Okay

by Danielle Pearl

  It makes me think of Rory, of how she sees herself as weak despite the fact that she embodies a courage and fortitude one would never expect in an eighteen-year-old girl. Or most grown men, for that matter. Especially considering everything she's been through.

  I smile inwardly. Sue would love Rory, I'm sure of it. And I bet Rory would like her right back.

  She isn't at her post when I arrive in my father's office suite, and I take a moment to look around. Nostalgia floods my bones and it's both wistful and eerie. The decor has been updated, but it's all very much as I remember it. I suspect Sue is either fetching something for my father, or in the restroom. Otherwise she would be sitting in her usual place, another fixture, in my mind more permanent to this office than the furniture itself.

  She was another reason I usually enjoyed the many hours I spent in my father's office as a child. When he was busy or with a client I would sit out here right on the floor, coloring at the coffee table, or as I got older, doing homework or studying. Sue was perfect company, busy with her own tasks, but available for conversation, with a supernatural intuition that always seemed to know whether or not I was in a talking mood. Maybe she really is a vampire.

  But it was her manner with my father that I found most appealing. Sue is the one person that never took his bullshit, that called him out on his arrogance, and had the audacity to crack jokes at his expense. And as the most diligent, efficient executive assistant in Manhattan—my father's words—he was happy to put up with it. I think he even enjoyed it. In fact, if I wasn't fully aware that Sue preferred women and had been committed to her now-wife since before she even started at Mason, Goldberg, & Caplan, I would have suspected they were having an affair. After all, she's nothing if not beautiful.

  "Sammy Boy!" Sue exclaims from behind me, and my lips automatically slip into a small grin. The familiarity of her exuberance is strangely comforting.

  I turn into her embrace and am immediately struck by how small she seems. She looks no different from the last time I saw her. It's me that's changed. Sue no longer seems like the Amazon Queen I remember, but just a tall, beautiful, if still completely ageless, woman. I now tower above her by all of two inches.

  "My God, boy, I never thought I'd see the day you were taller than me!"

  I chuckle lightly, I was thinking the exact same thing, and I tell her so.

  Her hair is done in small, spring-like curls, slicked back into a poofy ponytail. It's actually a fairly tame look for her.

  She motions for me to have a seat on the sofa, and makes to join me.

  "How are you? How's Lillian?" I ask her.

  "Oh, fine, fine," she replies flippantly, tossing her giant, funkily manicured hand in the air as if how she and her wife have been is of little interest. "We're the same, just a few years older, it's you who's barely recognizable! Jesus, just look at you." She pats my cheek playfully. "And about to enter Columbia. You're gonna slay those poor little coed hearts." She squeezes my bicep, her massive hand making it look smaller than I'd like, but her expression tells me she finds it impressive, or at least she's flattering me. "I bet you're doing it already, aren't you? If I look out the window am I going to see a mob of crazy teenaged fans holding up posters and waiting for a glimpse?"

  I shake my head at her in amusement. She's always been like this. Telling me how handsome I am and that I better be careful or some poor girl's dad was going to come after me for my supposed future heartbreaking ways. But the recollection of those regularly repeated warnings drains my mirth.

  Because I know that's how it's supposed to be. Fathers are supposed to protect their daughters, even from the imagined threat of a boy pursuing her. But not for Rory. For Rory, the threat was far from imagined, and it was her whom her father went after.

  I'm reminded why I'm here, and there's nothing amusing or playful about it.

  "Not exactly, Sue," I finally reply. "Is my father with a client?" I feel badly for being brusque with her. Another time, I would love to catch up with her, honestly. But right now, I'm too determined by my task, and I can't handle distractions.

  "No, young man. He's waiting patiently for your arrival. A little irritably, too—he has a lunch date he doesn't want to be late for. But it's when he's like this that I just love making him wait an extra bit." She smirks, and I can't help but return it. God would I love to help her get my father riled up right now, but that would be counterproductive, and it's just not the time. I stand up.

  "I'm sorry, Sue. But I really need to speak with him. I don't have a lot of time either," I tell her. It's bullshit of course. I have no other plans until this evening, but if he needs to be out of here by lunch, then he'll be out of here by lunch, whether we're through or not, and I don't want our meeting cut short.

  A vague look of suspicion flashes in her eyes, before she professionally tucks it away, hiding it behind her amiable smile. She nods toward my father's closed office door. "Then go on in, Sammy Boy."

  I nod and thank her, and head down the short corridor. I pause with my hand on the knob, hesitating, before taking a deep, determined breath, and twisting it open.

  My father's head shoots up, either actually startled or just finding my presence startling. I swallow my nerves, they have no place here, not now.

  "Mitch," I say in greeting, wishing my voice came out a bit more steady. He stands up, blinking as he looks me over, and for the first time in my life, we are at the same eye-level.

  "You're so tall," is the first thing he says, before shaking his head to himself as if to rid it of his somewhat stunned state.

  "No taller than you," I murmur. He nods and motions for me to sit in one of the club guest chairs, and I make myself as comfortable as I could possibly be in front of this stranger I barely know anymore, and wish I never knew as a child.

