by T. J. Klune
Even so.
Phillip wouldn’t know that.
He touched the ring in his pocket instead, underneath the table, where no one could see.
“No,” he said. “I don’t need it.”
Her smile widened as if it was the greatest thing she’d ever heard. Then she left.
He didn’t look back up at Phillip. The ring grounded him. God, Alice had been smiling so wide that day, her dress beautiful, and—
“This needs to stop,” Phillip finally said.
David thought about ignoring him.
Instead, he said, “What does?”
“This.” He sounded frustrated. “You. Existing like this. Like you have nothing else. Like everything was taken from you.”
It might as well have been, but David didn’t say that aloud. He wasn’t cruel. At least not anymore. “I don’t know how else to be,” he said, admitting more than he wanted to. “This is all I’ve got right now. I’m sorry if that’s not enough for you.” Okay, yeah, maybe a little cruel.
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
“Do I?”
“David.”
“I wasn’t the one who texted you,” David said, wondering when he’d been backed into this corner. He felt his hackles rise, like he needed to lash out. Like he needed to scratch and bite and draw blood until Phillip backed away. “I mean—I didn’t try and—”
“No,” Phillip said. “You didn’t. That was me. And I meant it, buddy.”
I want to see you.
“Why?” David asked. “Why do you even—”
“Why?” Phillip asked, sounding incredulous. And here it was, the anger that he hadn’t ever wanted to see again. “You really have to ask me why?”
Which, okay. That probably hadn’t been the best question to ask. But while it hadn’t exactly been radio silence between them, it hadn’t been like this. David’s days were regimented: get up, eat breakfast, don’t drink, go online, check the website’s e-mail to see if any tips had come in, get to work, break for lunch even though he didn’t eat anything, check the e-mail again, go back to work, finish for the day, make dinner, check the e-mail for the last time, scour the Internet for anything remotely similar to Alice’s disappearance (and hadn’t that been a rabbit hole the first couple of years because just how many people disappeared without a trace every year? A staggering number as it had turned out, and only a small percentage of them were ever found), and then go to bed. The next day, it would start all over again. Mondays were the only days that were ever any different, because those were the days he’d call Detective Harper at three on the dot. She’d say, “Detective Harper,” and he’d say, “Hi, it’s David,” and she’d say, “Hey, David, how are you?” like they were just shooting the shit.
He would lie and say he was fine, thank you very much, and then he’d ask the question he dreaded more than anything in the world, not because of the question itself, but because of the answer.
“Any updates?” he’d say on Mondays at three.
This was his life.
So yes, he had to ask why. Why would Phillip want to see him? Why would Phillip want to have any part of his life the way it was now? Why would Phillip even want to be in the same room as David, especially given the things David had said to him at the end of the fourth year, no longer soaked in alcohol but still unable to deal. Those words hurtled at him, each one landing like a bullet to the stomach, saying things like you don’t care as much about her as I do and if you did, you would be doing more and Why do you keep referring to her in the past tense? Why do you always do that? Do you want her to be dead? Is that what you want, you fucking asshole? Is that what this is? Do you want them to find her body just so you can fucking feel better about yourself? It’s like you don’t even care about her. Why aren’t you out there looking, Phillip? Why aren’t you out there trying to find her like I am? Why don’t you love her like I do?
He’d never believed it. He never believed any of what he’d said.
But he’d said it just the same.
And the horror on Phillip’s face at those words was something David would never forget as long as he lived. The anguish, like David had broken him, was enough that David wanted to apologize right then and there and promise to never say anything like that again.
He hadn’t, though.
He’d been cornered then, too, by things like this isn’t healthy, David. This isn’t what she would have wanted for you. You need help. You’re not drinking like you did, and that’s good, but David, you need more than what I can offer. And I want that for you. I want that for you so bad. Please, David. Please let me get some help for you.
It’d all fallen apart then.
And it was David’s fault. He knew that. He knew that better than anyone.
If their roles had been reversed, if it’d been Phillip saying those terrible things, David couldn’t be sure that he would ever want to see him again.
So, yes. He had to ask why. “After everything I’ve done,” he said. “After… just. After.”
“Jesus Christ,” Phillip said, scrubbing his hand over his face. “David, I can’t even—”
“Gentlemen,” Melissa said, and David felt like screaming. “I’ll take this whenever you’re ready. No rush.” She placed a black folder on the table.
Johnny Mathis sang that it was the most wonderful time of the year.
Phillip said, “You can take it now,” with a strained smile on his face as he leaned forward, pulling his wallet out. David didn’t even try and argue over the bill. Phillip pulled a card out and shoved it at Melissa.
“I’ll be right back with this, then,” she said before she swirled away.
“I need you to listen to me,” Phillip said before David could do anything. “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” David said helplessly.
“This… this whole thing, everything, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t Alice’s fault.”
