It took all of five minutes of waiting and Parker not calling before disappointment washed over me with all the fury of a rogue wave. But those minutes seemed like a lifetime. The thought of waiting another lifetime or, even worse, a bunch of lifetimes before I heard his voice again was too horrible to think about. Thoughts of What if I’ve ruined everything? and What if he never wants to see me again? circled around my head, forming an angry whirlpool attempting to suck every good wish I had into a dark abyss.
I left my room and found Daddy on the couch right where I needed him to be so I could snuggle into him like I had as a child when I had bad dreams. I laid my head against his shoulder and curled my legs against his side.
“What’s got you so scared?” he asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.
“I don’t know,” I said into his chest. “Being alone, I guess.”
“You’re not alone.” He patted my arm, but there was little comfort in it. I could hear the worry in his own voice. “I’m right here.”
“I know, Daddy.” I wrapped my arm around his waist and squeezed, determined to keep him there forever. But forever was a long time. An impossibly long time. Someday I wouldn’t have him to comfort or protect me anymore.
I clung tighter and inched closer to him, squeezing my eyes shut to force that most terrible idea of all out of my head. Everything was changing too fast. Caroline was having a baby and living farther away from me than she had our entire lives. We’d gone from talking a couple times a day to barely once a week. Taylor was getting married in five days, and I talked to her only slightly more than I talked to my sister. Parker was leaving. Hailey hated my guts. Jami and Blake . . . well, I didn’t really want to see them anyway. (I could be annoyed with Blake without actually being jealous of Jami.)
Even Nancy and Martha were mad at me.
I literally had no one but my dad.
I let out a deep sigh, and a tear escaped with it, sliding across my nose and down the tip of it until it dropped onto Daddy’s shirt. I stared at the tiny water spot, imagining how big it would grow if any of the other tears beating on my chest made it out. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
I uncurled my legs and sat up, wiping my cheek.
“It’s just you and me, kid.” Daddy had said that to me a million times since Caroline had moved out. He didn’t know how true it was.
I rested my neck against the arm he had spread across the couch and stretched my legs out on the coffee table. “Yep,” I said, crossed my arms, and stared at the ceiling. Tomorrow I would reach out to Hailey and try to repair a breach I had no idea how to repair. I’d finish the last details of Taylor’s wedding plans, and I’d wait and hope for Parker to call. Until then, I’d watch old movies with my dad.
Which is exactly what I did. But first thing in the morning, I texted Hailey and asked if we could talk. I probably should have done it sooner, but I justified my wait by telling myself she needed time to cool down. In reality, I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t think she really had a right to be mad at me because Parker wasn’t interested in her. Unless she thought he and I were interested in each other. I’d give her credit for figuring out how I felt about Parker, but if I wasn’t even sure how he felt about me, how could she be?
Putting that question aside, there were a million other things I’d done that she did have a right to be mad about. Trying to control her life, pushing her to do something she didn’t really care about instead of pursuing something she loved, treating her like a project. That last one was the biggest and worst. That one she should be mad about.
I gave her an hour, but when she didn’t respond, I tried calling. I shouldn’t have been surprised when she didn’t answer, but I was. I also should have left a message. Instead I gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed she might be in class or some other important place. So I gave her two hours before I tried again.
Two hours of torture. The shop was slow, and I hadn’t taken any orders for bridal flowers because I’d blocked out five days for Taylor’s wedding. Before everything with Hailey, I’d debated whether to leave her in charge so the shop wouldn’t lose money while I was gone, but I’d decided no. Bullet dodged there. But after months of having Hailey and Xander around when it was slow, the silence was unbearable. So was waiting for Parker to return my call while I counted down the hours I’d given myself before trying Hailey again.
When my self-imposed timeline finally came to an end, I dialed Hailey’s number. Still no answer, but this time I left a message.
