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I’m not the one who has to be forgiven.
“Tell me what happened,” my dad says.
“With the drugs?”
“The whole thing. ”
So I try.
I try in a way that I didn’t try the other day because I was too angry.
I try even though I feel like there’s no time for this and I wish I were with West right now, and I’m not sure how much of what I tell my dad can even reach him through the filter of his pain and disappointment.
I try because I know him, and I know that he’s fair, and I know that he loves me.
I start at the beginning. I work through to this moment, this kitchen. I tell him everything I think he really needs to know. What Nate did to me. What West has given me. Everything that’s happened, everything that’s pertinent, and more.
I use the word love. I tell him I love West. Because that, too, is pertinent.
And because, now that I’ve said it to West, I could say it to anyone.
I love West. I love him, I love him, I love him.
When I’m done, my father walks out of the room, but I don’t go after him. I take his coffee cup to the sink and rinse it out. I take the beans from the freezer and grind them and make another pot, and I collect some dishes from the countertop and the table to load the dishwasher.
I give him some time.
I think, if I were him, I would need time.
I’m his youngest daughter, his girl who lost her mother earliest, when I was still too little to remember her. He was the one who rocked me to sleep against his chest when I had bad dreams. He was the one who came to every awards ceremony, every debate tournament, every graduation.
He has a picture of me in his chambers with a gap-toothed smile, my hair in pigtails.
Author: Robin York
I think maybe when your last baby, your motherless daughter with her hair in pigtails, grows up and leaves, you console yourself with the knowledge that she’s smart, and she’ll be safe, and she knows how to make good choices.
It must be so difficult for him now, to deal with the fallout of the choices I’ve made.
I’m not a white dress. My future is not a thing I can dirty, tear holes in, or ruin. Not in any way that’s real. But for him, I guess that dress … it’s a dress that he laundered, a hope that he cherished, and he’s got to find a way to adjust to what I’ve done to it.
His daughter is naked on the Internet.
His baby girl is in love with a drug dealer.
I give him time.
It only takes him ten minutes to come back to the kitchen.
He accepts the cup of coffee I offer him. He stares down into the black brew. He meets my eyes and says, “I’ll make a few calls. ”
“Thank you. ”
He sighs.
He puts the coffee mug down.
“Don’t thank me yet. There’s probably not a lot I can do. And I have to tell you, Caroline, I’m not certain I’d do even this much if this boy—”
