by Leanne Davis
And the added incentive to risk all of this blowing up in his face was, of course, she might agree to go see her father. And she had done so. He glanced at her profile again, his heart swelling in pride. She was trying so hard to do this. He was pushing it but he really wanted her to take this chance and see if it didn’t help her. He had this gut-level feeling this would help Kylie more than years and years of therapy or all the talking to anyone else would.
He found the address. It was a small travel trailer that was parked in a RV park. It was the kind of park where most tenants lived there year round, as most had mailboxes before the trailers. There was dozens of the bigger double and triple-wide trailers and manufactured homes, but her dad’s was just a regular traveling trailer. It was maybe thirty feet long. It had permanent skirting surround it and a rundown min-van parked in front of it. Mildew was thick on the siding. Needles from the tall fir trees had long stuck in the awning and the roof. It was a depressing, crowded place to spend time. Like a parking lot, interspersed with trees.
Tristan stopped the car and they stared at it. “That’s it?”
“That’s the address.”
She didn’t comment. He didn’t press. They were parked across the road, blocking no one. Nothing stirred.
Finally, she said, “You should have seen the house I grew up in. It—it was beautiful. On this private lake that only our neighborhood had access to. We had so much more than the average family. Looking back, I had no idea, until it was all gone.”
“He didn’t fare too well, it looks like.”
“Ally and I made a pact a long time ago not to ask Mom for details and if she tried to give them to us we refused to listen. It was as if we never had a father.”
He wanted to touch her. But knew to hold back. Space. She’d need lots and lots of space right now. “Do you want to knock? Or we could just go home?”
She unclicked her seatbelt. “I’ve come this far.”
His heart pinged with pride in her. She looked like a twig ready to sustain the force of a tornado, but strangely he knew she could weather it. No one else seemed to think that, however. Kylie included. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“Yes.”
He was shocked but kept the surprise to himself, following her lead to get out and cross the quiet road. She stood back and he took her cue to knock. He waited near her and put his hand to the curve of her back to give her physical support.
The trailer door opened and there stood an old man.
Her intake of breath was sharp. Tristan glanced down and her eyes were big, her lips pressed together. It had to be Micah McKinley by her reaction to him. He was a tall man, average weight. His hair was gray, and his goatee was long and speckled with gray hair too.
They stared at each other for a long pause. Finally she whispered, “Do you know who I am?”
His face was wrinkled around the eyes and forehead. His mouth tightened. “Of course I know who you are, Kylie.”
Her eyes stayed wide for an extended moment and then her eyes shut and her body sagged towards Tristan. He leaned closer, nearly supporting her. When she opened her eyes tears glistened in them. He almost dropped her, he was so startled. “I couldn’t remember your voice. I just wanted… to… remember… it.”
“I never thought I’d see you again.”
“Do you want to see me again?”
“Badly.” Simple. To the point. Micah then opened the door and said casually, “Would you… would you, please come in?”
She nodded, glancing up at him. The tears were gone, blinked back inside her, like everything else she always tucked back inside of her. Tristan followed behind them into the tight, small space. Two mini-sized recliners and a small couch were available. They sat on the couch with Micah across from them.
Micah wiggled his butt all around, his nerves evident until he suddenly jumped up. “Can I get you anything?”
“No. Just… just sit down.”
He nodded. And did so, his hands rubbing back and forth on his jean-clad thigh. The nerves between them were excruciating.
Micah cleared his throat. She glanced at Tristan, her expression as puzzled as her dad’s. They had no idea where to start, or what to say or even where to look. A decade apart and they had almost nothing to say to each other. Tristan gently nodded towards her dad and mouthed, Ask what he does? She jerked to attention at his prodding and nodded eagerly. Turning to her dad she said without a lead in, “What do you do? You know, for a living now?”
“I work. Out on this backroad where a lot of logging goes on, there is a small tavern. I tend to it most nights. Lots of logging goes on that way, and the crews come in most nights for drinks. It’s out in middle of nowhere, really, so other than the loggers we don’t see many people.”
She tapped her index finger on her knee. Finally she said softly, “You didn’t get very far in life. After all the money you stole and everything you did, it didn’t do much for you, did it?”
“No. It didn’t. And I ended up nowhere and with nothing. You’re probably glad of that.” His tone was tired and expression bleak. His tone didn’t suggest he was being snarky, just tired. There seemed a weariness over the man’s entire body, from the way he held his shoulders to the gray in his hair, to the sad, kind of decrepit trailer he lived in. His statement made Kylie unsure. Tristan could tell by the way her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed together. She wasn’t good with people confronting her and she didn’t really respond well to conflict, anger, or even this bitterness.
Tristan leaned over enough to take her hand in his. She grasped his fingers in hers with a desperateness a child might with a parent or teacher when they were unsure of a stranger. “No, she never once wished ill for you,” he blurted out. He nearly pressed his fingers to his forehead. Did no one understand this girl? Of course she didn’t wish this kind of loneliness or misery for him. She didn’t wish ill to anyone as far as he’d yet found. She just wanted to show them forgiveness, kindness, the benefit of the doubt.
