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Chris had to leave shortly thereafter. Happy Flour needed him for few hours, but then he had to go to Pasta Pizzazz and close it down. He explained this to me as if I could fully understand restaurant schedules. And maybe if I had listened to me, I could have, but all I could do was focus on the exhaustion in his voice.
“Text me when you get home,” I said. “So I know you got back safe, and you’re not stuck on the side of the road somewhere trying to get a quick nap in.”
He acted like I was joking, but we both knew I wasn’t. We were also both pushing him out of the door and pretending that we weren’t. The latter wasn’t so concerning. After all, we were on the same page about it. He needed to go, and I needed him gone. Healthy couples still lead distinct, separate lives, right? This was a part of that.
But regardless of how I tried to rationalize it, the guilt lingered. I was sending him off so I could talk to Ellie, and while I didn’t love Ellie in the same way I did him, I loved her in a more inexplicable way. I loved her in a way that if–for some bizarre and fantastical reason–I found myself in a trolley problem sort of situation where I could only save one of them from certain death, I didn’t know which one I would save. Between them, I didn’t know who I prioritized, but I knew what was expected of me, especially if Chris loved me.
As I watched him leave, my stomach twisted into a knot. Whether it was from anxiety or guilt, I wasn’t sure. But I tried to shake it. I tried to not think about the ethical dilemma I had wandered into.
Avoiding the thought proved to be surprisingly easy, but the physical sensation lingered. The dead weight in my stomach kept me from eating dinner. I had a freezer full of ready meals and some leftovers in the fridge, but even with that effort spared, I knew my stomach wouldn’t cooperate. So instead of taking a plate of food into the dining room, I took my laptop. I twisted my leg underneath my body as I sat in the chair. I didn’t normally sit that way when Ellie was around; it didn’t seem proper and might have been concerning. But if we were just talking on the phone then it was fine. And that was what we agreed on: a phone call. Which was great for me. I loved her voice. I loved her accent. But I couldn’t pretend I wouldn’t miss her face and her smile. Or that I didn’t want to feel her hold me, feel the touch of her hand on my arm, which she always did with an intentional delicacy that made me feel valuable.
I couldn’t have those things, though. I could only have the phone call and the shame from wanting it so earnestly. That had to be enough, somehow.
For a moment I held my phone in both hands with the sort of pseudo-reverence boomers always claimed the kids had for their phones that made a mockery of religion and whatever else older generations thought was sacred, but it wasn’t about the phone itself. Right then, it was the closest thing I had to having Ellie with me. It was the one tether between us.
I slowly released the breath I was holding and looked at the time. I only had to wait a few more minutes, though the exact number was unknown. Ellie had said she would call me when she got off the bus, and we could start talking on the walk home. Which sounded like a good plan, and it felt good to think that she was so excited to talk to me that she wanted to do it on her walk home and not when she was actually home.
Ellie had also said she couldn’t wait to hear about the idea, and I believed her. Then that belief was twisted by my own anxiety and became a fear that I could not live up to her expectations. This fear felt more valid and more supported by the memory of other moments when I thought I was making a good point only for my words to come short. Those moments had been made bearable by Ellie slipping her hand under my elbow. But I wouldn’t have that comfort this time. I wouldn’t be able to read her face to try and figure out what she was thinking in the name of salvaging our conversation, not that I was good at doing so. It just made me feel less powerless.
Before I could continue descending into the cacophony of my mind, the phone in my hand lit up. Ellie’s name flashed on the caller ID, and I immediately settled. She was there, by some standards, and even her distant presence could pull me out of the spiral that threatened to swallow me up.
“Hello,” she immediately said when I picked up the call and our phones connected.
‘Hello’ is a nothing word. It breaks the ice in a conversation and little more. It is a placeholder. It is nothing. But in that moment, it was my everything.
“Hey. How’s work?” I asked.
She chuckled darkly. “A lot worse with you gone. The new job is good. Besides the reports, but you know, they are blaming Aidan, saying he must have deleted the files as revenge.”
“Well, as long as it doesn’t set you back too much,” I replied.
I could kill him, I thought. (For legal reasons, this is clearly a joke.)
Ellie sighed. “I thought it was, but my new manager is surprisingly chill. It’s a nice change of pace.”
“I’m glad,” I responded, and I was.
As she walked, I could hear Ellie get slightly winded from the humidity and general misery of the Chicago air. I was close enough to the city to have the same sort of weather-related plights, so it felt like something I shouldn’t mention, even if it would have counted as small talk. But as a result, the conversation lulled.
“You okay?” I hurriedly asked.
