The Guy in the Window

by Cara Dee

  That was another thing. He’d admitted yesterday that the reason he’d put so much food on the grocery list was because he—and Bella—had prepared two Thanksgiving dinners. He held out hope that the four of us would eat together tonight.

  I wanted Grace to be part of my new life. She had to. She had to see how wonderful Adam and Bella were. How well they’d taken care of me; how they’d shown me so much I didn’t know I’d missed.

  I checked my watch again.

  Did Bella understand yet? She’d found it giggle-worthy to point out that Adam and I had slept in the same bed for our sleepover, but then she’d become confused when Adam had tried to explain why.

  They’d dropped the subject eventually, and Adam had said he’d talk to her when they got home instead.

  When someone finally buzzed from the gate, I didn’t bother pacing myself. I rushed over to the door and pressed the intercom button.

  “Yes?”

  Grace’s voice crackled through the receiver. “Hey, I’m here.”

  My heart instantly tried to beat its way out of my chest. “The code is 7843, darling. I’m on the second floor.”

  “Okay.”

  I took a few deep breaths and waited in the hallway. This was it. A decade of slowly losing my daughter was coming to a goddamn end, and I wasn’t going to be satisfied until we were on good terms again.

  I’d do anything to win her back.

  I’d expected the elevator to alert me to Grace’s arrival; instead, it was a knock on the door. She must’ve taken the stairs. Pushing down the nerves unsettling my stomach, I took another deep breath and opened the door.

  There she was, in a yellow coat with her copper-colored hair poking out from under her knitted hat. My chest fucking hurt. She was so beautiful, but something was broken. She didn’t want to be here, and the small, polite smile was in place out of a sense of duty.

  A part of me deflated. Another part grew further determined, and I decided right then and there that I wouldn’t play any formal games or tiptoe around the issues.

  “Thank you for…well, I forced you to be here, but I’m glad it worked.” I opened the door wider so she could enter. She hadn’t expected me to say that, and her mask slipped for a fraction of a second. I couldn’t see what the mask was hiding, only that she wasn’t here to speak frankly. “I expected more shopping bags.” She only had her shoulder bag, the one I knew she used as a carry-on when she traveled.

  “Mom has them.” She stood there, uncomfortable, in my hallway and glanced into the kitchen. I doubted she cared about my place. It just beat having to look at me instead.

  “Would you die if I hugged you?” I wondered.

  She sighed and faced me with a “Stop it, Dad” look.

  I didn’t care. I walked over to her and pulled her in for a tight hug, and I removed her hat before I pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

  She patted me awkwardly on the back. “Okay, yeah, hi…”

  “Oh, for chrissakes, kiddo. I’m your father, not a stranger.” I eased away and didn’t miss the incredulous look on her face. It was best to move forward before she pointed out that I’d become a stranger or something similar. “Let me reheat our lunch. I thought you’d be here earlier, so it’s a little cold. Then I can show you around.”

  She hung her coat on the coatrack and took off her boots. “I’m not hungry. I ate with Mom.”

  Of course she did.

  “Fair enough.” I gestured toward the living room. “I’ll show you the guest room.”

  I led the way and passed the couch—

  “Is this yours?”

  I stopped and glanced back. She was studying the sketches on the coffee table—innocent drawings of techniques I’d shown Bella. She’d hauled out her coloring books and crayons yesterday, and it’d been heartwarmingly easy to impress her with how to draw flowers.

  “Did your mother tell you about Adam and Bella?” I asked.

  Grace nodded curtly. “He’s my cousin or something.”

  “Not by blood,” I was quick to say. Shit. Perhaps a little too quick on that part, but Christ.

  Grace lifted her brows. “Okay.”

  I cleared my throat and made a gesture at the sketches. “They were here for Thanksgiving yesterday, and I taught Bella some tricks. That’s all.”

  “Gotcha.” She surveyed the rest of the living room before her gaze returned to the drawings. “Yeah, I’ve seen your Facebook. That Adam guys tags you in a lot of pics.”

