Surprised?

by Nick Day

  “So, what have we got here?” Dad asked. He was practically drooling.

  Pete smiled and took Dad on a tour through the breakfast he’d made. “Well, I took a look in the fridge and found a few things, I hope that’s okay. I made a little fruit salad—strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. And a few bananas on a counter behind a cereal box—at the perfect point of ripeness, I might add. Well done on that front,” Pete said.

  Dad turned and looked at me, beaming. “I didn’t even know we had bananas!” he exclaimed.

  “Then we’ve got some scrambled eggs with Gruyère and ricotta, with some spinach, red bell pepper and sautéed onion,” Pete continued. He pointed to the steaming platter of eggs and vegetables. The light coming in from the big windows caught the steam rising off the piping hot food. Pete’s outdone himself . . . again.

  “And this?” Dad asked, pointing to a small bowl containing what was obviously yogurt.

  “It’s yogurt,” Pete said. “Greek yogurt with a little honey to cut the sourness.”

  “Well, plus ten boyfriend points to you, my man,” Dad said. He immediately realized his mistake when neither Pete nor I said anything. He stammered, “Er—sorry, I mean . . . me, I say ‘boyfriend’ the same way you girls call your friends ‘girlfriends,’ you know . . . ”

  “No sweat, Danny,” Pete said, clapping him on the back. How long was I asleep? I wondered. It seemed like while I was dreaming, Pete and Dad had both rushed the same fraternity and were sworn brothers for life.

  Pete served up the food and the three of us sat in the dining room to eat. The big windows in the dining room opened onto the house’s side yard. A sprawling, perfectly trimmed lawn was scattered with kids’ toys, thrown around as if they were disposed of in a hurry.

  “Another perfect Texas morning,” Dad said, as if reading my mind.

  I put a spoonful of yogurt and berries in my mouth and savored the bright, summery flavors. I watched Dad take his first bite as well, and practically double over in ecstasy. He caught me looking at him, and his eyes sprang open like a deer in headlights.

  “Do I have yogurt on my chin?” he asked, frantically dabbing his face with a napkin.

  “No, no!” I laughed. “You just seem like you’re really into that yogurt.”

  He shrugged his shoulders in a big, cartoonish way. “How could you not be?” With that he put another spoonful in his mouth, and many more after that. In spite of myself, trying to keep my distance, I laughed along with him.

  I looked over at Pete. “I talked to Maria last night.”

  Pete laughed, sensing there might be a funny story coming. “Who’s Maria?” Dad asked.

  “Her—our friend from school,” Pete said. “She’s out in California with her a cappella group.”

  “She was having a pretty . . . fun time,” I said.

  “Ah, very cool,” Dad said. “You know, I was in an a cappella group in college.”

  I gawked at him. “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said proudly. “The Princeton Monotones.”

  Pete laughed. “Monotones?”

  “We we’re all male,” Dad said. “Only male voices. Monotones.” When we didn’t laugh, he muttered, “Ivy League humor, I guess.”

  “Yeah, it’s not great,” I said. But still, I smiled. Each new fact I picked up about Dad was like a little gift.

  Just then, the doorbell rang, and the same assorted clangs and bongs we had heard last night echoed around the house.

  “Aha!” Dad said, getting up from his chair. Immediately my pulse quickened.

  “Should I follow you?” I asked, but Dad was already on his way to the front door. I figured I probably shouldn’t, but it was either that or stay in the dining room with Pete. I sped off after Dad, waving Pete off as he tried to follow.

  I caught up with Dad just as he was opening the massive front door. There stood two little girls, wearing identical blue-and-white-checkered jumpers with white shoes and tall white socks. One of them had her hair up and tied in a classic white bow. They looked like they had just walked out of an American Girl doll catalog.

  “Daddy!” they screamed in unison, and charged through the doorway. They each hugged one of Dad’s legs and squeezed tight.

  “Where’d you go?” one of them demanded, looking up at him.

  “Where did I go? Where did you go?” Dad retorted, patting her on the head. Both girls giggled. It killed me to hear the barely hidden sadness in his voice.