  Neither of us speaks for long moments and I let him take his time as he looks me over as if I'm some kind of curiosity. Eventually his neck sags, his eyes drop to his desk, and his fingers reach for his forehead, rubbing his temples in a stress mannerism I recognize as one of my own.

  Finally my father meets my gaze, serious as I've ever seen him. Still, I stay quiet. I'm certain he has something he wants to say, and I can only hope it isn't something that's going to end this meeting before it even begins.

  "Look, Samm— Sam. I owe you an apology."

  Not what I expected. My expression slips into one of sardonic disbelief before I can control it.

  My father sighs. "Okay, more than one," he concedes.

  My brow furrows and I blink at him, allowing my look to ask the question I can't quite articulate.

  "I've read through your friend's case files. And I've spoken with the sheriff down there. In her hometown, I mean, and…" He trails off, his eyes close briefly and he shakes his head before he looks back at me. "I'm sorry that I—"

  "You saw the photos." I interrupt him as soon as I realize what was responsible for his complete about-face in attitude.

  Rory told me about the pictures of her injuries her friend Cam took on his phone while she was asleep. Which may sound creepy, but is the exact thing I would have done. I may never meet the kid, but I know he was trying to help her the same way I'm trying to do now. My father must have seen them in the police files. And the ones taken of her in the hospital.

  My father's somber expression confirms it, and he nods once, never breaking eye contact.

  It's then that I notice the manila file folders on his desk. I reach for them.

  "Let me see them."

  But his palm slams down on top of them, and I raise my eyebrows, somewhat taken aback.

  "That's not a good idea, son."

  I nearly recoil at the moniker. The last mouth I heard it come out of belonged to a man I hate even more than the one sitting across from me, a father even worse than my own—Rory's. The recollection stops me long enough for my father to slide the files from my reach.

  He shakes his head. "Look, Sam. You obviously care about this girl. And t
rust me, you don't want to see someone you care about all cut up and bruised. You can't un-see images like that," he advises with an empathy I would almost believe if I didn't know better.

  "I suppose you would know, wouldn't you?" The biting retort flies from my lips before I can even consider their consequences, and I silently chastise myself for it. I have to stay focused on my goal, despite what deals I have to make with which devils to do it. As long as they keep Rory safe from her devil, I'll do fucking anything.

  My father licks his bottom lip, and I know he wants to say something more than what he's about to say. This is the good version of him. The one in control of his emotions. The one not abraded by alcohol and triggered by nothing. "I deserve that," he murmurs, his voice low but steady.

  Again, it's not what I was expecting, and it silences me for a moment.

  "Do you love this girl, Sammy?" he asks softly.

  I blink at him, thinking, calculating, considering what answer is most likely to both end this line of questioning and get him to do what I ask of him.

  "Not everyone is naïve enough to think they're in love in high school," is my vague response. I don't bother telling him that I'm not included in that enlightened group, because the truthful answer to my father's question would be a simple, yes.

  It's the first time since I got here that I see a flash of indignation on my father's face, but it's hidden behind his careful mask of patience in the merest of seconds.

  "You can say what you want about me and how I treated your mother, and you guys, too. But I fell in love with your mother my junior year of high school and I've loved her every day since. I wasn't naïve to think I loved her, I was naïve to think I deserved her. I didn't." He sighs again and takes a deep breath, cutting off his rambling.

  But the resigned look that follows tells me that he's making a choice, and I suspect that instead of shutting down the subject, he's going to elaborate. I remain silent, in a cautious state of astonishment. In the many possibilities I imagined for this meeting, both productive and disastrous, I never so much as considered this particular direction.

  "I had a problem with alcohol by the time I graduated law school. But there are different kinds of alcoholics, Sammy… I was functional. I didn't drink all the time. And I was successful. The youngest attorney to make partner in the firm's history."

  I've heard him tout that honor a thousand times, but always with an arrogance that is conspicuously absent now. Now he says it with regret, and the distinction holds my undivided attention.

  "Your mother knew I had a problem. She's always known me better than anyone, since she was sixteen years old. But her pointing it out, asking me to stop drinking, it only made me angry and deny it.

  "You see, I had an idea of what an alcoholic was, and it wasn't me. It wasn't success and esteem. And the worse things got when I did drink, it just became easier and easier to make excuses to myself."

  He takes another deep breath, and pushes his hand through his still-full head of chestnut hair, another habit we share. I watch my father, unblinking, riveted by the shadow of another version of him—one I almost forgot existed, one completely lost behind far more potent memories. The version that would appear for brief periods following one of his episodes. The one full of contrition and remorse, apologies and promises he would so easily forget the next time he had one too many.

  His shame over his behavior lasted the number of days it took for the bruises to fade, or in one case, my sling to come off, and not a moment longer. But now, it's been five years, and the adamancy of his regret shines sharper than I've ever seen before, even in his most pitiful moments.

  He looks back down at his desk and his voice grows softer. "I never stopped loving Lainey. Not for a single moment." I hear his swallow. "Or you either, Samuel. Or Beth."