  He did, and I loved it. He wasn’t a college girl embarrassed to be seen with her parents.

  “I’m glad you didn’t like any of the pictures he’s posted,” I said. “One of your friends might’ve seen it and ostracized you from society.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sarcasm noted.”

  “Good. This way.” I nodded down the hall and passed my bedroom. “Shared bathroom, I’m afraid, but if you want your own while you stay here, you can use the one in the hallway.” I opened the door and stepped in. “So, this is mostly for you. I won’t get in your way, but Bella will use it when she spends the night too.”

  Grace peered around the room and set down her bag on the bed. “I thought they lived across the street.”

  I pointed out the window. “That building right there.”

  She bobbed her head slowly. “You spend a lot of time with them.”

  “I do. I’ve come to care for them very much.” It didn’t come close to describing how I felt, but it would have to do for now. “If you’re up to it, we’re having dinner with them tonight. Adam is a great cook, and Bella takes after him.”

  Grace cleared her throat and stared at the floor. “Yeah, I saw you made cookies together.”

  That was interesting. She wouldn’t speak to me on her own, but she kept track of my Facebook?

  “What happened, Grace?” I asked honestly. “When you flew home last time, you weren’t outright hostile toward me, at least.” I fully expected her sharp glare, and I showed my palms in caution. “I know I’ve made monumental mistakes, darling, but something must’ve happened recently for things to escalate.”

  She clenched her jaw and shook her head before looking away. “It doesn’t matter—”

  “Yes, it damn well does,” I said firmly. “I want to fix—”

  “Stop it, Dad,” she snapped irritably. “You’re worse than Mom. At least she doesn’t pretend to give a shit unless it directly involves her.”

  “Grace Victoria Scott, you choose your next words very carefully.” I stared at her, shocked, angry, hurt, and fed up. “Your mother and I love you unconditionally, and if she has to make amends for something she’s done to hurt you, she will.” Melinda could be self-involved and vindictive, but she’d been there for Grace when I had failed. “You have to tell her. You have to tell both of us, because we don’t always know when we fuck up. We’re human.”

  She let out a hollow chuckle and slumped down on the bed, hands planted behind her. “You’re unbelievable. And you don’t have to defend her anymore. She sure as hell doesn’t defend you.”

  “Look.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the moment spiraling out of control. “Your mother and I aren’t on good terms, but we’re still your parents. I know what I’ve done wrong, and I can guess what she’s done wrong too. And that’s where we are. I won’t speak on her behalf beyond that, but I hope you’ll let us earn a second chance.” The fight seeped out of me, and I exhaled tiredly. “Darling, I’ve been trying—”

  “I fucking hate it when you call me that,” she blurted out.

  I took a step back and frowned.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this.” She blew out a harsh breath and scrubbed at her face. “I know you’ve been trying, Dad. Do you think I’m blind?” She threw out her arms and stared disbelievingly. “The last straw was when you texted me—you wanted me to tell you what to draw. I had a fucking panic attack in the middle of the store when I read that message.”

  Oh God. Worry flo
oded me, and I sat down next to her. “Grace, why—”

  “Because it’s gonna go away,” she snapped. “That’s how depression works. You start doing things, you get ambitious, and then you disappear again when it becomes too much.”

  “I’m not following. Have you struggled with depression? Why haven’t you told—”

  “No! You, Dad!” She groaned and left the bed. “You left me. We used to be a team back in San Leandro. Then we moved, and you freaking died.”

  I flinched. A wrecking ball of guilt hit me in the stomach.

  “The bitch of it is, I don’t get to be mad,” she said flatly. “You’re not allowed to be mad at someone who’s depressed, but I was hurt.”

  It was the second time she’d implied I’d struggled with depression, and I didn’t understand that part. “Grace, I’ve never been diagnosed with anything like that. I don’t know what happened to me or why I didn’t notice—”

  “But I know,” she interrupted. “I didn’t always. I was so furious with you for the longest time, and then a friend told me how this works. She described you to a damn T, and she’d never even met you. How you functioned on autopilot, how you struggled to remember things, and that you didn’t easily connect to anything going on around you.”

