I felt confused, then touched, then annoyed at myself for being so easily moved that I actually considered retorting, Hell, yeah, you should be worried about me. That’s what fathers are supposed to be. Perpetually, constantly worried about their offspring.
Instead I said, “No, Dad. You shouldn’t be.”
Feeling uneasy, I glanced around the restaurant, my eyes resting on a young couple with a toddler. The child was about two, sitting atop a plastic booster seat, eating a crepe, her face covered with chocolate. With blond ringlets and big blue eyes, she was exceptionally cute, and she must have just said something cute, too, because her parents stared at her adoringly, laughed, then held hands across the table. It was the sort of scene that rarely made me wistful, and it didn’t now either, although I felt a pang of emotion I couldn’t quite place.
My father followed my gaze, then looked back at me, as if trying to read my mind. “Do you know what you want?” he said. His question was as vague as they come, but his expression seemed purposeful.
“Yes. I’d like to beat Texas and then win a national championship,” I said.
“But what do you want in life? In your personal life? Do you want to get married? Have children? Do you think Ryan could be ‘the one’?”
It was such a peculiar line of questioning coming from my father, who had never seemed particularly perceptive or empathetic. In fact, I’d always been able to absolve him over the years based on my belief that he simply wasn’t capable of anything more. So, in a convoluted sense, his compassion at this moment was backfiring, making me feel worse.
“Did Astrid put you up to this?” I asked, thinking that grown men who have been married three times typically don’t think in terms of “the one.”
“I beg your pardon,” my dad said, looking vaguely insulted. “Give me a little credit.”
I smiled to lessen the charge, then said, “Okay. What do I want in life?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know … I guess I want what everyone wants … To be happy.”
I thought I was artfully dodging the question, but my father didn’t let me off the hook. “And does Ryan make you happy?”
“Happy enough,” I said, before I could think better of it.
My dad lifted his mug, pausing halfway between his mouth and the table, and said, “Happy enough? That’s a dangerous proposition, Shea.”
I looked into his steel-gray eyes, feeling a wave of resentment building in my chest. I wanted to say, Who are we kidding here? Let’s stick to small talk, Dad. This is way too little, too late. Instead, I shifted gears in a radically different direction, thinking, You want candor? You want a heart-to-heart? I’ll give it to you. I’ll tell you who I really love.
My head told me it was a bad idea and that my father hadn’t even remotely earned the role of confidant. But something inside me just didn’t care. Maybe it was the burning desire to unload my secret. Maybe on some level I wanted to shock him. And maybe I wanted him to feel genuine worry for me. Concern that, due to his absence and the vast paternal void in my life, I was making bad choices, pursuing a wildly inappropriate older man. I didn’t believe this, of course, but part of me wanted my father to wonder.
“The truth is, Dad,” I said, now unable to stop myself. “I really like Ryan … But I think I might be in love with someone else.”
No matter how much I had felt this coming on, it still felt strange and startling to say it out loud.
My dad put his mug down, still gripping the handle, and said, “Your ex? What was his name?”
“Miller,” I said. “And no. I never loved Miller.”
My dad didn’t ask who, likely because he assumed he wouldn’t know him anyway, but I opened my mouth, and could feel the words tumbling out of me, almost uncontrollably. “I think I’m in love with Coach Carr,” I announced, my voice low but steady.
My dad stared across the table at me, clearly in shock, while I tried to overcome my own feeling of vertigo. It was as if I was standing on the edge of a cliff without a guardrail. Or, perhaps more accurately, already in midair, falling. And just like it wouldn’t be possible to stop a fall halfway to the ground, I knew it wasn’t possible to undo my confession, though it crossed my mind to try, pass the whole thing off as a joke.
“Coach Carr? What?” my dad said, flustered. Floored.
I nodded.
“Are you … serious?” he asked, his mouth falling open like a cartoon of a man surprised.
“Dead serious,” I said, now riding a cathartic wave of relief.
“But what about … Ryan?” my dad asked, seemingly confounded.