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Twelve.
The car suffocated with dense silence as Jack Perry drove through the rather noisy traffic in Manhattan. As the car stopped behind a cab picking up three passengers, he stole an anxious glance towards his only daughter, who was leaning heavily towards the door, her eyes directed out to the tall towers outside that seemed to interest her more. He thought she would have at least been in a better mood than this. After all, he had just taken her out to eat before their travel to LaGuardia Airport for her flight back to California.
However, she seemed to have grown more distant, and it unsettled him.
"Are you sure you don't want to stay for the wedding?" he asked for what seemed like the twentieth time.
"Yes, I'm sure that no, I don't want to stay."
Jack eased his foot back into the gas as the cab finally pulled off. He sighed. "Kerry, you know you don't have to go," he said. "It would mean so much to your stepmother and I to have you there."
Kerry refused to look at him. "Dad, I agreed to come here because you said you wanted to see me, and Mom asked me to give you a chance," she said. "I did this for her. Now it's time I go back."
Jack said nothing. Then, remorsefully he admitted, "I know you're mad at me because of the divorce—"
"Well, that's not going to change anything anymore," Kerry muttered factually.
"I know you believe that I don't care about you, but I do," Jack insisted desperately. "You're my kid. I love you."
Kerry finally looked at him. "I know that, Dad," she said.
"Then why aren't you happy for me?"
"Because I can't."
Jack continued driving, while Kerry resumed her watch of the world outside. "I wish you'd tell me what's gone wrong," he said, hoping to prompt his daughter to speak the reason for her silence.
Kerry understood this but rejected any thoughts of compliance. She could openly tell him, she knew, she really could—but she didn't need to, and she didn't want to. Telling him would mean allowing him back into her life, and that was too much of a leverage to give someone who did not even think twice of hurting her and her mother before by abandoning them. Who knows what he'd do with information like that?
Plus, she didn't want to bring the answer to his request back to mind anymore. She actually felt embarrassed just recalling those times, especially within those first three months after the funeral, when her mother would walk in on her crying on her bed because something reminded her of him. Her mother, knowing exactly what she needed, would sit with her and hold her in a warm embrace, which would be enough to get her talking about what it was that time that triggered what she later referred to as 'the waterworks.'
She loved Leo. She really did. There had yet to be a day when she didn't miss him. Every morning at school, just before the bell rang, he would walk by her locker and wink at her just to mess with her. It irritated her to no end, since she had made it clear that she didn't favor displays like that. She even threatened to poke him in the eye if he didn't stop, but his only response was his batting of his eyelashes at her the next day, a huge grin present on his face.
She wanted to be mad, but she had ended up laughing about it (which earned her many odd stares in homeroom during their pop quiz that morning).
He always texted her, too, every afternoon, even when she wouldn't text him back. His messages were never intrusive; she knew he respected the distance she required. But he made it clear time and again that he was a good friend to her first, above anything else, and he was someone who cared about her.
Then he had to tell her that, page twenty-three.
It was contradictory, her reaction. She would hate him so much for saying that, but it would always set her off into tears because she wanted him to not be gone anymore and just be there, winking and teasing and texting and talking until she was driven out of her mind.
"Your stepmom said this would happen. That you would go through something like this."
Kerry looked back at her father. "Something like what?"
"Just this. Being unhappy," Jack said as Central Park loomed slowly in the distance. "Your mom told me about that boy."
Kerry sat up defensively. "'That boy' has a name," she said hostilely.
"Right. Sorry," Jack said. "What was it?"
Kerry stared at him. "Why? So Sherry can psychoanalyze me again?" she asked.
"Honey, she doesn't do that."
"Oh, really."
"She just wants to help you," Jack reasoned. "Look. She knows about your boyfriend dying, too, and she's really made me see how hard this is for you. You loved him, and losing him stings. She said this is to be expected, for you to project all your frustrations and anger on us because seeing us together, happy, reminds you of the relationship you could have had with him."