“Hey,” I stammered. I’d meant for it to come out casual and totally normal, but my nervousness and guilt escaped. “I’m really sorry.” But for what? “I don’t know what upset you yesterday, but I’ve done a lot of things before then that you should be upset about. Maybe that’s been building and it all came out at once.” I was blabbering and had no idea what path to take to get to the point I needed to make. “Anyway, call me, please.”
I hung up then decided to send a Snap. She was more likely to open that anyway. I took a picture of the spot where Xander’s playpen used to be and captioned it Miss you guys.
Then the waiting game began again. I’m really not good at games. Especially the waiting ones. Every time I looked at the time, sure at least an hour had passed, it turned out to only be fifteen minutes. Hailey didn’t open my Snap, Parker didn’t return my call, Taylor answered my How’s it goin’? text with a thumbs-up emoji that told me she was too busy to talk, and no customers came in. I couldn’t even call Caroline because I knew she was at work.
The whole world was trying to avoid me.
I finally decided to close up shop and go surfing. Even if the waves were mush, they couldn’t disappoint me anymore than my friends had. They especially couldn’t disappoint me anymore than I’d disappointed myself.
Turned out, they weren’t disappointing at all, and by the time I’d caught a few good sets, my spirits were lifted. That is until I got out of the water and checked my phone. Caroline had texted that she needed to talk. I was in such a better mood I didn’t anticipate what she had to tell me would be bad news.
“I can’t come down to stay with Daddy while you’re in Hawaii,” she wailed.
“What? Why?” I wailed and dropped the towel I’d been using to dry my hair.
“I’ve had some spotting,” she said, and suddenly I understood why she was crying. “The doctor thinks everything will be okay. The heartbeat is still strong. But he’s put me on bed rest for at least a week.”
I would have cried for myself if she’d been canceling on me for any other reason, but this one was too big. “Of course you can’t come. I wish I could come to you.”
“But we’d still have the same problem, wouldn’t we? What to do with Daddy?” She took a long, ragged breath. The thing that made her such a great sister is that, of course she wasn’t just upset about the baby; she was upset about not being able to take care of our dad so I could go to Taylor’s wedding.
“It’s okay.” Being four hundred miles away from her had never felt so far. “You worry about keeping our baby safe.”
She took another jagged breath that ended in a whimper.
“I don’t mean worry. I mean everything will be okay.” I grabbed my board and my towel and headed for the stairs, cradling the phone with my shoulder. “You just take care of you and the baby. I’ll figure out something to do with Daddy.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Go lie down. This is the perfect excuse to binge on Netflix.”
We said goodbye, and I made my way up the street. I couldn’t help but check out back when I got home. I wished Parker were there to help me talk Daddy into going to Hawaii with me. If anyone could do it, it would be him. Even then the chances would be slim.
I peeled off my wetsuit and hung it across the fence before going inside and calling for Daddy.
“Out here, Eliza,” he called back. Of course he was sitting on the deck; the sun was setting. Where else would he be?
“I’ll be out in a sec,” I said and went to my room to put sweatpants and a hoodie over my damp bikini. I’d shower later, but right then I had to try and convince my dad to get on a plane and fly over the ocean. I could barely get him in a car anymore, so I had a next-to-impossible task ahead of me. I took my time sliding into my warm clothes, hoping for some inspiration about how to fix all of Daddy’s little quirks that kept him from living life.
Caroline and I never pushed him to get help for his quirks because they weren’t a huge inconvenience. Neither of us minded taking care of him, and neither of us felt much of a desire to go far. That is until Caroline and Preston fell in love, and Daddy’s care fell entirely on me. Even then I didn’t mind. I loved living with him. But in a matter of hours it had become a huge problem. I couldn’t miss Taylor’s wedding.
With warm clothes on, I took a deep breath and prepared myself for battle. That David kid had beat a giant with only a slingshot, so maybe I had a chance too. That is, if you believed in those Bible stories. I wasn’t a church-going girl, and I’d only gone to Vacation Bible School because Taylor had, but at that moment I chose to be a believer.
