My dad is sitting at the dining room table, his laptop open, typing away. He has a steely look in his eyes, a look I have seen before, a look he reserves only when talking about my mom.
“Hi, Dad.” I feel nerves everywhere, in my throat, inside my mouth, deep in my belly.
“Hello, Kennedy.” His voice is ice. He is talking to me like I’m my mom, and it makes me feel awful.
He swivels his laptop around and points to a picture on the screen.
Noah and me this weekend. At the Botanic Garden.
He clicks to the next one.
Noah and me getting into a cab. Then the next.
Me walking into his building the other night.
Then the last one. Me leaving the next morning, the green awning behind me.
“I received these from Jay Fierstein’s lawyer. I think he assumes they’ll be useful in his lawsuit. I’m not sure I agree, but frankly I don’t give a damn about the lawsuit right now. I’d like to know more about the double life you’re leading. Because I assume your mother,” he says, and that last word comes out like spit, “doesn’t know about this.”
I shake my head. I can’t deny. I can’t speak. I can’t form words. The earth is splitting open and blood pounds in my head. Mercilessly. I grab hold of the doorway as the ground starts to sway beneath me, threatening to swallow my traitorous heart whole.
He drops his forehead into his palm. “I expected more from you,” he says to the table, and the words aren’t stalactites anymore. They’re wind, sad and lonely, they’re the spoken sound of disappointment. My chest caves, and my heart literally aches with shame.
I try to say I’m sorry, I try to say It’s not what you think. But there’s no point, because it is what he thinks—it is his daughter lying to him. That’s what these pictures say.
My legs become sandbags. I sink down into the chair because if I stand I might collapse. My dad’s head is still in his hands, so I’m looking at the top of his skull, at his ever-expanding bald spot. Minutes pass by. There’s no ticking clock in this room, but in my head I can hear the hands moving second by second.
“I’m sorry.”
He looks up. His face is the map of a defeated man, a man who has lost, a man whose wife wore him down, whose daughter is following her lead.
“I’m sorry,” I say again because what else can I say?
He looks at me. At least he looks at me. There’s only sadness in his eyes. There’s no disgust. I cling to the possibility that he doesn’t hate me. I cling to this so tightly it becomes my only hope.
“I’m sorry, Dad.” Then I start to cry.
He looks at my tears, at the silent streams running down my face, and he switches sides, pulling me close, my face to his chest. I cry more. He does not comfort me with words, he does not say It’s okay, like he would if I were still a little girl. But this—the warmth of his arms, the familiar spot on his shirt where my tears have made their mark over the years—tells me he is still my dad. He still knows how to be a father. He knows how this works.
When my eyes are dried, I look up, and he speaks.
“How long have you been involved with Noah Hayes?”
I twitch for a second; it’s weird hearing anyone call him Noah, even Noah Hayes.
But perhaps it’s because of this, because my dad uses the same name I use, or maybe it’s because my dad is a parent, and I’m not his enabler, I’m not his confidante, I’m not his partner in crime, that I tell him everything. Like I did that night in the kitchen three years ago.
“The letter I wrote, the letter you found earlier this year, wasn’t to Jay,” I say. “It was to Noah. I wrote him a letter about all the kisses we had, and all the kisses I wanted to have. I was involved with him all last summer and fall. Until you found the letter.”
“Why did you say it was to Jay then?” my dad asks quietly, carefully.
I look away, the tears build up in my chest, in my throat again. How many ways can I hurt him? How many varieties of embarrassment can I inflict upon him? The pain is a fist in my gut, pushing up through my chest. I force out the words, like stones in my mouth, “Because Mom was involved with Jay.”
My dad swallows hard, grits his teeth. I wonder if it’s a subconscious move, a muscle memory from the way he works his jaw over and over in the night, if it’s his body’s response to stress or shock.
“And by saying it was Jay I had a crush on, I figured I could protect Noah, and throw Jay under the bus,” I add, explaining myself.
My dad laughs for a second when I say that—throw Jay under the bus.
“That’s where he belongs,” my dad says.
“I know. I hate him. And I knew even by saying we kissed for three seconds that it would be enough for you to hate him too. And I love Noah, so I wanted the guy who was actually being a scum to be the one you hated.”
He rolls his eyes, something he has never done before with me.
“Why are you doing that?”
“You can’t love Noah,” he says dismissively.
“Why not?”
“You’re too young. He’s too old.”
“He’s not that old! He turned twenty-six a few weeks ago. I’m going to be eighteen next week. We’re only eight years apart.”
“You think that makes a difference?”
“Yes, and nothing has happened.” I feel my face flush. I can’t believe I’m discussing my sex life with my father.