  I look away, daunted by this whole confession of his. I had emotionally prepared myself for quite a bit, considering the nature of what this meeting was supposed to be about, but this… I expected him to die of old age or liver failure before ever uttering these words.

  I allow my eyes to skate around his office for the first time since I arrived. Aside from a few knick-knacks and the updated guest furniture, nothing has changed. My gaze lands back on my father's desk, zeroing in on the three framed photos. I think I stop breathing. There's a photo of the four of us from when I was about eleven or so, including my mother mid-laugh, my father's eyes trained adoringly on her instead of looking at the camera.

  Then there's one of Bits from her dance recital when she was twelve. That was only a few years ago—at least a year after he left.

  And then there's the largest of the frames, housing my senior portrait, and tucked in the bottom right corner is a wallet size of my football portrait, also from this year. My father follows my gaze and picks up the frame, taking a moment to look wistfully at my image. It confuses me even more.

  I don't know what I expected. Maybe for him to completely wipe away any evidence of our existence—any reminders of his one failure. To tell everyone he initiated the divorce, and good riddance. Not to keep a happy-family photo and updated portraits of Bits and me on his desk.

  "I asked your mother for them," he explains.

  I glare at him in confusion. I don't know if I'm more perplexed by his saying he loves me, or the fact that he has my photos on his desk, or that he's in amicable enough contact with my mother to have obtained them from her. I feel as if I've been flung into some alternate universe, and I wish I had some sense that I was being manipulated, because that would make a hell of a lot more sense than his apparent sincerity.

  "I kicked you out of your own fucking house," I remind him. "I almost reported you, got you arrested. I could have ruined your life. I was ready to do it, too." I need him to remember what I remember. To see things how I've seen them for as long as I can remember. That he chose alcohol over us, traumatized us for life in the process, and that I betrayed him in return, threatening what he valued most—his career.

  My father only nods, taking me from confused to completely lost.

  "I remember, Sammy. I was drunk, but I remember it very clearly, I assure you." But his tone isn't accusatory, it's… almost admiring.

  My brow furrows and my mouth gapes open.

  "It was my rock bottom, that night," he whispers. "I'd gone pretty low before, which you know. But that night… Lainey's face…" His voice cracks and he stops to regain his composure.

  "That night, Sammy, you became more of a man that I'd ever been—could ever be. You protected your family. You stood up and did what you had to do. And… and I admit I didn't see it immediately—and I realize the irony here—but that was my proudest moment as a father.

  "I left because you gave me no other choice. You took away my excuses and any other options. And as a result, I did the only thing I could—I got sober. I stayed away because I didn't deserve my family, I knew that. I know it. But I took comfort in knowing my girls had a real man to look after them. So no, son, I'm not angry with you for standing up to me, I couldn't be more grateful. I owe you everything."

  I exhale my disbelief and blink away from him. It's just too much to fucking absorb. But then my gaze lands on the coin dangling from a thin ball chain, hung proudly over the top right corner of his prided framed diploma from Columbia Law School. The Roman numeral V in the center confirms his story. Five years sober. And I'm knocked even further off balance.

  "You stopped drinking?" I barely recognize my own voice, timid and unsure, like the child I never really got to be.

  But before he can even give the confirmation I already know to be true, I shake my head, remembering myself. Because what the fuck does it matter that he's sober now? It doesn't fix anything. It doesn't undo the injuries or the trauma, both emotional and physical, nor does it make him the dad I deserved, when I actually needed one. But that kid is gone, and this man in front of me, drunk or sober, recovering alcoholic or alcoholic abusive bastard, is nothing more to me than a stranger at best.<
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  He sighs, as if he senses me returning to my senses, breaking out of his spell of remorse, sobriety, and supposed pride for me, and back into reality.

  "Listen, Sam, I wasn't expecting your forgiveness—"

  "Good, because you're not getting it."

  My father nods to himself in acceptance. "I suppose I've always known that. Which is why I haven't contacted you. In case you thought it was because I didn't care, or that I didn't love you. It's—"

  Christ. "It doesn't matter, either way." My tone contains a subtle warning. I'm reaching my limits of listening to him profess his love and concern. True or not, it's total bullshit. Far too little, far too late.

  He nods again. "I just wanted you to understand where I'm coming from. I know I've hurt you beyond the scope of the forgivable. But you came to me, Sam. And I was just looking out for your interests. When I asked you how well you knew the Pine girl, I was just trying to make sure—"

  "Her interests are my interests," I say sharply, my voice rising more than I'd meant it to, and I take a moment to calm myself before I continue.

  I sit forward in my chair, resting my elbows on my thighs, needing him to know just how serious I am. "Look, Mitch, you can help me, like you said you would, or I can figure something else out. But I'm going to protect Rory, no matter what I have to do. So you can either help make sure that motherfucking bastard gets real jail time, or you can get ready to prepare my murder defense, Dad."

  He watches me carefully, and his grim expression tells me he knows I mean every single fucking word.

  We stare at each other for long, sober moments, until my father's eyes crinkle at the corners. He holds his lips straight, but his eyes fail to veil their amusement.