  I looked up from the kids hugging my dad’s legs to see who I knew must be Teresa. She was a severe woman wearing a summery knee-length floral dress, pinched together at her slim waist by a red leather belt.

  “I take it you’re Sara,” Teresa said in a thick Texas accent.

  “Hi, yep,” I said, extending my hand. She held hers out flat, fingers facing the floor, and bent it slightly at the wrist. I was thrown off for a second, and then I realized she wanted me to grasp the ends of her fingers. What century do you live in? I wondered.

  “I’ve heard quite a bit about you lately,” she said.

  “And I, you,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Hearing my voice, the girls looked up from Dad’s legs and gawked at me. I realized it was possible nobody told them I’d even be here, much less who exactly I was.

  “I’ll be back next Thursday,” Teresa said, returning her gaze to my dad. “I’ll come get them straight from the airport.”

  “All right then,” Dad said meekly. “We’ll be here.”

  “Be good, girls,” Teresa said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Bye, Mommy,” the twins said. Teresa kissed them both on the head and then was gone. I looked at Dad as he watched Teresa walk away from the house. For the first time that morning, he wasn’t smiling. A look of complete defeat hung heavily across his face. But I tried not to pity him too much. He’s doing to Teresa and the girls what he did to you and Mom, I reminded myself. He’s giving up. He’s being selfish.

  But it obviously wasn’t that simple. He was plenty torn up inside, and despite all that I couldn’t help but feel bad for him.

  “Well,” Dad said, looking down at the girls, trying to put on a show of happiness for them. “Are you guys hungry?”

  “Yeah,” the girl wearing a bow said. “Mommy only has yuck food at her house. Tofu!”

  “Lima beans!” screamed the other. I laughed. It had been years since I’d spent time with a young kid. Dad ushered the two girls farther into the house, and they took off ahead of him back into the kitchen. I watched all three of them go, and I realized—really realized, for the first time—that they were my family. My family had exploded in size in just a few days. What used to be just my mom and me now included a dad and two half-siblings.

  This is what family feels like, I said to myself.

  My reverie was quickly interrupted by one of the girls piping up again. “Who’s that?” She had found Pete.

  “That’s Sara’s friend,” Dad said.

  “Who’s Sara?” one of the girls retorted. Dad and Pete both looked awkward. I slowly walked back towards the kitchen.

  “I’m Sara,” I said. The girls turned around to face me.

  “Girls,” Dad said, “this is Sara. She’s a new part of our family. Sara, this is Lily,” he said, pointing to the girl with a bow in her hair. “And this is Anna.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, waving.

  “What do you mean she’s in our family?” Lily asked, still staring straight at me. She put her hands on her hips like a skeptical old woman.

  “It’s a little complicated,” Dad said. “Why don’t we get you guys some food first?”

  Over a second round of breakfast, Dad laid everything out as clearly as he could. He explained that I had lived with him when I was the girls’ age, and how for an unhappy reason I hadn’t seen him since then. But that if things went well, I would be around a lot more now.

  “Sara is my daughter, just like you are both my daughters,” Da
d said. The girls’ eyes widened.

  Then, Lily managed to utter, “Her?”

  “Yes, her,” I said, before correcting myself. “Me. I’m your sister. Anna’s your sister, and I’m your sister, too. Only we have different mommies. We have the same dad.” I looked over at Dad and smiled.

  “I’m the odd one out,” Pete said, chuckling. I had almost forgotten he was there. “You’re not related to me!”

  “You have red hair,” Anna offered.

  “Honey, that’s rude,” Dad said.

  “Why? He does!” Lily retorted.

  “Red hair is fine to have,” he said quietly. “It’s perfectly normal.” He weirdly made eye contact with Pete. “Perfectly normal thing to have red hair.” Pete forced a smile back, obviously confused as to why his hair needed so much defending.

  All in all, the girls dealt with the confusion much better than I guessed they would. They didn’t seem to really understand the entire situation—after all, they weren’t even clear on how babies get made in the first place—but they accepted it.

  Once the girls got a grasp of who Pete and I were, they moved on. “What are we doing today, Daddy?” Lily asked.