  My chest felt too tight, and she was too far away. Sure, I’d been down at times. So, I’d done what many others did. I took vitamins in the winter and nodded knowingly whenever I read articles on seasonal depression. This wasn’t that. We were from Illinois, for chrissakes. We couldn’t let go of everything just because the sun wasn’t out. We’d never get anything done!

  “Come sit here, please,” I said patiently. “While I appreciate you trying to see things from someone else’s perspective, I won’t let a stranger with a degree in armchair psychology diagnose me.”

  She huffed and sat down next to me again. “She graduated last year and works as a psychologist today, I’ll have you know.”

  “That’s wonderful. She still hasn’t met me.”

  “But everything she said fit,” she argued.

  I suppressed a sigh and gathered her hands in mine. “That may be, and I’m not ruling anything out. I’m—” Jesus Christ, I couldn’t wrap my head around the mere possibility. And it didn’t matter right now. “Even if I did suffer from depression, you are most certainly allowed to be mad at me.”

  “Not when you can’t help it—”

  I squeezed her hands gently. “I’m talking now, Grace. You’re right. I did leave you. Going through my foggy memories—”

  “She talked about a fog!” she exclaimed.

  I opened my mouth, then shut it and raised a brow at her. “Can we set the speculations about my mental health aside for one minute, please?”

  She pulled back her hands. “Fine.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Like I mentioned, looking back, I can see when I began pulling away from everything. Including you, most importantly. And the realization didn’t really hit me until your mother and I separated. I knew I missed you terribly. I knew our relationship was a far cry from what it once was, but I couldn’t see why you’d left us behind.” I gathered my thoughts to make sure I got everything out the way I wanted to. Words had never been my strongest suit. “Then I started putting the pieces together,” I murmured. “I saw that you’d only abandoned a sinking ship.”

  Grace looked away from me and hugged her arms around herself. “I don’t know if I can handle this, Dad. I’m so mad. It’s too much. The hurt, the guilt because I’m angry when I shouldn’t—”

  “All right, you need to stop that,” I told her. “You have no reason whatsoever to feel guilty, and you have every right to be angry.”

  She refused to face me, and when she sniffled, I knew she wouldn’t let me comfort her either.

  “We weren’t supposed to move here,” she said and wiped her cheek. “You and Mom kept saying we were moving back and moving back home, but I’m not fucking from here. I had all my friends in San Leandro. That was my home. I was born there.”

  “I know, darli—sorry. Sorry, I didn’t know you disliked when I called you that.”

  “Because you used to call me kiddo.” That broke the levees for her, and she dropped her head into her hands. “You didn’t even notice when you said kiddo in the hallway,” she wept. My heart fucking broke as memories flooded back, and it took everything in me not to touch her. “Everything changed when we got to Evanston. We had to be so damn fancy all of a sudden, and Mom became some Stepford wife, and you…”

  “I disappeared.” As the crippling regret and guilt increased tenfold, I couldn’t help but cautiously put a hand on her back. “I can never tell you how sorry I am, Grace. You were always the main reason for everything I did. While you gave me strength, I wasn’t the father you needed.” My throat closed up, and I had to clear it and take a couple deep breaths. “Of course you were my kiddo. That’s why you were the first one I thought of when I wanted to draw again. I remember when you and I woke up early some mornings and drove over to Golden Gate Park to watch the sunrise, and you’d point at birds and trees and tell me what to draw. It filled me with such joy.”

  Grace let out a sob into her hands, but to my greatest relief, she fell into my side and let me place my arms around her. The gratitude was so overwhelming that I had to blink back my own emotions.

  “I’m so very sorry,” I whispered against the top of her head. “I’d do anything to give those years back to you and do them right.” I sniffled and cleared my throat again. “All I can do is make sure we never end up here again, if you give me a chance.”

  She shuddered and wiped her face but kept looking down. “I’m afraid to get my hopes up,” she croaked. “You’ve had a few bursts of energy over the years, but they never lasted very long.”