I carried a blanket to the patio in case Daddy needed an extra one and sat down next to him. He had the fire going, but it was still chilly. I held the blanket open to spread over both of us, but he shook his head so I wrapped it all the way around myself.
“Did you talk to Caroline?” I asked.
He stared at the fire and nodded. The flames outlined the worry etched on his face.
“She and the baby will be okay.” I snaked my hand out of the blanket and put it over his clenched fist. “The heartbeat is still strong. It doesn’t sound like this is too serious; she just has to be careful.”
“I should be there with her.” He unclenched his fist then clenched it again, clutching his pant leg with it. “Your mom would want me to be. But the thought of getting in the car or, even worse, an airplane . . .” He closed his eyes and shook his head while his chest vibrated unevenly with each shaky breath he took. “I can’t do it.” He opened his eyes and looked at me. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing.” I had never seen him cry. He’d never been a super manly man who wouldn’t let himself—he just didn’t cry. So it scared me to see tears about to fall from his watery eyes. “Nothing is wrong with you. You don’t like to travel. Lots of people don’t—”
“I hardly leave this house,” he interrupted. “I can’t even make myself do it to go take care of my daughter. And Caroline says you’re going to miss Taylor’s wedding. All because I'm a doddering old man. What kind of father am I?”
“A perfect one, in every way.” I let go of his hand and threw my arms around him. “I don’t even know what ‘doddering’ means, but I’m sure you’re not that.” Unless doddering meant afraid to fly. Even if I’d had the courage to ask him then, I knew he wasn’t getting on any planes.
But another idea had come to me. I let go of him and rested my head on his shoulder. “Listen, Daddy. What if I had someone come stay here with you so you wouldn’t be alone, and I went and visited Caroline before I flew to Taylor’s wedding? Would you feel better knowing I was with her?”
He pulled a tissue from his jacket pocket and wiped his nose while he thought about it. “I would, but I don’t need anyone to stay with me. I’m not that old. I can take care of myself for a few days while you’re gone.”
“Of course you don’t need anybody, but I would worry too much about you if you didn’t have some company.” I took his hand in mine and held it tight. “I couldn’t leave for an entire week without knowing there was someone here to get your breakfast or bring you an extra blanket when you sit out here at night. Especially since Parker won’t be around.”
The muscles in his neck tightened as he worked his jaw back and forth chewing on the problem. “Who would you get?”
That was a good question. “Nancy?”
“She couldn’t leave Martha, and they’ve got that wedding to plan for.”
“They could both come.”
“A week with Nancy would drive me from marginally crazy to full-blown asylum patient.”
I giggled. At least he could laugh at his mental . . . at his quirks. “Okay, so no Nancy.” That didn’t leave a lot of other possibilities. Maybe Elton and Erica, but I shot that idea down before my brain could do anything more than toy with it. The last thing I wanted was Erica going through my things looking for more ways to judge me.
That left one person. One person who happened to not be speaking to me at the moment.
“What about my friend Hailey?” It felt good to call her my friend. At least, I hoped I could still call her that. “The one with the baby?”
“I know who Hailey is.” His shoulders relaxed. “Would she bring the baby?”
“She’d have to.” I hadn’t thought about that potential deal-breaker.
An eternity passed before he answered, and with each eon I became more convinced I was out of luck.
Until he said, “I could use some practice with babies before I have a grandchild of my own.”
I bolted up. “Really?”
“I like her. She doesn’t talk too much. And I like the baby.” Daddy’s voice didn’t exactly rise with excitement, but I could hear it in there. “She might like a vacation at the beach.”
“She’d love it!” I was so excited I actually clapped until I remembered the only hurdle standing in the way of my plan: Hailey hated me at the moment.
But that could be overcome because I needed her. I needed her. She was my friend, and I needed her help.