Kerry's features wrinkled in anger. "Where in the world did she get that from?" she asked.
"Your stepmother is a smart woman, and she knows these things," Jack answered with a smile. "She's one of the best child psychiatrists here in New York."
"I doubt that."
"But you know this is true," Jack insisted. "You're just in denial right now."
"Well, thank the geniuses on the bar who certified Sherry 'Husband-Stealing' Krauss for that faulty assessment!" Kerry said. She glared at him. "And you wonder why I don't want to stay with you."
"Now Kerry…"
"No. I'm really sorry that everything's ended up this way, for Mom, for me, for you. But I'm not gonna apologize for the things I've said, especially since she's not sorry for the things she's caused," Kerry said. "You cheated on Mom, Dad, with this woman. A woman who believes on stepping on other people to get what she wants, because she said that's what living means. Who believes everyone must be like her. But I'm not. I know you think I'm a messed up kid because I'm not polite or up to normal standards, and I'm not. I'm mean and impatient. But I'm not going to wreck a family just to get what I want." She reached down for her near empty backpack and placed it on her lap. "If you feel I've gone too far, it's okay. I can just catch a cab to the airport. Aunt Terry gave me some pocket money, and I think it should be enough."
Jack gently placed a hand on her shoulder as she moved to unbuckle her seatbelt. As they came to a stop, he turned to his daughter with an apologetic glance. "No, that's okay. I'll drop you off," he said.
Kerry frowned mildly at him as she sought for any hesitance in his action. She leaned back when she saw he was sincere.
"I'm sorry. I was the one who went too far," Jack said. "I didn't mean to hurt you, princess. I just…I guess I was trying to make a messed up situation better even when it can't happen."
Her father's acknowledgement of the reality as she saw it broke one of the barricades she reserved for him, and it moved Kerry to stay. She plopped her backpack down again, and then looked out the window. She watched as they drove past Central Park, as they drove through a stream of colors and life and people flowing steadily underneath the afternoon sun.
Jack smiled. "I think I remember his name now," he said.
"Whose name?" Kerry muttered as she noticed a Siberian husky sitting patiently by the sidewalk, his owner placing a leash on his collar. She could only see the owner's hands due to her view of him being blocked by a faint pink Malibu parked at a meter.
"Your guy," Jack said, slowly pulling into another stop. "Wasn't his name Leo?"
"Yeah," Kerry said, her eyes still on the dog.
The dog's owner stood up, his features fully coming into view. He looked around him, and then smiled at his pet.
Kerry's heart skipped when she recognized him. "Leo?" she spoke as she watched him walk away, absolute with her entire being, despite the minor changes in his features, that it was him.
"Yeah, that's it! Leo," Jack said, oblivious of his daughter's confused expression. "Now I can't remember. Was it Leo Davenport or Leo Dooley?"
Kerry, determined not to lose sight of him, unlocked the car then jumped out into the heavy traffic.
"Kerry!"
Kerry quickly charged forward, ignoring the horns blaring and the profanities being slung her way by enraged drivers. She dodged cars and pushed through people as the crowd thickened, he ebbing in and out of her sight. "Leo!" she yelled, catching many passersby by surprise. "Leo, wait!"
However, she soon lost him as more people merged into that crowd. She stopped, left feeling empty and disoriented.
Jack, who jumped out of the car reluctantly, rushed up to her. "Princess. What happened?" he asked, lightly panting.
Kerry turned to face him, her eyes wide and searching. "I saw him, Dad," she said, looking back into the sea of people for any sight of him.
"Saw who?"
"Leo," she said softly. She looked up at him. "I saw him, Dad. It was him. It was really him."
Jack stared at his daughter, and her confused expression wrought his heart painfully. He embraced her tightly, coming to face with the heavy blame that sat on his shoulders.
Kerry, on the other hand, came up at dead ends trying to make sense of why she would see the person she had lost and had longed for now alive, walking the streets thousands of miles away from home in a strange city.
to be continued.