Blackbird

by SpookyMormonHellDream

Modern AU, E/C. Dr. Erik Riley had always been alone, with few exceptions - he'd expected to remain that way indefinitely. However, an administrative error forced a young medical student into his life, setting in motion a series of events that would change the both of them forever, if only he would allow himself to overcome his own troubled past.

50. Your Heart In Mine

Author's Note: Well y'all, I can't believe that this story is over, yet here we are! :'( It was an amazing process to write and revise, as well as my longest phic to date. I want to share my love, and say how much I've enjoyed hearing from you and your endless support and encouragement. Y'all are wonderful! Last, the title for this epilogue comes from lyrics from the song "You're Still You" by Josh Groban. Thank you all once again for reading Blackbird - please let me know what you think of its conclusion. Enjoy!

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Epilogue - Your Heart In Mine

Erik

In life, all good things come hard, but wisdom is the hardest to come by.
- Lucille Ball, ~1985

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

- "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" - Wallace Stevens, 1917

Even when I am not thinking of you I receive your influence and a tenderer nature stealing upon me. All my thoughts, my unhappiest days and nights have I find not at all cured me of my love of Beauty, but made it so intense that I am miserable that you are not with me: or rather breathe in that dull sort of patience that cannot be called Life. I never knew before, what such a love as you have made me feel, was; I did not believe in it; my Fancy was afraid of it, lest it should burn me.

But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, 'twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures...Do understand me, my love, in this. I have so much of you in my heart that I must turn Mentor when I see a chance of harm befalling you. I would never see anything but Pleasure in your eyes, Love on your lips, and Happiness in your steps. I would wish to see you among those amusements suitable to your inclinations and spirits; so that our loves might be a delight in the midst of Pleasures agreeable enough, rather than a resource from vexations and cares...

So let me speak of your Beauty, though to my own endangering; if you could be so cruel to me as to try elsewhere its Power. You say you are afraid I shall think you do not love me - in saying this you make me ache the more to be near you. I am at the diligent use of my faculties here, I do not pass a day without sprawling some blank verse or tagging some rhymes; and here I must confess, that...I love you the more in that I believe you have liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.

- "Selections from Letters to Fanny Brawne" - John Keats, 1819

Five Years Later, Schaumburg IL - Getting through every day even remotely intact since losing Christine has since felt rather like an uphill battle, more than anything else. It's felt like a lasting test of strength which - especially on the more difficult occasions - more often than not seems almost impossible to overcome.

That's the truth of the matter, though, the reality of this grief that can neither be changed, nor argued away. I'd known that much from the outset. And albeit grudgingly, I've also come to accept that fact over time - I've learned to live with it, regardless of how much it still hurts me to have to acknowledge. Because sometimes, and if I'm fortunate, that pain recedes enough to let me to feel a small and fragmented semblance of peace; the pain will sometimes fade far enough into the background of my thoughts to allow me to attempt to move forward once again, and in turn I can otherwise function as closely to normal as possible. The truth of losing the woman that I loved is always there inside of me - just waiting in the wings to attack at any moment - but still, I can function with its presence just the same, and that's what matters the most in the end. I can function as necessary, can live alongside my grief without it threatening me quite as insistently as it had the first years after Christine died. Now, Josie and I tread water, have to fight through the expected moments when we struggle, and we don't always do well, but we soldier on.

Yet it's the anniversary of Christine's death itself that always proves to be substantially worse than even the most difficult days; that, without fail, is a nightmare - for Josie, for myself, for every one of those old friends that knew Christine, those that had loved her so much during her life and ultimately had to say goodbye before anyone was ready. The anniversary is just one of several emotionally draining occasions that time hasn't lessened the sting of, and certainly not any more than the expanse of years have dulled my memories of the car accident that took my wife from me. If anything, the more time passes, the more apparent the loss becomes, and the more it hurts to consider. Because even the simple passage of time means we're reminded that more years separate us from her - more moments part us from the sound of her voice, from the feeling of her embrace, everything about her that only her presence could bring. Sometimes, as days like this, the memories alone just aren't enough. It's absolute hell, one way or another, but this...Honestly, I would just as soon prefer to escape into oblivion once and for all, doing so if only to obliterate the anniversary from my consciousness altogether - anything to forget.

But, unfortunately for my ability to maintain a healthy state of mind, I can't do either.

Rather, for the sake of getting the hell out of my house for a while, I'd forced myself to take on one of the mid-morning shifts at the emergency room that day. By coincidence, I didn't have any classes that I was scheduled to teach that fell on that specific date, but I knew long before the fact that I sorely needed to be distracted just the same, and thus I had decided that the process of working in one of the busiest departments in the hospital would serve as effective of a solution as I could find - even as I wasn't there often anymore. In recent months, I had been slowly integrating my work as a surgeon with the responsibilities becoming a full-time instructor over at the university, leading more of the first- and second-year courses there and leaving surgery behind altogether.

