I don’t need her worrying herself silly over me when I’m the parent here, and she’s got enough on her plate.
My leg’s not being too big a dick, at least, when I haul myself up. Hurts like a motherfucker, but at least it holds me up as I swagger off to my old military Jeep.
The top’s all covered in snow. I sweep it off before hauling myself behind the wheel, flicking the headlights on and heading out into the night to pick up my daughter.
It’s barely a mile’s drive past the outskirts of town and back to the Charming Inn.
I tell myself I ain’t looking as I drive past the field full of cabins.
I swear, I ain’t paying attention to that light still on in one set of windows.
Not at all.
When I pull up around the front of the big house, Andrea’s waiting outside with Haley and Ms. Wilma. She’s bright, animated, talking to Haley with her sketchbook clutched to her chest, while Ms. Wilma watches with her wizened face set in an expression of kindly amusement.
Andrea swings herself around like a pinwheel, throwing up her hands between laughs.
I’ve seen so many little girls raised to make themselves small. To not take up too much space.
I love my daughter because she takes up space.
She isn’t afraid to make her presence known, isn’t afraid to be herself, from that punk mouth on her to the wild crop of half-shaved hair that’s mostly pink at the tips, but still the vivid, wild purple underneath that makes her my Little Violet.
One brave flower, standing bright.
As she looks up and sees me pulling in, her brightness vanishes into a sullen scowl.
I sigh, dragging a hand over my face.
Look, I love my daughter, but she’s a sixteen-year-old girl who thinks her dad is the biggest cringe embarrassment on the planet. I already know I’m in the shit from that mouth before she even gets in the car.
I ain’t wrong.
She comes clomping down the steps in those big combat boots she wears—still don’t know where she got ’em, huge and clunky things and she never fucking laces ‘em and she’s gonna kill herself like that—and slings herself into the car.
Then immediately tucks herself into the corner, glaring out the window.
Okay.
No mouth, then.
Silent treatment tonight.
I try to wait her out, lifting a hand in a friendly wave for Hay and Ms. Wilma, before jacking the Jeep into gear and reversing out of the drive to head back into town.
The silence is a knife over my skin.
I’d wonder what the hell I did wrong this time, but frankly I’m not sure I ever stop.
As we pull back into town with the light of the Brody’s sign flickering like a second moon over the main street, I glance at her. She’s got on thick black wool tights under her ripped, frayed denim skirt, but they’re all busted out at the knees.
Another sigh spills out. “Andrea, you either gotta sew those up or let me buy you new ones. It’s winter.”
She scowls, just a hint of her face twisted up in profile. “I like them like this.”
“You like freezing your kneecaps off?”
“I don’t get cold, okay?” she snaps. “I’m fine. You’re not Mom, so stop trying to mother me.”
Ah. There it is. Didn’t take long.
The real reason she’s pissy, and tonight of all nights, I don’t blame her.
For four years, my little girl’s been mad at Abby for being the one to leave, and at me for being the one to stay.
I think she’d be the same way with Abigail, maybe, if I’d been the one Andrea found dead on the floor. Mad at me for going, and at her ma for staying. Who knows.
What she really wants is her whole family back in one piece, even if we’d been quietly broken way before Abby’s accident.
“Hey,” I try quietly. An olive branch or something. “You wanna stop by Brody’s? They got the milkshake machine fixed so they can do the extra-thick ones again and—”
“I already ate with Haley,” she snaps back. “And I don’t have time. I have homework.”
“It is kinda late,” I concede. “Sorry I was slow picking you up. Had an emergency call.”
“Yeah, I heard.” She sniffs, almost offended. “It was on the radio.”
I wince. She doesn’t like my show, but goddammit I need something to do with myself. It was Warren’s idea, way back, something to take my mind off things.
I didn’t expect I’d start having fun with it.
Half the time people call in to prank me, ’cause that’s how we roll here in Heart’s Edge.
Everybody knows everybody, and we like to mess around.
Keeps people entertained.
Keeps me busy, answering questions about relationships or the latest Bigfoot sighting since the Legend of Nine ain’t a thing anymore.
And every now and then, I get to really help people. Can’t say I mind that one bit. Even if it embarrasses the hell out of my kid.
I wait several seconds for the simmer between us to die down a little, then try, “If you need help with your homework—”
“I’m fine.” She doesn’t even let me get it all out. “I’ve got straight As. It’s all baby stuff. I don’t need anything. And I don’t need you to pull this stupid shit.”
“Hey, watch your damn language.”
“Oh, that’s great. Curse at me while you tell me to stop cursing.” She throws a sharp, hard look at me, crackling like wildfire. She’s got her mother’s light-brown eyes, and they’re like sparks when she’s this mad, amber-bright. “I know what you’re trying to do. Okay? I know. It’s the day. That day. And you’re trying to make up for Mom being dead when you can’t, and I hate it when you try. So just stop. Leave me alone, Dad. If I need somebody to cuddle me, I’ve got Mr. fucking Hissyfit.”
I can’t even get on her for that F-bomb.
Not when her words hit me like a ton of bricks, stinging more than the throb still in my thigh.
I’d close my eyes against the pain, if I didn’t have to keep them on the road.
Goddamn, my daughter knows how to throw a punch.
I don’t know what hurts more.
That she can see through me with so much contempt...or that she’d rather get squeezed half to death by her pet albino boa constrictor, rather than take a hug and a little comfort from her old man.
I don’t know what to say.
So all I say is, “Okay, Andrea. Fine.”
Sometimes, all you can do is let people burn themselves out. Especially when they’re sixteen and their emotions run so hot.
I want to fix this for her. I want to fix everything.
But she’s right about one thing—I can’t.
So I’ll respect her wanting to grieve in her way.
Meanwhile, I try to wrestle up some way to work through this crap on my own.
We don’t say a word to each other for the rest of the drive home.
Whatever. I’ve got other things on my mind besides my firecracker daughter and my burning leg when I pull into the driveway. My headlights sweep over the car sitting off to one side.
It’s nice. A Benz, looks like, brand new, glossy black.
I don’t have a clue who it belongs to.
But I get my answer a second later when my headlights pick out a familiar figure standing on the porch, cold smoke huffing out of his mouth with every breath.