The only person Kylie McKinley didn’t show that kind of compassion, empathy, or kindness to was herself. She was ruthless in judgement of herself.
Her glance was swift and surprised at his interruption and the irritation in his voice. Tristan grumbled, “What? I just don’t get why no one else sees you’re the kindest person on the planet. He should start right off knowing that. Hell, he fucking raised you, he should just know that about you.”
A soft small laugh escaped Kylie’s lips, easing some of the anxiety that sat on her features. “Thank you,” she said simply.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Micah said.
“I’m Tristan, her boyfriend.”
A small smile crossed Micah’s lips as he shifted his gaze to Kylie. “I did raise you. Until you were ten. Do you remember that? Do you ever, in all your hatred and anger over how I left, remember the time before I left? When I was your father? Do you remember the epic games of Thirty-one we would play? You’d win as much as I would. We’d play for quarters and you’d often rake in five or more dollars. Do you remember that? I think about it, all of it actually… so often.”
“I remember. You weren’t letting me win? I never got old enough to ask you. I assumed as a child I was wining but when I got older I often wondered if you let me win.”
“I never had to let you. You had this natural luck with cards and games, which was ironic because you were the least competitive of us all. That was always Ally. Any time you’d beat her, her face would turn red. Do you remember how many times she’d throw the dice or cards or game pieces down in a fit if she was losing too badly? She’d stomp off in a pissy tantrum? We’d have to stop the game and go give her the usual good sportsmanship lecture? She’d finally come back out all sorry and feeling silly, but she’d do it the very next time she lost.”
“Yes, I remember. You liked to play games with us.”
“I did. It was an easy way to be with you. I worked so much, I wanted you to know me as more tha
n the guy who came home late.”
“We did. Maybe that was your mistake.”
“I made so many I can’t count. But being the best father I could while I was with you? Never. It was perhaps my only redeeming area of my life.”
“A life that wasn’t enough for you.”
“A life I’d kill to have back. Years and years I’ve longed for it all back…” Micah straightened up. “What made you come here? I truly thought I’d never see either of you again.”
“What made you leave?”
His facial expressions froze as his entire body sagged inches inside itself. “Yes, my entire life is defined by that mistake, isn’t it?”
“It was a pretty big mistake,” she answered after tilting her head as if to ask him how he could not know that.
“What can I say? What can I do? It was ten years ago. I don’t know how to begin—”
“I always thought an apology might be nice.”
Tristan had to lower his head and pretend to cough to hide his surprised scoff and the smile that crossed his lips. Her tone was so completely dry and almost casual. She also was pretty damn good at cutting off the man’s bullshit.
Micah started nodding in response. “I’m sorry, Kylie. I should never have stolen that money. I should have never put our family in such a situation… and I should have never left like I did.”
Kylie was still for a long moment. She licked her lips and then asked, “You know we had a lot of money. Why did you need to steal more?”
His laugh was bitter as he glanced around his current surroundings. “I didn’t know we did. I was greedy, ambitious, and selfish. I thought I was owed real wealth, like that of the clients I only made richer. They had so much—”
“I doubt they sold their family to get it however.”
Kylie had a way, Tristan marveled, at getting her point across with the gentlest, softest tone and with one sentence pointing out of the obvious. It was more effective than any amount of an angry display could produce. Her lack of getting emotional actually made her dry, clear-cut statements sounds that much more reasonable—and thereby pointing out how logical and correct they were.
Micah sighed and stared at his hands. “No. I didn’t start out to do that. It started out small and mushroomed like a nuclear cloud. I lost so much and I panicked and at work I had access to money, I literally robbed Peter to pay Paul. I thought I could keep juggling it until I could get everyone paid back, but then it all came crashing down. When it started I never considered I’d lose you guys.”
“You did it for our family?”
“I thought so.”
“Were you always greedy?”
He snorted. His head was down but he shook it in affirmation. “Yes. I was raised by a selfish bastard. Your mother didn’t let him around you girls much, so you don’t know what I came from. I thought I was so much better than him. Turns out, I had more of him in me than I ever realized.”
Tristan bit the inside of his cheek to keep his mouth from opening and spouting out the obvious argument to this: he didn’t have to do it. Micah didn’t need to blame his childhood or father for what he did. He did it. No one else. And from what Tristan could understand, there was no reason to. They had been an upper-middle class and relatively affluent family. And most of all Micah had had a good family. He’d risked them to become a criminal.
He didn’t have to do it… The statement struck Tristan hard. No, Micah didn’t have to choose to do the wrong and immoral decision… just as Tristan didn’t have to choose to. No matter the circumstances. There was right and wrong, and for a small, intense but important amount of time, he’d forgotten that and started to do the wrong thing about Kylie. He had only himself to blame for being in the position he was in with the girl he’d fallen for. It wasn’t his grandfather… it was him. Now he didn’t know what he was going to do to fix the wrong he’d started.
