Billy squatted next to me, not saying a word. After a couple minutes, my shoulders stopped trembling. I imagined the mascara streaks on my face. What a mess I must have looked like. I didn’t want to face him.
“I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through,” he said, voice shaky. “This is all my fault.” He sounded like he meant it.
I picked up my head and studied Billy. He had the same hazel eyes and small nose as me. Both of us had dishwater blond hair. His leg pogo-sticked on the curb the way mine did when I was nervous.
“You’re really my dad?” I said.
Billy nodded. He hesitated, then wrapped an arm around my shoulders. He smelled like woodsy aftershave and McDonald’s. “After I read the article, I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe I should leave you alone, not drop this bomb on you when you’ve already been through so much. But then I thought maybe you might want to meet your father, or at least to know I was alive. I kept having these awful nightmares. So I drove down from Indiana, where I live. I’m sorry if I made the wrong choice.” Billy removed his arm from my shoulders and chewed his lip. I did the same thing when I was worried. There were too many similarities to ignore.
“I have so many questions,” I said. Would we spend Thanksgiving together? Would he try to have “the talk” with me? Would he expect me to root for his favorite sports teams?
A knock sounded on Gadget World’s windows. Scott stood in the vestibule and glared at me, hands on hips. Billy helped me up.
“When do you get off work?”
“I’m done at five,” I said. I was already thinking about Billy’s half hug, already wishing for another one.
“Can we have dinner? How about Tina’s Café at five? I’ll answer anything you want,” he said. “I want to start to make this up to you.”
I thought about the number of Christmas mornings I’d wished for a third stocking above the fireplace. “I could do Tina’s,” I heard myself say.
Billy beamed. “Okay, Rose, see you then.”
I put my hand up to wave and watched him cross the parking lot. He climbed into a red Camry. Nobody called me Rose, not within earshot of Mom. She’d correct anyone who tried to abbreviate my name.
Actually, “Rose” was the first idea Mom came up with while thinking of baby names. She said she’d always liked the phrase “rose-colored glasses.” She wanted her little girl to be full of optimism for her future, in spite of her missing father and extended family. But Mom thought “Rose” was a little too ordinary for Patty Watts’s daughter. “Rose Gold,” on the other hand—wasn’t that just the perfect hue? “It reminded me of blushing cheeks. Or a pale pink sunset. It’s the name of a little girl you can’t help but love,” she’d said to me one night, beaming.
I plodded back into Gadget World and stood behind register one while Scott lectured me about attending to personal matters on my own time. If Billy was my dad, then he’d been alive my entire life. The only reason I’d grown up without a father was because Mom had lied to me about him. How many times had I asked her about my dad? How many times had she brushed me off, called him vile?
A customer approached, stopping Scott’s lecture, thank God. I smiled weakly at her and rang up her new camera. Mom kept him from me.
She wanted me all to herself. If Billy had been around, she couldn’t have gotten away with the poison. She never could have starved me. Billy would have been there to intervene, to protect me.
Of all the crimes my mother had committed against me, this was by far the worst.
* * *
• • •
The next four hours of work crawled by. The store was dead that day, and I barely had any customers aside from old Mr. McIntyre, who worked at Walsh’s Grocery and who I’d known all my life. I assured him that his grandson would like the LEGO City Undercover video game in his hand. Before he shuffled away, he told me for the millionth time that he hoped to see me at church on Sunday—Jesus’s teachings were exactly what someone like me needed. For the millionth time, I ignored him and waved goodbye.
All afternoon I kept replaying my blowup at Billy, already embarrassed by it. True, he’d made some bad decisions, but I could at least hear him out. At four fifty-five, I grabbed my coat and purse from the break room and tucked them into my register. While I waited for five o’clock, I pulled out my phone and texted Alex. I had to tell someone.
Me: You will never believe what happened today. . . .
Me: I found out my dad is alive!
Alex: wow. crazy!
Alex and I hadn’t talked much since that night at the bar. She had been disappointed when I told her the photo shoot was canceled, but she got over it when my interview was published. The next day, she video-chatted with me and a bunch of her friends.
She never apologized for what she’d said behind my back, so she either didn’t know I’d overheard or was too drunk to remember saying it in the first place. I was still a little mad at her, but was giving her a chance to redeem herself. I didn’t want to be someone who tossed friends aside after one mistake. Besides, I didn’t have any other friends to replace her.
Me: We’re going to Tina’s to talk. I’m so nervous
Alex: good luck
So far her redemption had been underwhelming.
The clock on my phone changed to five p.m. I put on my coat and waved at Robert, then scurried out.
How many hours had I spent searching for Grant Smith online? Every minute I wasn’t piecing together my medical history or talking to Phil, I had tried to find proof of my sleazy dad. But there were too many Grant Smiths. I couldn’t find anyone by that name who had died in central Illinois the same year I was born. After a couple weeks of late nights and dead ends, I’d given up.
I parked the van at Tina’s, then put on some lip gloss. I spotted the red Camry a few spaces away and walked into the café. Billy was sitting in the back corner. He smiled and waved. I waved back, then wiped my palms on my khakis. I wanted this dinner to go well.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. I sat across from him. “I was a little worried you wouldn’t show.”
“I’m sorry for yelling earlier,” I said. “I’ve had some people in my life treat me not so well.”
Billy squirmed.
“But that’s not your fault,” I added.
He exhaled. “How about we start over?” he suggested. He drummed his fingers on the table. He was tenser than he was letting on. I noticed the gold ring on his left hand.