But I really wanted to ask if we were okay, if she didn’t hold it against me that I left Chicago so abruptly, but that was a complicated question. I chose the simpler version. I chickened out.
“Yeah,” she said softly, almost breathlessly. “Yeah,” she repeated.
She mumbled some half-hearted apology against the phone, presumably to whomever she was walking past. The sidewalks in her neighborhood were relatively thin and not all that forgiving, which made passing a stranger on a walk somewhat complicated.
“So,” she started, eager to resuscitate the conversation. “You’ve got a project to do. Is it like a capstone?”
I could hear her smile. It was enough to make me smile too despite the pounding in my heart. “Yeah, well, they don’t call it a capstone. I’m sure they’d rather it be something... more impressive sounding. Something to really write the donors back home about, you know?”
She chuckled at my pseudo-joke. “Well that’s why they got you.”
That was not an accurate history, but I knew what she meant. I was just not comfortable responding to it.
“That’s why I wanted to talk,” I lied. “I think I have an idea, but it’s not entirely there, and considering how much I value your opinion, I’d love to pick your brain on it.”
“My brain is very available for picking,” she assured me.
Phase 1 was over, and it had been hard. The next phase would also be hard. Even if conversations with Ellie were rewarding, they were never easy for me. I just got too nervous and trapped in my own head while still desperately reaching for her.
“I was thinking about a book that explored my dad’s issues,” I said.
She paused as she searched her mind for all relevant details. “With all the kids and failed marriages, you mean?”
I winced. “Yes and no. I have ulterior motives.”
“Lynette?”
She surprised me with that. There was nothing surprising about her response, per say, but it was the ease with which Ellie could say my sister’s name that caught me off guard. But I was actually more jealous than surprised. It was a set of syllables that didn’t fit right in my mouth.
I pushed through that jealousy to reply, “Yeah, I want to have something more substantive to give her when she calls.”
“She hasn’t called yet?”
I shook my head before verbally repeating the thought. “No, she hasn’t. Ellie, I... I know this is a lot for her to deal with. And she doesn’t know I know.”
I didn’t finish the thought, but Ellie didn’t need me to. Without me saying it, she addressed my real issue, “You’re not rushing her by having feelings about this. You’re allowed to have your emotions.”
That didn’t sound right to me, and while I could have blamed Ellie’s accent. I knew it wasn’t that. It was a very different problem.
“I am uncomfortable with my feelings,” I confessed plainly and more bluntly than I had thought possible.
“Being numb is worse, though,” she argued.
“I am so close to disagreeing, but it’s you, so I’ll just say that being numb can be terrible, yes. But maybe it’s not the worst thing out there.”
She paused at first, considering all I did and did not say before she finally got to what she thought was the heart of the issue. “You’re allowed to argue with me, you know?”
“Except I don’t want to be 51/50’ed, and I don’t put that past you.”
She chuckled, which was neither a confirmation of her resolve and abilities nor a denial.
“But I was thinking, if I need to make something, and my first novel included an exploration of parental trauma and family issues, and I also need to figure out what I’m going to tell Lynette, and this fellowship apparently comes with some research funds.”
“Your creative writing fellowship comes with research funds?” she chirped.
It did sound unbelievable, but Ellie didn’t know Stella Maris like I did. I leaned into the phone before I spoke. “Ellie, this place has money to burn, and burning it does feel pretty unethical, but it is what it is.”
“Ahh,” she said as I faintly heard the jingle of keys in the background of the call.
“So you’re home then?” I dared. “Safe and all that.”
I did worry about Ellie, what with her living alone in a neighborhood that wasn’t bad but a bit chaotic what with the university frat houses just a few streets away. There was no way around it, though. Ellie’s grandmother had long since moved into assisted living. She liked it more than living with her granddaughter, something about being more independent now that none of her caregivers were emotionally attached. Truthfully, I didn’t understand her point, but I also didn’t need to.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m here.”
She set her keys down before calling out, “If there’s an ax murderer here, my friend would like you to make yourself known. She’s a writer. She can make you famous if you want.”
“Ellie,” I scolded.
She didn’t say anything at first, but when only silence greeted her, she shrugged the whole thing off. “No murderers. I’m fine.”
“Well, no ax murderers,” I clarified. “You left it open for people with different techniques.”
“That’s good enough for me!”
While it wasn’t good enough for me, I was not consulted. I stood up and went to the fridge for a can of sparkling water. I needed to feel something else besides Ellie’s voice in my ear. The slight burn of carbonation would work as well as anything.
“But Mia.”
I cringed. Lynette really had it better than me when it came to the sound of our names in Ellie’s voice.
