still had a family after mine fell apart,” I said. "I don’t think you’ll understand that—at least, I really hope you never have to understand it, sweetheart. But the truth is, I ought to be the one thanking you.”
I thought that would make her smile. Instead, she grimaced.
“Oh, Dad,” Savannah whispered. “You’re not going to thank me when I tell you what Debbie asked me.”
Instantly, I was on high alert. The thought was awful, inconceivable—and I couldn’t stop my mind from going there. To the scam.
“Sweetheart.” I leaned across the table, radiating barely repressed rage, and took my daughter’s hand. “Did your mother try to pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do?”
Savannah met my gaze for a moment.
And then she started to cry.
I’m going to kill her. The thought felt like I was hearing it from the bottom of a deep, dark well. I’m going to fucking kill Debbie.
“Sweetheart, it’s okay,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I will never let your mother exploit you, do you understand me? You’re not going to have anything to do with that app. I—Jesus, I should’ve protected you better. I promise, I will make this go away. Fucking hell, her own daughter…”
Savannah wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “What?”
Huh?
“What app?” Savannah stared at me, clearly not understanding. “Dad, what are you talking about?”
Oh shit. I hadn’t stepped on a landmine. I’d taken the goddamn landmine, buried it in the sand in front of me, and gleefully jumped on top of it.
“Mom wants me to be in the wedding,” Savannah said, blinking back more tears. “She wants me to be the freaking maid of honor. Me!”
Acid filled my gut, even as relief flooded my veins. Even Debbie wasn’t that awful. She might have gladly roped my daughter’s best friend into some kind of catfishing scam, but even she balked at involving her own daughter in it.
Later on, I’d wonder if Debbie’s reticence wasn’t a mirror image of mine: her hiding her scams from her daughter to keep her image from being tarnished, me concealing my relationship with Bailey so I didn’t break her heart. But at the moment, all I could think about was Savannah.
About how much she was hurting—and how close I’d just come to giving the game away.
“I know why she’s doing it,” Savannah said, her bottom lip trembling.
“She wants me there so she can pretend I’m okay with all this—so that everyone who shows up sees me and goes ‘oh, she must be in the right, her daughter decided to be her maid of honor!’” She threw up her hands.
“It makes me want to barf. It makes me feel like I’m just a game piece, instead of a person! ”
Someone at a nearby table glanced our way. A look from me and they were suddenly very interested in their chicken teriyaki.
I couldn’t help but empathize. “Sweetheart, that’s… that’s awful,” I said. “She’s putting you in an extremely unfair position.”
“I don’t want to do it,” she blurted. “But then, I kinda do?”
My brows shot skyward.