“I hope…” she trailed off, pressing her eyes shut. “I hope you’ll be fine, too, or whatever.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “I’ll take it.”
We both hobbled toward the door at the same time, pouring out of it in different directions.
I spent the next hour looking for Vaughn everywhere. I tried calling his cell. It went straight to voicemail. Exhausted, I crawled up to my room, flinging myself over my bed and closing my eyes.
“Not so fast,” a voice boomed. “We have to talk.”
“Papa?” I whispered.
He stepped out of the shadows, a deep frown etched on his face. He looked so much older than he had before my birthday. Before our falling-out. Before we’d both slinked entirely to our separate corners of the world, ignoring each other’s existence.
I could see now that he didn’t know what had riled me up, and I hadn’t known why he didn’t crawl back to me, begging for forgiveness.
It was a huge misunderstanding, and we could have talked, if it wasn’t for the fact that we didn’t talk. Ever. Not really. Communicating our feelings had never been our strong suit, especially since Mum died, and now we were paying for it.
I felt my bed dipping and held my breath, the weight felt familiar all of a sudden. Flashbacks of hundreds of nights when he’d sat by my side to read me a story or to tell me a Greek legend flooded my mind. My throat went thick with emotion.
“Lenny.”
I pulled my lips into my mouth, trying not to cry.
“I should’ve come sooner, darling.”
I felt the mattress move beneath me as he shook his head. Everything about him was massive, imposing, out of this world—even his sculptures. Maybe that was the problem. My father was always so much bigger than life in my eyes, I’d had to reduce him to nothing before I could look at him as a complex, flawed person. As an equal. Human.
Wordlessly, I began to twist my fingers together, just to do something with my hands.
“I wanted you to know, this thing you said…you talked about…with Miss Garofalo…”
“I got the wrong Garofalo.” I sighed into the dark, feeling my shoulders slump. “I know. She caught me up to speed. A married woman, huh?” But there was no power to my judgment. I felt soggy with despair. Tired.
“Would it matter if I said I was lonely?” he asked.
I could hear the defeat soaked in his voice. I shook my head again, knowing he could feel it in the movement of the mattress underneath us.
“I am devastated over the decision I made.”
Decision, I noticed. Not mistake. The devil was in the details, and my father still believed he needed what happened there to happen—maybe to feel like a man again, and not just an artist.
What he did was awful, but it wasn’t unforgivable. To me, anyway. His daughter. I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t his wife. He had no wife. It wasn’t me he’d betrayed.
“It’s not the only devastating decision I’ve made since moving to Todos Santos.”
“Oh?” I asked.
He scooted over, pressing his back against my wall. My face heated in the dark when I thought about all the things this bed had seen recently. Vaughn handcuffed. Me and Vaughn having sex. The room was soaked with him, every crack in the wood floor filled with Vaughnness. The undertone of his cool, fresh scent still stuck to the walls. His rare smiles inked to my ceiling. I wondered if Papa could feel that he was here, with us.
“I gave Vaughn the internship, but not because he deserved it, you see. I gave it to him because I knew you didn’t want to fall in love—never wanted to fall in love—thinking it was safer and that you’d be happier. I couldn’t take that chance, seeing you lead a lonely life. I’m lonely, and it’s killing me, Lenny. So I summoned him here.”
I choked on my own breath, coughing. “You…”
“No. Don’t. Please don’t scold me, or ask me why him. There was something about the two of you in a room—any room, at any point of your childhood—that made the air sizzle, seconds before you put your hand to the material and made a masterpiece. There was magic there, and it was tightly woven. I wanted to pull it thread by thread by thread until I unraveled it completely. Your mother noticed it, too, the day Vaughn sneaked you a brownie.”
My mouth fell open. I saw the corners of his mouth lift, even though it was so dim in my room. “She always watched you like a hawk, Lenny.”
“She did,” I whispered. “God, she did.”
“I miss her so much. It was in a moment of weakness that I thought I could drown in someone else to hush the aching, screaming need for her. It was the worst choice I’ve ever made, next to picking Vaughn just so you two could be here together and fall in love. But as it turns out, not all is lost.”