“You got it.”
I call the number, ordering a large pepperoni with chicken wings and breadsticks, even adding a ham and pineapple pizza to the order for Kennedy, in case she’s hungry when she gets home—ordering way too much food for just us.
There’s a knock on the door after about forty-five minutes and I start toward it, pulling out some cash from my wallet, but stop short. I didn’t even think about the fact that somebody might recognize me and question why I’m here. Glancing back at Madison, I consider having her pay them, but well, that goes against everything her mother’s been trying to teach her about not opening the door for strangers.
They knock again, and I take a deep breath before opening the door. It’s a guy, mid-twenties, no older than me. He looks stoned out of his gourd, eyes blazing red, the dank woodsy odor clinging to his uniform, like the guy was smoking on his way to the door. He rambles off the price and I shove some cash at him, taking the pizza. Before I can close the door, though, his bloodshot eyes narrow, face contorting with confusion as he eyes me. “Hey, aren’t you that guy? You know… that one from that movie? The, uh…?” He snaps his fingers, like he’s trying to remember, before he points at me. “Breezeo!”
“Nah, not me,” I say. “Get that all the time, though.”
I shut the door before he can press it any further and watch out the peephole as he lingers. He shrugs it off, though, and strolls away, lighting something before he even reaches his car again.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I turn for the kitchen and nearly slam right into Madison standing there, just inches behind me.
“You told a lie,” she says.
“I did,” I admit, “but it was for the greater-good.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means sometimes it’s better we don’t tell people who I am.”
“Why?”
“Because people are nosey,” I say. “If I admitted who I was, that guy would go back and tell his friends, who would tell their friends, and next thing you know, the whole world would be in my business and want to know what I’m doing here.”
She’s quiet, following me as I carry the pizza to the kitchen. She closes her notebook and sits there as I put some food on a plate for her, sitting down across from her with a plate of my own.
There’s something wrong.
Something’s bothering her. I can tell.
Just like her mother, remember?
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
She shakes her head, saying, “Nothing.”
“Ah, see, now I think you just told a lie.”
“It’s for the greatest-goods.”
I laugh as she tries to throw my words back at me. “Come on, tell me what’s bothering you.”
She lets out the longest, most dramatic sigh, like I’m nagging her half to death here, before she says, “Do you not wanna be my daddy?”
That question is a punch to the chest.
“Of course I do. Why would you think that?”
“ ‘Cuz you don’t want the people to know it,” she says. “And ‘cuz you weren’t my daddy ‘till now.”
Man, I feel like an asshole. None of those little jabs from Kennedy hold an ounce of the pain that Madison's words contain.
“I’ve always been your daddy,” I tell her. “I just wasn’t good at it. I’m trying to be better. And I’d like for people to know, but it’s complicated, and the pizza man really isn’t the person to start with. But we’ll tell everyone. We will.”
She smiles, and eats, like my answer satisfied her, but I don’t feel like any less of an asshole. This isn’t fair to her—at all. I’m here, yeah, and I’m trying, but how much does it count if the entire time I’m sneaking around? Like I can only be her father behind closed doors.
I’m treating her like she’s my dirty little secret.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, either.
I did the same thing to her mother.
Cliff would tell me I’m overreacting, that it’s about protection—protecting her, yeah, but protecting my image, too. My private life stays private. That’s just how it goes. Jack would tell me to man the fuck up, because living a life in secret is a danger to sobriety. He’d tell me to do what’s right, and stop being a self-centered asshole. But I don’t know what’s right.
“So, uh, now that we have dinner sorted,” I say, “any idea what your mother said about bedtime?”
“Eight o’clock,” Madison says. “And I gotta take a bath at seven-thirty, and then you gotta read me a book, but I get to pick which one.”
“Fair enough,” I say, glancing at a nearby clock—only six-thirty. “We’ve got about an hour. What do you want to do?”
She grins at me. “Draw!”
Today marks a year.
A year since that night you showed up drunk on the sidewalk in front of the white two-story house in Bennett Landing and asked the girl to run away with you, and she did. Your Dreamiversary, she calls it. The day you decided to follow your dreams.