“Why did you leave like you did? How could you leave Mom a note? She would have stuck by you. She loved you. We all did—” Kyle’s voice broke and she stopped talking. Her breathing had escalated. Tristan squeezed her fingers. She glanced at him and took in a deep breath.
“I was scared,” Micah finally answered. “I wish there was a more profound answer for you. I wish I had more noble reasons. But… I was just mostly scared.”
“Of what?”
“Prison. That’s it. Why I ran. I was scared of going to prison. And it turned out I ended up there anyway and I had good reason to be scared. It was a bad experience. I can imagine the level of hatred you and your sister have for me. But if it’s any comfort I suffered in prison. It did its intended job of punishing me.”
Her fingers gripped Tristan’s harder, nearly turning pink and white at her fingertips. She had her eyes lowered to stare at her feet. “It is not a comfort.” Kylie’s tone was oddly quiet and controlled. Yes, Tristan wanted to say, because Kylie would never wish anyone pain, even the man before her now.
She licked her lips. “I think after you left, for me I was kind of in a prison myself. You were there and then you were gone and I’ve never learned to trust that any person won’t just disappear again. Even if I know better. But the thing is, I thought I knew better with you.”
Micah cleared his throat and shifted his butt around where he sat. His distress and discomfort obvious. “I’m sorry for that.”
“Did you think about us?”
“Yes.”
“But it didn’t make you want to come back to us?”
“I knew I couldn’t. I knew that Tracy would never let me.”
She bit her lip. She raised her gaze and pinned her father with it. “Did you love me?”
His mouth opened and then closed. His surprise at her question was evident. “I did. I do still. I always loved you. I loved your sister and I loved your mom. I just made mistakes and it got out of hand and there was no going back.”
“Did you say goodbye to me? Was there any significant moment before you left that was actually you saying goodbye to me?”
“Yes.” He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. “But you wouldn’t remember it. The night before I left I came into your room, after you were asleep, Ally too. I sat there for maybe an hour and watched you sleep. I kissed you and hugged but you only shuffled around in your sleep. I hoped someday you’d forgive me.”
She withdrew her hand from his. “And yet you could still leave?”
“Looking back, it was a stressful moment in my life. I was high on adrenaline. I had gotten found out but the cops hadn’t arrested me yet. They were going to, and the more days I lived with that knowledge the more and more scared I got. It was almost a panic. I had to get away from there. The house. Not to get away from you guys; no, that wasn’t it at all. It was a desperate, panicky need to get away from where I could get arrested. To escape. It wasn’t about getting away from you. It was never about you. It was this fear propelling me forward. I didn’t think about it. I mean, I just kind of did it. I didn’t begin to comprehend I was actually abandoning my family, or losing my kids for the rest of my life.”
Kylie was back to folding her hands together and staring at them. “That makes a little sense.”
“But it doesn’t excuse it,” Micah said it softly.
Kylie lifted her head after a pause. “Where is your wife? How did you meet her?”
He sighed. “She left. We met after I got out of prison. She was more into drugs than me. Anyway…”
“So in the end all it got you was to end up broke and all alone?”
He shut his eyes and drew in a breath and slowly shook his head in confirmation. There was no glee or satisfaction in Kylie’s voice. Minutes ticked by. Silence was awkward and cold once again. There was no satisfaction for Kylie in any of his answers. But she didn’t rise to her feet either, to leave.
“Can I ask? What are you up to? What happened to you? Your sister? How are you?”
She took in a breath. His question surprised her, and affected her. He could tel
l by the sudden biting of her lip and shaking of her head. Finally she said, “I’m a student. I go to a small university in Marsdale.”
Micah’s gaze flipped up to Kylie when she spoke with casual politeness and respect. “I remember it. Peterson.”
“Ally goes there too. She’ll graduate at the end of this year.”
“Impressive. Your mom… she married Donny, huh?”
“Yes. He was there for us when you left. It took Donny years to begin to recoup what you lost and stole from him, financially.”
“I’m aware. I asked him to be there for you guys. I never dreamed…”
“No one did. But she deserved to do whatever she needed to do. You weren’t there. You don’t have any idea how you broke her heart. It was years after you left, and I mean years, before she fully put it all behind her. Even after she was with Donny, she still loved you.”
He closed his eyes and nodded slowly as Kylie spoke. Tristan found it interesting she could get so angry on behalf of her mother but not herself. “I doubt you’ll believe me, but it broke my heart too.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I care. Maybe I want to believe you so I can believe that my entire life wasn’t really a lie. But how it ended, it’s hard to believe in anything. You and Mom seemed like the real thing. I know she was real, so it’s scary for me the kind of show you could put on as a loving husband and father.”
“It wasn’t a show.”