Just a Number(95)

“This seat taken?” he asks.

I stammer unintelligibly for a minute before finally replying. “Uh, n-no.”

Another minute passes as he contemplates sitting down, and I silently beg and plead him to. Finally, he does, and I relax in my seat, my meal forgotten, my half-empty belly filled with butterflies.

“How was your lunch?” he asks, glancing down at my plate as he leans on the table, hands clasped in front of him.

“Good…” I pause, biting my lip nervously. “We really going to talk about the food, though?”

He chuckles, and I’m exulted to see his smile reach his eyes, making the outer corners crease. “No, I suppose not. Look, Amy—”

“Dad, I’m so sorry—”

We both speak at the same time, and then we stop, wanting the other to finish. When neither of us does, we laugh lightly, nervously. We’re more alike than I remembered. I can tell a little of the tension between us has lifted, but it’s still there, hovering precariously overhead and threatening to drop at any second if we don’t tread carefully.

Then Dad speaks. “No, Amy, let me talk.”

I swallow thickly and nod once, bracing myself for whatever is going to come next.

“Don’t think I didn’t hear everything you said today…I did.” He falls silent before continuing. “I was going to call you this afternoon.”

“You were?” His confession surprises me.

“And then you showed up. I thought I was ready to talk about everything, but when I saw you…I don’t know, I just froze. I didn’t mean to shut you out. You didn’t deserve that, regardless of the circumstances.”

One of the servers stops by the table and offers Dad a cup of coffee. He accepts and takes a sip before continuing. “I was an asshole. For leaving the way I did the other night, for today…for hitting Owen. For everything, really. I’m not proud of how I’ve acted.”

“Dad, I get it,” I tell him softly, “but you even noticed we were happier than you’d ever seen.”

He inhales sharply, swallowing the truth of my words. “I know what I said,” he replies.

“Do you?” I challenge. “Need I remind you how you were practically high-fiving Owen for moving on after Gretchen?”

“Before I knew he was moving on with my daughter!” he hisses under his breath, his mood going from mild-understanding to barely-contained rage in a half second. “What was I supposed to say, Amy? Congratu-fucking-lations? When’s the wedding?” He laughs humorlessly. “I don’t fucking think so.”

I stare at him, keeping quiet and calm until he controls himself. His eyes meet mine, and I can tell that he regrets blowing up like that. “Be that as it may, you were happy for him.” Tears sting my eyes, remembering how he accepted Owen’s little tryst, but had been against mine from the beginning. “And then there was me… You jumped to the conclusion that I was some stupid kid who wouldn’t recognize whether or not she was being used by a man. It hurt, Dad. Still does. I just wish you could trust us.”

“He lied to me—you both did,” he states, point-blank.

“Did we, though? I don’t recall you outright asking us if we were an item.” It’s a long shot, but you better believe I’m taking it.

“That’s a technicality,” Dad argues, eyes narrowing again. “You still should have told me.” I suddenly feel like a six-year-old being chastised by her father, and I look away, feeling unworthy of holding his gaze. “You withheld something from me, and that’s just…well, it’s not like you, Amy.”

My eyes burn with tears of shame, and I nod solemnly. “I know. But you understand why we did it, don’t you?”

His response is immediate and only somewhat expected. “I think I do, but that doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me this.”

“Would it have changed anything?” I ask, careful not to inject any defensive tones into my voice. “If we’d have told you as soon as it all started, would your reaction have been any better?”

“You don’t feel I was entitled to act the way I did upon finding out that you and Owen—a man you called Uncle Owen up until a few years ago—are…” He seems to struggle for the words, and then he rights himself, making his question much less crude than I imagine he’d been thinking. “Together?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him truthfully. “I was honestly a little stunned that you were so angry with him.” He eyes me curiously, but allows me to continue. “You’ve known him for so damn long, Dad. I guess I figured that, maybe once you found out it was Owen I was seeing, you’d realize there was no way he was taking advantage of me. Has he ever given you a reason to not trust him?” Something about what I’ve said makes him laugh, and I grow a little irritated. “What?”