“Sleep earlier.”
“Yes.”
He pays the bill. He puts the card down without looking at the total the way men do who stopped looking at totals a decade ago. He stands. He puts on his jacket. He waits for me to stand.
I stand.
Outside the restaurant, the wind off the harbor gets inside my collar and my eyes water and for a second I think I'm going to cry, right here, on the street, at half past two on a Monday afternoon, in front of my father. I don't. I blink it back. I've been blinking things back since I was six.
“I'll see you later,” Paul says.
“Later.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. Two seconds. Then he's walking the other direction down the block to where his car is parked and I'm walking to the bus stop because my car is still at the rink, and I don't trust my hands on a wheel right now.
On the bus I look at my phone.
There's a text from Maddox.
you at lunch?
I type,just left.
Three dots. Then,how was daddy?
I laugh into my scarf. The woman across from me looks over and I turn my face to the window.
fine
Three dots.you hard in there thinking about me?
I am, suddenly. Just that sentence on a screen and I am. I shift in my seat and pull my jacket across my lap.
yes
The three dots sit there. They sit a long time. Long enough that I start to think he's not going to answer. Then:I’ll tell you what you're going to do when you get home.
I'm going to do what he tells me to do.
That's what I figure out, on the bus, between that text and the next stop. I'm going to walk into my father's house and up the carpeted stairs and into the bedroom Paul picked for me and I'm going to close the door and I'm going to do whatever Maddox texts.
It's not even a decision. It's the shape my body is already taking.
I get home. Paul's car is in the drive. He must have come straight here after lunch. The kitchen light is on. I hear him on the phone in the study, low voice, closed door. I don't go in. I don't announce myself. I take the stairs two at a time, shut my door behind me, lean against it for a second and try to get my breathing back down to a speed that won't give me away.
I lock it.
This is only the second time I’ve ever locked the door. In this house. In any house. Paul doesn't believe in locks between family.
I lock it anyway. Again. For Maddox.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
I text,home.
The reply is instant.
take your jeans off.