No. No. “You don’t get it,” David said, shaking his head. “You just don’t get it. I should have—”
“There was nothing you could have done,” Phillip said fiercely. “Yeah, I wish you hadn’t said the shit you said, buddy, and I wish I hadn’t come after you like I had, but I can’t blame you. Even if I thought I could for the longest time, I can’t blame you for that. She wouldn’t either. She wouldn’t want this for you. For either of us.”
“Don’t,” David said, hands in fists on the tabletop. “Don’t do this. Not now. Not here.”
“When should I do it, then, David?” Phillip asked, eyes narrowing. “When would be the perfect time for you, because I am tired.” His voice cracked, and David thought his heart was splitting right down the middle. He could never deal with it very well when Phillip was upset, wanting to hunt down and destroy whatever had hurt him. It’d been worse when it’d been David himself, and he was still filled with such self-loathing at what he’d done. The things he’d said. “I’m tired of—of this. Of all of this. You as you are. Me as I am. Existing separately like that’s the way things should be. It’s shit. It’s fucking shit and you know it. I don’t deserve this. And neither do you.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” David snapped at him, trying to keep himself under control. It’d been a long time since he’d felt anything other than a dull, bittersweet ache in the center of his chest, and he didn’t want any of it. “What exactly do you think I should do?”
“I want you to accept what happened,” Phillip said. “I want you to open your eyes. David. David. She’s—she’s gone, okay? And she’s not—she’s not going to come back—”
David slammed his hand on the table.
Phillip flinched, eyes bright and wet.
Melissa came, opened her mouth, but David glared at her. She looked at Phillip, then back at David, and set the black folder gently on the table, the credit card sticking out the top. She began to back away slowly
Nat King Cole was singing about the little
town of Bethlehem.
And David didn’t want to be here anymore.
He wanted to go home.
He wanted to curl up in his bed, the blankets over his head.
More than anything, he wanted it to be March 21, 2012, and he wanted it to be on the phone with her, and before she’d hang up, he’d say, hey, sweetheart, and maybe she’d grumble a little at being called that, but he’d say it anyway, and he’d say, I love you, Alice, I love you, I love you, I love you, and she would probably laugh at him, calling him an old fuddy-duddy, and that he was being silly, but David wouldn’t care. Goddammit, he wouldn’t care. That was what he wanted more than anything in the world. Just to have one more day. Just a little more time.
He stood quickly, knees knocking against the table.
“I have to go,” he said, voice flat.
“No,” Phillip said. “David, can you just sit down—”
People were staring at them now, even Matteo, who was probably regretting hitting on the crazy old guy right now, but David couldn’t find the strength to care. His vision was tunneling, and he needed to get out of here, out of the low lights, the Christmas music singing out overhead, reminding him that he’d sat alone in the dark on the couch on Christmas Day, the TV on in the background, staring off into nothing for hours, his phone turned off. The day had passed by in a blur, and then David had moved onto the next and the next and the next until Phillip had said I want to see you.
He should have said no.
He let himself have one last look at Phillip, I love you more than you could possibly know lodged in his throat, sticky and cloying and unable to get out. He almost tripped over the table leg, but ended up only stumbling before catching himself. People were still staring. They probably thought he was drunk, and he didn’t care. He would never see them again. There were no more staycations after this. He’d never come back here.
He was moving before he even finished the thought.
The hostess, God bless her young and precious heart, had his coat and scarf and umbrella waiting for him, as if she knew he needed to get out as quickly as possible. He grunted at her as he clutched his coat against his chest, trying to get his key fob out, ignoring Phillip saying his name somewhere behind him.
He was in the lobby, shoes squeaking against the floor. The woman with the shaved head smiled at him and asked a question he didn’t quite get, so he just kept on without stopping. The doors slid opened, and cold air slammed into him even as he heard someone chasing after him.
He was in the rain and it was startling how cold it was against his skin. He was soaked as easy as one, two, three, his breath a cloud around his face as he exhaled sharply. He blinked away the water, trying to remember where the fuck he had parked, and he just wanted to go home to his shitty apartment that wasn’t a home, it wasn’t a home, it wasn’t—
“David!”
He didn’t stop.
“David, goddammit!”
There. There was the SUV. He was almost—
“David! David. She was my fucking daughter too!”
And David Greengrass stopped.
Closed his eyes.
Took in a shaky breath.
She’d come in like a hurricane, hadn’t she? David had met Phillip in 1992, and God, they’d just loved each other more than life itself. Maybe David had gotten there first, and quicker than anyone thought, but by the time their friends had given birth to the prettiest little girl in the world the next year, David and Phillip had already been talking about moving in together. They’d been at the hospital when little Alice Marie Hughes had come into the world, all wet and slimy, crying furiously. Ronny and Keesha had been exhausted, but proud. They were so goddamn proud, and when Ronny had clasped him on the arm, a cigar in his mouth, asking if David and Phillip would be her godparents, David had nodded, eyes wide, fingers trembling, Phillip at his side.
“In case you can’t tell by the look on his face,” Phillip had said fondly, “we’d love to.”
