Chapter 18 - Janella
It’s one of those endless-feeling days at the café.
By the time the lunch rush finally dies down, all three of us are already exhausted. But no one’s mad about it. A month in, and the café is still doing well. Every day has been a labor of love—and the product of no one person.
Even now, Carmen wipes down tables, and Jin restocks the pastry case. Both of them are vibing with the playlist the three of us compiled over dinner the other night.
I busy myself with fixing the fairy lights when the bell above the door chimes once more.
In a precarious position, I hastily call out, “Welcome to The Great Escape! I’ll be right with you!”
I nearly fall off the chair when I turn.
My eyes latch to the man I inherited them from.
Stricken, I can’t help but look him over. This used to be our routine, didn’t it? On the bad days. On the good ones. Rarely did my inspection find him looking as sober as he does today. He’s showered. His hair is even combed through.
“Hey, Nellie. I heard you got your mom’s place back. I wanted to see it with my own eyes,” he explains when it becomes clear I’m too stunned to make any small talk of my own.
How did you find me? I can’t manage to ask him.
Words have abandoned me. We’d been so careful when Iosif had first brought me here.
I was never on the café’s social media. Gela’s team ran that and all its advertising to deliberately keep me from having to panic about it.
Iosif was even careful to register the business under an alias.
Careful is never careful enough, though, is it? Especially when my father hasn’t had his fix in a while.
Experience alone is what helps me find my voice and suggest, steadily, “How about we take a walk, Dad? I was just running out to grab a couple of burritos for us anyway.”
I say it loudly enough for Carmen and Jin to hear me. Gripping his elbow, I steer him out the door. I don’t want him here. I don’t want him anywhere near my and my mom’s space.
He frowns at me, like I’m the crazy one.
“You can’t make food in your own café?”
I swallow thickly. “Your intel is wrong, Dad. It isn’t my café. I just manage it.”
Slowly, he nods. “Right. I guess that makes sense. What doesn’t is that you never came back. What’s up with that?”
I always think he can’t astonish me more. Somehow, he almost always manages. Guardedly, being careful not to get overtly emotional, I say, “You sold me off. And there was no return receipt.”
His face floods with color, just like mine often does. “I don’t remember much about that night, hon,” he stammers, stopping in his tracks. My stomach tries to claw its way out of my throat.
“Oh.”
“I—I have a disease, honey. I know that. I shouldn’t have drunk so much. I fucked up. That’s why I did everything I could to find you. To bring you home. They told me you got married to some Russian mobster. What kind of father am I?”
The concern in his voice… It makes my battered heart twinge.
“It’s fine,” I force out stiffly. “I’m fine. You can go.”
“Janella.” He grabs for my hand, and I startle, pulling back with such haste that I hit him in the chest. Shame riots through my system. Hurt flashes across his face.
Iosif glares in the back of my head as remorse tries to shape words.
I can’t apologize. I won’t.
I stare at my father, watching him realize in real-time that this won’t be like any of the other times.
“I’m trying here,” he says, frustration coloring the words. “I’ve been going to meetings, y’know. Staying sober. For you, honey. To make our lives better. To make it all right with you.”
I’m a fool. Despite all the bad he’s done, I want to believe him badly.
“Dad,” I try, guiding him toward a bench. It’s really for me. My knees feel unsteady. “I’m glad to hear that. I am. You deserve to be healthy. But I just can’t—I can’t be a part of that right now.”
I wait, my breath held. I wait for the switch to flip and for him to unleash his wrath.
He doesn’t.
“I just wanted you to know,” he sighs heavily. “Wanted you to be proud of your old man. The way I’m proud of you. Your mom would’ve loved what you’ve done with her place.”
Which version of her are you even remembering? I wonder.
It’s no use.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say politely, reaching out to squeeze his arm.
What I’d meant as a parting gesture gives him hope. I see it in his face, the way his eyes light up after. “I’m serious, honey,” he says, zeal renewed. “You did a good thing. And of course you did, huh? You got all the best parts of her, Nellie. That’s why I—I need your help, Nellie.”
There it is.
This is why he came.
We’ve been here so many times before. I’m stupid for doubting the signs. By now, I know it’s no use to put up a fight. I just ask, “What kind of help is that, Dad?”
He looks stung. “When did you get so fucking uppity?” he snaps, scowling at me. “I’m in trouble. Forgive me for thinking my daughter—my only fucking family in the world—would give a shit about that.”
