Chapter Twenty-Seven Lily
I’m in the middle of painting when my father confronts me. He knocks on my bedroom door, and I have to find a towel to wipe the paint from my hands before I can answer. I’m wearing old jeans and an oxford shirt, both of which are covered in paint splatters from various projects over the years.
Mom is out today, preparing for the mental health gala next weekend.
“Lily, you have to stop ignoring me,” he says as soon as we’re face-to-face.
I have the door only half-open, but he must catch a glimpse of my setup. I’ve thrown an old set of linens on the ground and covered the floor with canvases, palette knives, and brushes. It’s an absolute mess, and for a second, I wonder if he’ll yell at me the way a father would in a TV show.
Instead, he just says, “Wow,” because I suppose he has never acted the way a dad should act, and it’s not his place, anyway. “What is all of this?” He nudges the door open so he can see more of my work.
I’ve refined the original two portraits and added three more.
They’re all of Rose and Lottie, except I included one of Jade back in our city apartment.
In the image, she’s eating popcorn on our old shabby tan couch.
Her pink-streaked hair is lit up in the yellow glow of the television, and her mouth is full with laughter.
I’m not sure what the common theme is yet, except that it’s an ode to all of the women I love.
Portraits—such as the one of the captain—are often formal, like images you see of people when the camera was first invented and everyone had to sit still so that the picture didn’t turn out blurry.
I wanted something more casual but still grand: a celebration of the everyday.
I’ve been getting up early in the mornings to work on them before my shifts.
This is a major change from my usual habit of sleeping until noon on my days off, and it makes me feel strangely proud.
“Lily, these are incredible,” says my father as he walks in the room, careful to avoid stepping on anything. “How long have you been working on these?”
“Just a few weeks,” I respond, all of a sudden shy. He’s not who I had in mind when I imagined showing them to someone for the first time, and under his gaze, I worry the magic won’t hold.
He leans down to look closer at the one of Lottie in the garden. “It’s incredible,” he repeats. “You really captured her essence.” He smiles, looking at Lottie’s stubborn concentration. “You know, she once threw that turquoise coffeepot at me.”
“She did?” I’ve never heard this story before.
He laughs, and I remember how he got away with his addiction for so many years. He has always been too charming for his own good. People let him off the hook. Except, I suppose, Lottie.
“It was after she found out Rose was breaking up with me.” He shakes his head. “She was livid about the affair.”
“She had a right to be,” I remind him.
“She did,” he agrees. He turns his gaze away from the painting. “Lily, I’m so sorry. I know you’re angry at me, but you have to know that I hate how strained our relationship is.”
I don’t do anything except stand there, which he takes as a sign to continue.
“I’m a flawed, messed-up person. I haven’t been a good father, or a good partner for that matter. But I do love you. I came here to do right by you.”
I keep my arms crossed and stand at the opposite end of the room. “Then why didn’t you answer my email? When I wrote you back, you didn’t even respond after weeks of begging me to talk to you.”
My father runs his hands through his hair so aggressively that I worry he’ll pull out the remaining strands.
It’s already thinning. “I fucked up,” he says.
“I had just gotten sober. I was in a good headspace, so I reached out. And then the funding for the project I was working on fell through, and…” He starts to pace.
“I panicked. I relapsed. I didn’t want you to see me like that. ”
I force myself to remain stony, even though there’s a part of me that feels sorry for him. I don’t want to go through this again: the rise and fall of my expectations whenever he flits in and out of my life.
“You could have told me that,” I say. “I can handle it. But instead, you just ignored me.”
He stares at the painting of Lottie again, as if he wants her to chime in. “I’m sorry,” he says in a quiet voice. “I’ve always assumed staying away was better for you. I thought it would make your life easier, but you have to know that I was there all along, cheering you on.”
“What do you mean?” I keep my arms crossed.
“Rose and Lottie would send me everything you did, every piece of art you created, every test you aced. I paid for college, of course.”
The mention makes my limbs grow heavy. I know how lucky I am to have had his assistance, along with the few academic scholarships I was able to scrape by on.
Without him, we couldn’t have afforded tuition on our own, but the reminder of it feels like another way to use money as a means of control.
