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“Mummy noticed.”
“I’ll drop in for tea.” I chuck a shovel load of dirt on top of the tree’s roots.
“I overstepped with you a while back,” he says.
I stop with the shovel in the dirt pile, my heart thudding. It can’t take another rejection, especially not from my father.
“It’s fine, Dad.”
He touches my elbow, the gloves rough and warm. “I’m sorry, Lu. I...” He swallows. “You remind me so much of me. I’ve watched you struggle your whole life, trying to figure out how to fit in, and it’s just like me when I was your age. Now I just can’t muster up the energy to care but for you? I still feel the need to fix it.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say quietly.
“I threw my weight around and made everything worse for you. So I thought I could fix that, too, by getting you the interview with Dr. Lucas. But I made it worse.” He sighs. “What you don’t see, is how very loved you are. You have people, your people, here, in Lancaster. Or wherever you end up. Jesse is one of those people.”
“Daddy,” I say. My throat feels too tight, painfully so.
“I never should have made that call to Dr. Lucas. I’m so sorry, Lu. You didn’t deserve any more accusations of nepotism.”
“It’s fine,” I mumble. “They were technically correct.”
Dad turns me so we face each other fully. He puts his hands on my shoulders, leaning down so we’re eye to eye, like he used to do when he was coaching my softball team. “It’s been obvious to us that you’re not your happiest here. I want you to find the place where you belong.”
“I want that, too.” My voice cracks. “So much.”
“But wherever you end up, I want you to know how much of a blessing it’s been to have you back with us, Lu. Mom and I love you so much. We’re so proud of you. We don’t tell you that enough.”
How does heknow?
“What’s that, darling?” he asks, pulling me into a sweaty, snotty hug.
“How do you know?”
“Know what, dear?”
I squeeze him. He’s thinner than he was a year ago. It’s not obvious, there aren’t bones protruding from his body at all angles. It’s a lack of softness. His sweater is baggy, plus there’s the fact that he’s wearing a sweater at all when it’s almost July and I’m sweaty and flushed.
“It’s my job to know, darling.” He pats my back, the feeling as familiar as this farmhouse, the smell of the laundry hanging on the line, the sound of Mom’s musical cast recordings coming through the screen door. “It’s my job.”
I finish in the garden, shower, and eat a bag of popcorn for dinner. I watch a random reality TV show on my laptop. After a while, a few hours, I’m distracted enough that it doesn’t hurt so much. I’m more invested than I’ve ever been in rich people buying overpriced and oversize mansions. The alternative is to think about Jesse, about the emotional whiplash I just experienced, about the pained expression on his face. That pain was the worst part because it makes it easier to lie to myself. To believe that he didn’twantto end things.
A knock comes at my door in three short raps. I freeze on the bed, like whoever is on the other side won’t be able to see me as long as I stay still.
“Lu?” he says, and the sound of my name in his voicehurts.
He knocks again.
I sit up on the bed, pulling my T-shirt down farther over my thighs to cover my underwear.
“Lu, please?” Jesse calls, his voice muffled and muted through the door. “I’m sorry. I wanted... Can I explain?”
I stand, walk the few steps to the door, put my hand on the lock; it’s cold. I could open this door and let him say his piece. Maybe he didn’t mean it, maybe it was a mistake. But even if it was, even if he does love me.
He humiliated me.
He took the love that I offered and said a cold and resounding “no thank you.”
It’s not fair, I know, to lay all of the other humiliations at his feet. Brian’s humiliations, Nora’s, my parents’, even Audrey’s, especially my own. He wasn’t responsible for them, except he knew, he knows how very much I just want to belong.