Jekyll and Hyde. This is how it goes.
I say nothing. We both know he doesn’t need me to.
He barrels on all by himself. “Look, Nellie—I’m in deep shit, honey. I owe money to some horrible people. The kind that doesn’t take no for an answer, okay? They’re going to hurt me. They’ll hurt me if I don’t pay up. You don’t want that for your Pop, do you?”
A needling ache pings at my temples. “How much?”
He leans in, as if to tell me a secret. “Too much, honey. Forget that. I’ve been thinking… You’re married to a Yuri now. It didn’t happen in an ideal way, sure, but he likes you. You came to the Pit with him, I heard.”
I feel sick.
“You know things about all of them, don’t you? You’ve always been so good with people. Irresistible. They open up to you, just like they did with your mom.”
No.
No, no, no, no—
This once, the word comes out of my mouth, “No.”
His jaw locks, his face reddening worse. “Will you just listen?” he demands.
“No,” I repeat, colder this time. “I’m not giving you information on my husband and his family. He is a good man. They are good people. I won’t—I would never screw them over. Least of all for you.”
I shove away from the bench and walk away before he can say another word, or before he can smack me for running my mouth.
I should’ve known he would follow after.
I hear him coming before he shoves back into the café behind me.
“I’m not asking you to betray anyone! I just need some fucking information.
It’s power, in this town. There’s good money for it.
More than enough for us to both get out of here.
To start over. Just you and me, Nellie, like it used to be before—”
“Before you sold me, you mean?” I shriek, my pulse loud enough to feel in my throat.
He stares at me, like he doesn’t recognize me.
“I made a mistake.”
I smile, hollow and cold. “You’ve made more than one, Dad. But I won’t. Please leave. There’s nothing you can do to talk me into this. I will never turn my back on them. They’re my family now.”
His expression hardens. His laugh is a malicious sound. It chills me to the core. “They’re killers, Janella. They sell drugs and rape people. Kill them. You can’t be so blind. Jesus, can you? You’re a fucking toy to them. He bought you from me. Wake up. I’m the only family you’ve got.”
His words are built to maim. I know it. The knowledge isn’t a strong enough barrier. It doesn’t prevent them from lashing at me. Because this is my father, this is the only family I’ve known for most of my life. He knows exactly what fear to excavate and hold up to the light.
Yet he’s also missed everything I’ve discovered over the past few months.
Like how I’m stronger than any fear I harbor, I’m more stubborn than my insecurities. I’m not interested in obedience. And I am anything but weak.
“Get out,” I say calmly.
He says my name again. I don’t want it in his mouth. He makes it sound dirty. Everything he touches begins to rot. He can’t do it to me anymore, not ever again.
“Did I stutter? I said get out. You have the next thirty seconds before I show you what my new family of killers has taught me, Dad. Go. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Ugly anger contorts his features. This is how I recognize him best. His most familiar face to me. “You’ll regret this,” he snarls.
“I regret a lot of things. But refusing to let you ever take anything more from me won’t be one of them.”
He slams the door behind himself so viciously that the glass quivers for moments after. The bell jingles on from the force.
My heart stops in my chest when two fingers tap my shoulder. Carmen steps out of the way before my flailing limb gets her in the face.
“You good, boss?” she asks, forehead creased.
That, I think. That is what real concern for your well-being looks like.
I swallow down the lump in my throat, fighting mortifying tears that fill my eyes. “I just need a moment, Car.”
Because I’m not okay. In fact, I don’t know if I ever wholly will be.
***
By the time Otto drives me home, I’m no longer convinced I’m unscathed. A fever has taken hold of me. Within me, myriad contradictory emotions are at war. All of them feel like my undoing.
I’ve never seen myself as an angry person. That’s my father.
But it’s as though mere contact with him has infected me. And now it’s in me. This vicious, monstrous anger pulsing beneath my skin. It breathes fire in every direction.
At my father, for still being exactly who he’s always been.
At myself for never being immune to foolish, painful hope I always let him plant, just for it to never bloom.
At whoever is threatening him. At my mom for dying.
At Iosif, for buying me instead of just pulling me out of the Pit.
At the Yuris, for caring about me, and doing it so well, I’m more keenly aware than ever that my own flesh and blood doesn’t. At reality. At fantasy.
This anger is so different, and yet not different enough, from a deluge of grief.
Have I just been mourning the wrong parent all this time?