  Christ, I could only imagine what she must’ve felt when she noticed me retreating again. Summers had often been marginally better. Even more so, spring. It’d been when Melinda visited family on her father’s side in Michigan, and Grace and I rarely tagged along because Melinda went before school was out for spring break.

  “I don’t understand how I could’ve been so blind,” I admitted and scrubbed a hand over my face. “There’s a big difference between then and now, though.” I brushed away some stray strands of hair from her cheeks. “For the first time in many years, I’m happier with myself. I’m in a good place. I take care of myself better, and I’m surrounded by people who are better for me. You’re the only missing piece.”

  She sniffled and tucked her hair behind her ears. She’d calmed down some, and she shifted away from me slightly. She also made eye contact. “You and Mom really needed to get divorced, didn’t you?”

  I inclined my head. “She saw it before I did. Truth be told, it’s possible I wouldn’t have seen it at all, and I will have to live with that.” I paused, letting some gratefulness toward Melinda settle in. We were nowhere near let’s-get-you-some-alimony appreciation, but my ex-wife would be consistent proof that some people lived on two sides of the same spectrum. I was probably the same. Good intentions danced with bad decisions, and bitterness colored some actions because we’d been hurt. “We didn’t speak the same language,” I said. “We weren’t what the other needed.”

  Grace glanced down and bit her thumbnail. “She doesn’t say any nice things about you.”

  “Understandable.” I nodded. “You get your hotheadedness from her.”

  Her mouth twitched. “I told her to get a job. She used to like working, but she wouldn’t hear me out.”

  “Comfortable is easy,” I agreed. “It takes time to get back on your feet, and she’ll have her work cut out for her. It’ll be a while longer for me too.” I flicked her a quick look and decided to try to lighten the tension. “Between you and me, I hope I’ll be a strong, independent woman soon.”

  Grace spluttered and widened her eyes. “Did you just make a joke?”

  I smirked and tugged on a piece of her hair. “I do that now.” />
  “Apparently.” She scooted toward the middle of the bed and crossed her legs, watching me curiously. Her eyes were still red, but I was happy her spirits seemed higher. “What else have you changed?”

  Sexual orientation.

  I coughed and mirrored her position on the bed. “I joined a gym.”

  “I noticed you lost some weight.”

  I’d gained, actually. But I supposed I’d transformed some fat into muscle. “To be honest with you, my changes are probably insignificant to most people. Adam thought it was funny how I wouldn’t stop raving about the fast food I’ve been eating—because you know we never really did that. There were some special occasions we had pizza and ribs, but…”

  “Yeah, I know.” She nodded and wore a small smile. “And you call them special occasions. Mom said we were slummin’ it.”

  I chuckled. Melinda had certainly not used that phrase, though it hadn’t been far off.

  “I missed the little things,” I confessed. “The simplicity of a damn hot dog for lunch or sweatpants when I come home.” I paused and remembered something from last week. “Adam and I took Bella to see a movie a few days ago, and I had to step out to buy more popcorn because I ate an entire bag myself. With all the butter.”

  Grace let out a soft laugh and shook her head. “You spend a lot of time with them, I take it?”

  Yes, and yet not enough.

  It was a good time to tell her about Adam and me. Or it would be, if the peace between Grace and me had not been so fresh and fragile. For all I knew, it was temporary. I couldn’t imagine she would forgive and forget easily, as she shouldn’t.

  “I do. They’ve helped me a great deal.” I could say that much. “Adam’s been a tremendous support while I worried about you, and Bella…” My chest expanded with warmth. “She’s as ballsy as you were when you were her age.” I could talk forever about how much I loved having Adam and Bella in my life, not to mention the hopes I had for Grace to be an equal part of this ensemble. I ached to use the word family to describe us, I realized. “Will you give me a chance to repair our relationship, Grace?” Sensing her worries, seeing them in her timid expression, I continued. “I don’t want any empty words or equivocation—I’m willing to work hard, and all cards will be on the table. I fully expect that there will be moments of frustration and past hurt that rush up to the surface. I want us to work it all out.”