  Lily and I had the same thought. “It’s such a perfect day,” I said excitedly. “And neither Pete nor I have been here before, obviously, so maybe you guys could show us around town, or something?” I looked at the girls, a cheery smile spread out on my face. “Where do you guys like to go on beautiful summer days?”

  “Well, gosh,” Dad said, his tone distinctly darker than mine. “Sorry to be that guy, but I will have to go into work today. But of course you all can do something fun!” I looked over at him, my gaze hardening.

  Wait a second, did you not have this day off from work? I grumbled in my head. Hadn’t you planned to be at the altar this very moment?

  “Again?!” Anna groaned. “You always have boring work!”

  I wondered then if he spent a lot of time at the office, away from the family. I wondered if that might have been part of the problem.

  Suddenly my thoughts spun out of control. Maybe he hasn’t changed a bit since he left me and Mom behind. Maybe he’s just as distant and checked-out and selfish as he always was! And here I was pitying him for bailing on his fiancée and their daughters. Selfish jerk!

  “Just for a bit, I promise,” he said. “Girls, you can come with me, or not. I bet these two could be fun to hang out with for a while.” Then Dad quickly glanced up at me. “If they’d be interested, of course.”

  I didn’t say anything, as I was trapped in my head, cursing myself for letting him off the hook so easily.

  Pete piped up, “Well, I can’t speak for Sara, but I’m a great babysitter.”

  “We’re not babies!” Lily yelled. “We’re four and four-sixths!”

  “Oh, excuse me then,” said Pete, smiling. “So who are you planning on voting for in the next election?”

  Anna looked at Pete, then at me, then at her dad. “What?” she asked.

  Dad chuckled. “You’re very mature for your age, he’s saying.” Anna smiled contentedly.

  It was all too easy to imagine the scheme Dad was constructing. He wasn’t interested in being a father to anyone—me, Lily, or Anna—or a husband to either Mom or Teresa. And he had manipulated Pete and me into his web again, only to serve as substitute parents while he acted on his own behalf. Once a bad parent, always a bad parent.

  Lily jumped down from her chair at the table and walked over to Dad, climbing onto his lap. “When is the wedding, Daddy?” Lily asked.

  The room fell silent. My heart slammed against my chest. Had they not told them? Did these poor kids still think they were finally getting a united home?

  “Is it today?” Anna asked. “Or tomorrow?”

  “Ooh! Can we try on our dresses again?” Lily squealed. “I like the big bow on mine!”

  “And our fancy shoes!”

  “And—”

  “Girls,” Dad said sternly. Lily and Anna stopped their giggling immediately and stared at him, their faces each a shade whiter. “I’m sorry. I’m not angry. I’m just . . . ” He faded away. He didn’t have the words. “It’s not happening, girls. Did Mommy not tell you?”

  Now it was the girls’ turn to fall silent. They looked at each other, just like two adults do when they’re completely at a loss. It wasn’t that they didn’t understand, it was that they couldn’t believe it.

  “I’m sorry, kids,” Dad said. “I know how excited you were. But Mommy and I realized we weren’t ready.”

  Is that really the truth? I wondered. I looked over at Pete, who was watching the entire proceedings in silence. I was back at square one with him, like the previous day hadn’t happened. Dad felt like a complete stranger to me again.

  “Will we still live here?” Lily asked. I gritted my teeth. When I left home, I thought I was going to a wedding, where I would try to get to know my estranged father. But now, here I was, watching him alienate his other daughters, just like he did to me. Great.

  Half an hour later, after a marathon session of questions the girls raised about their parents’ breakup, Lily and Anna were seated on the couch, silently watching an episode of Doc McStuffins. Pete nobly sat with them. Even Pete wasn’t sure how to handle the emotions of the situation, so he sat quietly and perfectly still. Like he was trying to vanish into thin air.

  In the kitchen, Dad and I silently cleaned up the rest of the breakfast. I rinsed dishes in the sink. He put a few things in Tupperware and placed them back in the fridge. I wondered if he wanted me to say something, or if he just wanted company. We’d been at it for a full ten minutes before anybody said anything.