It reminds me of Henry, who is always throwing around his family’s influence.
My father quickly continues. “I saw how well you were doing, and I didn’t want to ruin that.” He smiles sadly. “I tend to ruin stuff. Even the stuff that’s been handed to me by my parents, like my career. Or my marriage. Both of them.”
“You and Maren are done?” I have a difficult time calling her by her real name instead of the Mistress.
“She left me a month ago,” he says, swinging his arms. He laughs in a self-abashed way. “Can you believe it? You’re a wonderful kid, Lily. You deserve a better dad than me.”
For some reason, the emotion of the summer overcomes me. My lips have been pursed in frustration while he’s been speaking, but all at once, a strangled sob escapes. The cry feels almost entirely separate from my conscious self, like my body has gone rogue.
Dad comes over, avoiding the paintings like he’s in a game of hopscotch, and gives me a hug. “I’m sorry, Lily. I really am.”
“I… don’t… know… why… I’m crying,” I stutter through my sobs. “It’s been a long summer.”
He asks what I mean, and for some inexplicable reason, I decide to open up.
I tell him about getting fired, my estrangement from Jade, Clive refusing to provide a professional reference, Henry getting married.
When I’m done, I’m slightly breathless and hot in the face. I feel emptied out and exhausted.
“That bastard!” shouts my father.
“Who?” I ask, thinking through the variety of options.
“Clive, of course. Your old boss. He can’t do this.
” He begins to pace in circles, careful not to step on any of my art supplies or canvases.
“He can’t fire you with no concrete cause and then make it impossible for you to be rehired.
” He stops in his tracks, an idea apparently occurring to him. “You should confront him.”
“I should?” I’m sitting on the floor, holding my knees. My face feels tight from crying.
“You absolutely should!” He sits down across from me. “Here, I’ll help you compose an email. That jackass can’t get away with this. I know a fair amount of lawyers who would sue his ass.”
I sniff, laughing a little. “Aren’t they all probably entertainment lawyers, though? Not exactly employment law.”
“Doesn’t matter!” rages my dad.
He gestures for me to hand over my phone, and I do so after a moment of hesitation.
He opens up a blank email draft and begins typing.
When he’s done, he gets a satisfied look on his face and places the phone back in my lap.
“There!” he says. “That should show him. You’re going to send this to him and he’ll be shaking in his boots. ”
“I am?” I open the message.
It reads:
Dear Asshat,
It recently became evident that you have refused to give me a professional reference.
After three long years working at your firm, I’m shocked and hurt by this decision.
We both know that I worked tirelessly to contribute to the success of this publication and I deserve to have those contributions respected.
My future employment opportunities should not suffer because of a personal grudge.
Please give me a call to discuss or I will have no choice but to escalate this matter with litigation.
It’s not terrible besides the need to soften the language a bit and, of course, delete the word asshat.
“Maybe I am,” I repeat, nodding to myself as I type in my edits.
I think back to the myriad of ways Clive’s personal life seeped into the professional: the vacations he had me book, back waxes (as Clive inappropriately once put it, he likes to be “hairless as a dolphin”), and even once, the time he asked me to drive his car from the city to his house in the Hamptons because his teenage daughter wanted to borrow it.
All of this despite the fact that I was hired to be on the editorial art team, not as his personal assistant.
He never asked any of the male staff to do this extra work.
“You’re right,” I say. “If Clive wants to talk about being unprofessional, let’s have that discussion. He knows he owes me better than this.”
I adjust the language and push send. When I hit the button, a rush of adrenaline surges through my veins.
“That’s my girl,” says Dad proudly. “No one treats my daughter like this.”
Once again with no forewarning, the waterworks return.
I realize, with some embarrassment, how much I’ve been secretly craving this protection, how much I’ve wanted my father to stand up in my defense and act like…
well, like a father. It’s humiliating, but after years of striving to be hyper-independent so that he could never hurt me again, I feel overcome by the small assistance.
“What did I say this time?” my father asks, rushing over to me.
“It’s nothing,” I say through hiccups. “Like I said, it’s been a long summer.”
When I’m done, we both sit on the floor, quiet together.
“I’ve missed out on your entire life,” my father says after a few moments. “You’re grown now.”