The Moon and More(81)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“You don’t understand!” he said, his voice rising. I’d never seen him upset, didn’t know this side of him, and I felt my skin flush, my own fight or flight. But I stayed put. After all that silence, for so long, I was ready for some noise. “Columbia was my chance to fix everything for you. To get you out of here, give you a life not like your mother’s, or grandmother’s. And I couldn’t do it.”

I swallowed, making myself take a breath. I felt eerily calm as I said, “I was never broken. I didn’t need you to fix me.”

He shook his head. “That’s the whole point, Emaline. You don’t know what you need.”

“What I needed,” I said, picking my words and tone carefully, “was for you to reply to my graduation invitation. To come watch me walk. To be proud of me no matter where I went to school.”

“I wanted the best for you,” he said, his voice clenched. “Only the best.”

“Well, too bad,” I said. “When you have a kid, you sign on for the whole package: good, bad, everything in between. You can’t just dip in and out, picking and choosing the parts you want and quitting when it’s not perfect.”

“I was going to get you out of this place,” he shot back.

“I’m still going!”

“Two hours away.”

“Yes, at first,” I said. “But from there, I can go anywhere. It’s supposed to be a start, not a finish.”

“You’re so young,” he groaned, slapping a hand onto his forehead. “You have no idea how one bad choice, one stupid mistake, can change everything for you. And once it’s done, believe me: it’s done. But the sick part is, you’ll still spend your whole life trying to fix it.”

One bad choice. One big mistake. One summer. One girl. One Emaline.

“You say it,” I said softly. “But you mean me. Right?”

He bit his lip, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Because right then, suddenly, irrevocably, I understood. All this time, from the day at Igor’s when he’d first brought up the subject of college, I’d thought this was about what he wanted for my life, my future. But it was never about me.

My mom had taught me a lot of things. But one of the big ones was that if you made a mistake, you owned up to it, learned from it. My father, I saw now, wasn’t able to do this; he couldn’t even get past trying to fix it. That was his problem, though. No matter what he thought, I wasn’t a problem or mistake. I was his daughter. And despite all of this, and him, I was going to be just fine.

For a moment, we just sat there, staring at each other. Like the next word would tip the balance, for good, forever. So it was a fortunate thing, maybe, that it was neither of us who said it.

“Hellooo!” A loud, cheerful voice came through the screen door. “Anybody home?”

It was Margo. My father held my gaze another moment, then turned. “We’re in here. Come on in.”

She did, the screen door squeaking loudly. “Have to get that greased before the next walk-through,” I heard her say as she approached, heels clacking. “Among a thousand other things. But first, I have great news. The interested buyers want to—”

Whether she stopped talking and walking because she saw me or hit the wall of tension was hard to say. Either way, just like that, she, too, was silent. For about two seconds.

“Emaline,” she said. “What are you doing here so early?”

I swallowed, trying to calm myself. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“Oh.” She looked more closely at my face, which I knew was flushed, then at my father. “Well, great. Then you’ll hear it here first: the buyers are ready to sign a letter of intention!”

She was so excited and proud about this, she reminded me of Theo. Clearly, it was a moment for pomp and celebration. Which, unfortunately, was a bit harder to come by when you’ve just walked into a war zone. Still, I tried. “That’s great, Margo.”

“Isn’t it?” She looked at my father. “At this rate, we can go ahead and get all the inspections started, then begin working up a contract and the other paperwork.”

“Perfect,” my father said, pushing himself to his feet. “Let’s do it. It’s time for us to get home.”

“Oh, of course,” Margo gushed, “and really, you won’t want to be living here during all of this anyway, if you can help it. Now, I just realized I left my folder in the car—of course!—but let me just grab it, and we’ll go over some preliminary details.”

“Fine,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

And with that, he walked away. Down the hall, out of sight, gone once more. This time, though, unlike so many others, I didn’t feel confused or wrong or angry. Just sad and disappointed. Like I was finally catching up to some Big Event of my own I’d been chasing, only to find it was over and done long ago.

I got to my feet and walked to the door. Margo followed me. “Are you okay? You seem—”

“I’m fine,” I said, starting down the front walk.

“Were you arguing with him?”

“I have to go, Margo.”

“Hey.” She reached out and touched my shoulder. “Look at me.”

I turned to face her. “Please. I’m really late for work, okay?”

“What happened, Emaline?”

“Nothing.”

She cocked her head to the side, clearly doubting this, as I got into my car. But the thing was, it was the truth. Nothing. It had been what always happened when it came to my father, save for a few months where I mistook his ego for something else. That was the problem, though. When you’ve never gotten love from someone, you don’t know what it might look like if it ever does appear. You look for it in everything: any bright light overhead could be a star.

All the way back to Colby, all I could think was that I’d lost something I never really had. And yet, the sadness in finally letting it go was as real as the tears filling and blurring my eyes. Worse, I had no idea where to go, or anyone who could understand. Not Theo, with whom this was already a loaded issue, or even Morris and Daisy, who had heard enough about my father to last us all the rest of our lifetimes.

If the light outside the realty office hadn’t turned red, I was sure I would have driven right past and on, over the bridge, maybe even farther. But when it slipped to yellow, I eased on the brakes, wiping at my eyes. I’d only sat there a second when I looked over to the parking lot and saw my mother.