  “Something big came up at work,” he finally said, his back to me. “I’m sorry. I wish I could get out of it, but . . . ”

  I scrubbed the egg pan, hesitant to open my mouth for fear of saying something irresponsible.

  “Sara?” he asked timidly.

  “I heard you,” I said darkly. I wasn’t going to let him get away with manipulating me anymore.

  “I get it, you’re mad,” he said. “I am too. Trust me, it’s my last choice for how to spend this day.”

  I took a deep breath, standing up straight from the sink. Fighting can only get you so far, I mused. He has to go to work. The question is what you’re going to do about it.

  “I guess this way I can get to know my half-sisters a little easier,” I said, trying to find some silver lining.

  “There you go,” he said. “Probably the less you see of me, the better.”

  I turned to look at him, stone-faced. “When do you need to go?”

  His blank look told me that he needed to go ASAP. You barely know me, I thought. Why are you okay leaving your kids with me and a total stranger?

  He looked more anxious by the second. Even though I still wasn’t sure why he was even considering it, I knew I was up to it. I wasn’t sure Dad was worth my time, but my sweet, adorable half-sisters definitely were. “Okay,” I said, “I can handle it.”

  “I really appreciate it, Sara,” he said, rinsing the last plate and putting it in the drying rack. “Let’s go tell the girls.”

  In the living room, the girls’ show was still playing on the TV, but nobody was watching. Instead, Lily and Anna were enthralled with Pete, asking him questions and staring at him wide-eyed and expectant.

  “Does it snow all the time in Chicago?” Lily asked.

  “No, not at all,” Pete said. “Last summer it was like the Amazon rain forest outside. You walk out of your house and immediately you start sweating!” He was acting like I’d never seen him. His face was overly expressive, his smile wide, his gestures big and broad. The girls giggled happily, hanging on every word.

  “It snowed once in Texas,” Anna said.

  “One time ever?” Pete asked.

  “Yeah!” Lily said. “It happened right outside!”

  “I’m glad you guys made a new friend,” Dad said, putting his hands on his hips
.

  Lily turned around to look at him. “Yeah, this is Pete, he’s funny! He’s funny like a clown.”

  “And he has red hair like a clown!” Anna bellowed. The girls cracked up, falling all over the couch and each other.

  “How’d you feel about hanging out with Pete and Sara for a while?” Dad asked. The girls’ eyes lit up—and they looked back to their new best friend Pete. I wasn’t sure they even remembered I was there.

  An hour later, I was in yet another place I never thought I’d be, behind the wheel of my dad’s Chevy Suburban (“a Texas-sized ride,” he’d said), with Pete beside me and two small girls in the backseat. Dad insisted he take my car and I take his, so that the girls could watch a DVD on the seatback screens they depended on.

  “You should have to be certified to drive this thing,” I said. It felt like sitting behind the wheel of a school bus.

  “Can we go?!” whined Lily from the backseat.

  “Yep, okay,” I said, on edge. “You’re navigating, right?” I asked Pete.

  “Got it right here. Only twenty-three minutes to the Wild Western Mall.”

  “The mall!” screamed Lily from the backseat.

  “Can we go on the Ferris wheel?” Anna bellowed. “And get cotton candy? And go to the American Girl store?”

  “We’ll see,” I said dryly. It’s like a mall and an amusement park rolled into one, Dad had said. Perfect for kids, torture for adults.

  After doing a few practice turns around the cul-de-sacs and broad streets of their neighborhood, I felt slightly comfortable behind the wheel of the giant SUV. I knew the drive to the mall included about ten miles on the highway, which I was not looking forward to.

  “Where are we going?” asked Lily.

  “Yeah, this is the wrong way,” Anna said.

  Pete chuckled. “Smart kids! If you’re so smart, how about you tell us how to get there? You’ve been there before. We haven’t.”

  Pete’s chipper attitude was starting to wear on me. Why did he have to pretend everything was okay? I just wanted these few hours to be over with, for my dad to get back home so I could talk to him just like I did the night before. There were countless questions I still had for him, so much ground yet to cover.