Yeah, they’d loved it. They’d loved it so much. Which is why, when Ronny and Keesha had died in a car accident (drunk driver ran a red light, didn’t get a scratch on him, and wasn’t that just the way things worked out?) they’d found out wills had been drafted, naming David and Phillip as who they wanted Alice to go to should anything happen to them.
It was… dangerous. The AIDS crisis was still in the back of everyone’s mind, but then Keesha’s mother had come forward, wide and intimidating as any person David had ever met and said that she couldn’t take care of Alice, not like David and Phillip could. She was living off her pension and had diabetes. Ronny’s parents were dead. No one else was there to care for her.
And maybe they’d hidden Phillip for the longest time, not disclosing their relationship. Maybe David was the only person listed as Alice’s parent, but that was okay. They’d come to that decision together, and when she was two, she came home with them, to their little house that already had a room set aside just for her whenever she came to stay the night, all pinks and princesses and unicorns.
He’d watched her that first night for hours as she slept, sure that if he looked away, she’d disappear as if she’d never been there at all.
The next year, she called him Daddy for the first time. She called Phillip Papa.
They’d both cried.
She was the flower girl at their wedding in the backyard, stamping her feet, glaring at the both of them for daring to be late, and don’t you see my dress, Daddy? Don’t you see how pretty my hair looks, Papa?
Yeah. They’d seen. They’d seen all of it.
And she was seven when they’d sat her down and showed her pictures of where she’d come from, explaining that while he and Phillip were her parents, she also had another set of parents who had loved her very, very much, and were with God now. She looked at the pictures with wide eyes, glancing through all of them, then back up at David and Phillip.
They’d waited.
Finally, she said, “Will I see them again?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” David had said. “You’ll see them again.”
“And you still love me?”
“More than anything in the world,” Phillip had said, a hand in her hair.
“Okay,” she’d said. “Okay.”
And she’d grown. Good God, how she had grown. She went from little girl to awkward, moody tween, to a goddamn beauty queen, this statuesque woman who they loved and were terrified for in equal measure. She was fearless, sarcastic, and oh so funny, with this great, dusky laugh that sounded like she’d been drinking whiskey for years. She got everything she wanted from her fathers; all she had to do was look at them with her big dark eyes and David and Phillip were absolutely helpless.
When she was ten, another girl asked her why her parents were both white and both men when she was black. Who was her mother? Didn’t she know she needed one too? David had been borderline furious, ready to go and berate some little girl he didn’t know, and Phillip was already plotting how to get away with it, but Alice had looked at both of them and laughed, saying she already handled it. “I told her that I was so lucky, God gave me two sets of parents in different colors. And then I told her to mind her own damn business.”
She was twelve when her grandmother passed. She’d cried, but she’d said, “I’m sad, but I’m happy too because I still have you. I didn’t know you could be sad happy.”
When she was thirteen, she told them both that she’d started bleeding. “You know,” she’d said. “Down there.” And of course they’d both freaked out, because they never had to deal with anything like that before. And didn’t that make them the worst parents in the world? Jesus Christ, they weren’t ready for that. She’d sighed, like she was disappointed in the both of them, and then dragged them all to the computer, and they’d sat down for an hour on some bright and flashy website that talked about boybands and which actor had been shirtless where and wasn’t he dreamy (“He really is,” Phillip had said before David had smacked hi
m upside the head), but it’d also had a section for SIGNS FOR YOUR FIRST PERIOD, and they’d both read through it, all three of them grimacing before David had gone to the store with specific instructions on what to buy.
And when she was sixteen, she said to Phillip, “You should adopt me too, because I want it to be real for you like it is for me. Can we do that? It’s 2009. It’s time we get this going, Papa. Get our asses in gear.” There’d been tears for that too. But they’d done just as she’d asked.
She was seventeen when she became a Greengrass, “like, for real, for real, because now I’ve got you both.” And even though they’d had their funny little ceremony when she was still so new in their lives, and Phillip had had his name legally changed a short time later, she’d insisted that they get married, “like, for real, for real,” when it became legalized in the District of Columbia in March of 2010. So they had, riding the train down to get their marriage license, hands clasped, grinning at her as she threw flower petals on the Metro, making sure everyone knew where they were going and what they were doing.
She’d cried that time when they kissed in their tuxes.
And then she graduated, and David and Phillip had been the loudest parents there, because goddammit, their baby girl was walking across that stage, and she was doing so with a 3.75 GPA, and a partial scholarship to George Washington University. Even though they told her she could go anywhere, that she could do anything she wanted to do, she told them she wanted to stay right where she was. When they told her they’d been saving a college fund for her ever since the first day she’d been theirs, so of course she could live on campus if she wanted to and get that full college experience. “Riiight,” she’d said. “And leave the two of you without me? No offense, guys, but we both know you’d be lost without me. I think I’ll stick around for a little while yet to make sure you’ll be okay in the end.”
And she’d kept that promise.