“Aren’t you putting a bit of pressure on yourself?” she asked.
“Probably, but I would file that with the ax or non-ax murderer in your home. Not a great problem to have, sure, but I’ve made peace with it.”
Ellie did not appreciate the rehashing of her joke. “Mia, I’m serious. You can’t fix who he was. And Lynette wouldn’t be the first person to find out that their long-lost dad was a womanizer.”
“But it’s not that though. I mean, I know he wasn’t a great partner, but he was a good parent, remember?”
She muttered an apology for her comment. I knew she didn’t mean anything by it. If anything, Dad had set her up for failure by being the way he was with women, and I had set her up for failure by holding certain cards closer to my chest then was necessary. But considering my feelings for her and how confusing they were, it seemed like the lesser of all evils to keep things to myself.
As an example, Ellie didn’t need to know I was bisexual. But my dad did, and he handled it pretty well.
This is the conversation between he and I that I alluded to before, the one I said I could only type out once. Here is where it fits because at this point, I need to make you understand that he was–in fact–a better father than some get. Yes, when it came to the day to day, he chose to do the bare minimum. He knew my birth month, not my birthday. He knew my school and my current teacher’s surname but not where the classroom was or what her first name was. He would help me with my math and reading homework but anything close to a craft was off-limits. But above all–though he hadn’t picked up on my favorite color–he noticed something else.
One day, about a year before he died, while we were driving back from my karate class he leaned over and said to me, “Look, Kiddo, I’m going to say something to you, and it might not make a great deal of sense right now, but I need you to pay attention anyway.”
He tried not to be too dramatic about it, but at that point, he knew he was dying. To him, that meant racing through a lifetime of important conversations in the time he had left. There was just no way around it. He might have been on a slow march to the grave, but his gravestone had appeared in the distance. Its faint silhouette stood out against the otherwise flat horizon.
So I thought he was going to say something about that. I thought this was just the sort of philosophy dump that became a part of my father’s dying ritual, but it wasn’t.
Instead, he said, “I think there’s going to come a day when you realize you aren’t like the other kids. I think one day you’re going to realize that you’re thinking a certain way that the other kids don’t, and that maybe some adults don’t like. And you have my permission to tell them to ‘fuck off.’ But Mia, I want you to know that even though I’m not going to be at your wedding. I won’t care who you’re marrying. I want you to find someone who makes you feel safe and loved. When you suggest going out for milkshakes, they better try to one-up you. One milkshake? How about two, they better say. Or how we also get pizza or burgers or something else too. Anything else to make you happy.”
As he spoke, Dad got choked up. While I still didn’t understand what he was trying to say, I knew to pay attention to whatever could make the strongest man I had ever known cry.
“If you find someone like that,” he said, “someone whose instinct is to make you happy. And you decide to marry them. I want you to know I’m happy. I want you to know that I love them for it. And I want you to tell them that they made my dream come true, okay?”
Even though I didn’t fully understand what he was getting at, I agreed. I couldn’t help but agree.
That conversation happened when I was fourteen. I was eighteen when I realized I was bi, when I realized that my college roommate’s best friend was just a bit too pretty. As this fact about myself slowly came together, that conversation flashed in mind. And I cried. I needed that talk. I was grateful to have it. But above all, I needed him. I needed his assurances and his unconditional love, but he knew he wouldn’t be there to give me all of that. But he did his best to make do.
I didn’t know what possessed me to tell Ellie that story, but in the moment, I couldn’t resist. It all came spilling out of my mouth. And while I told it to her, I cried again, dabbing at my eyes with a napkin from Happy Flour because Chris always made sure I had napkins. In college, I once told him I always forgot to ask for napkins or to pick them up at the store. And even after so many years, he remembered.
Dad would have loved him for it. But he would have also loved Ellie.
“You should tell Lynette that story,” Ellie said.
And perhaps that went without saying. But at the same time, I wasn’t inclined to tell Lynette that story. It had been mine to hold and cherish, to comfort myself with when I missed Dad too much. Because what kind of Dad thinks to affirm their daughter’s sexuality long before she realizes that it’s going to be an issue? A good one. The kind of Dad that people grieve for decades. Just like I was.
“It can’t just be that, though,” I insisted.
“I mean, it can. You guys have to find some sort of balance or understanding. Maybe that’s where it is. In that story.”
I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see it. The gesture was mostly for me. The story wasn’t enough because there was something else to be said. There was some other detail that was relevant to our father’s story that Lynette deserved to know, but I wasn’t ready to tell her.
I didn’t want her to hate me. And if she knew how Dad died, she definitely would. After all, she would never get a chance to meet him. Entirely because of me.