Initially, doing so part-time had really only been for Josephine's benefit; now that she'd gotten old enough to stay at home alone if I had to work late, I could have reasonably gone back to trauma surgery exclusively. But by then, I'd finally reached the point that I could admit to myself that it just wasn't what I wanted any longer. My decades-long career as a surgeon had been relatively successful, all things considered - but at the same time, I was starting to recognize the signs of burnout once again, and this time around, they were impossible to set aside. And anyway, far more pressing matters had recently compelled me to stay closer to home whenever possible, and I wasn't going to ignore the importance of that drive to do so; I knew instead that I could be content by working in a different capacity, and I'd directed my career to reflect that realization.

Dwelling on these more recent memories as I made to leave, I then heard the landline telephone ringing, and the sound had quickly brought me out of my thoughts in the next instant. It was only because Josie was already at school that I'd checked the caller ID at all, and sure enough her school's name and phone number flashed across the screen.

When I answered the phone, a woman spoke over the line as if she was reading from a script, her voice sounding almost annoyed when she said, "Yes, hello, may I speak to the parent or guardian of Josephine Riley?"

"Speaking," I responded quickly, now decidedly concerned by the unexpected call.

Because I would be lying if I didn't admit that I had become that much more protective over Josie during the time following her mother's death - and perhaps even more so than most fathers were of their daughters. There was no avoiding that, under our circumstances, nor did I actually want to crush the instinct, either. And although I gave her far more freedom than I'd ever necessarily wanted or intended to - mostly finding myself doing so after going through numerous arguments with my child, and then seeking out Nadir and Sahra's sound advisement - there was absolutely no way that I could keep myself from worrying about Josie entirely. Certainly not now. Nevermind that I was raising her alone, nevermind that she brought my already battered sense of patience to its absolute limit during more than one episode of defiance on her part, she would always be my daughter regardless of everything else. Overprotectiveness was second-nature.

So, on the few occasions that her school called after I'd already dropped her off for the day, my mind immediately came to the conclusion that the source of the call was a worst-case scenario. And as I always had in the past, now I'd fallen into the brink of panic once again. To be honest, it was only practice and therapy and years of medical training that even barely allowed me to be able to hide that panic when dealing with the school administration. Keeping that in mind as an anchor to rationality, I took a deep breath, and just focused on listening.

Ignorant of my concern and attempt to stay calm, the office administrator had continued to talk, "I'm calling to inform you that you need to come pick your child up from the main office."

"Is she alright?"

"She's been suspended."

I paused at that, now thoroughly confused, "What? Why?"

"You'll have to ask the principal when you get here."

Rolling my eyes at the kiss-off, I only said, "Right, fine. I'm on my way."

Destination altered now, as I left the house, I tried to determine what my daughter had done to get herself into enough trouble to get suspended - yet for all the limited information I'd attempted to piece together on my own, I still couldn't imagine what this was about.

Josephine - for everything she'd had to withstand through her life so far - was a rather complicated young woman. Complicated, sometimes even bordering on difficult, and this trip to pick her up from school was likely going to become one item on an ever-growing list of reasons I felt completely in over my head with her. In so many ways, she was too much like me, kept too close to mimicking my past behavior for comfort, and I worried over that almost constantly. The last thing that I wanted to happen was for her to make any of the same mistakes I'd made when I was her age, to go down the paths I'd taken that very nearly destroyed me. She wasn't quite to that point yet, but I was seeing the signs of her unraveling beginning to show themselves more every day; she'd taken after my bad habit of allowing herself to get overwhelmed by her emotions, by the things that were well beyond her control, and as I had so often in the past - as I had even recently, to be honest - she also tended to let those emotions rule her judgement in the worst ways. Many of the the friends and other parents I'd chosen to confide in had consistently reassured me that most of what she was experiencing was fairly typical, and I could believe in those reassurances to an extent. But there was a definite limit to how much of her behavior I would simply disregard as another part of growing up.

My daughter was a teenager, yes, but she was a victim of her circumstances as well; she was someone that had known a devastating loss far too early in her life, and she'd suffered from that loss more often than I think she was aware of. It didn't matter how many years passed - her mother was gone, and nothing could change that. And as an outlet, she began to pull back from me, from our home, and instead ran headlong toward all of the vices I once had. So much so that we'd needed to have more than one serious conversation about what was truly at stake for her now - about the reality at play that she was the daughter of an alcoholic, and regardless of how long I'd successfully been able to stay sober by then, the fact remained that what she had chosen to do with her grief was frighteningly similar to setting up a ticking time-bomb to go off inside of her. Whether or not she'd actually listened to those warnings, however, had yet to be determined, and waiting to see the effects scared me to death.

Yet all the while, there were also the times that she would appear incredibly well-adjusted, even to the point that I could bring myself to believe that she always was. For the most part, she behaved well at school, and she worked hard, and she didn't do anything that would be a cause for concern upon further consideration. I could count on one hand all of the times she'd been in serious trouble, academically or otherwise, since she was in fifth grade - since Christine died. The rest of the time, she excelled whenever she needed to, rarely gave anyone any problems. And for all of my negative traits that she developed over the years, she also held onto so much of Christine that it was almost painful for me to think about for very long. Josie's heart was just like her mother's in nearly every way - a saddening yet incredibly beautiful outcome of a game of chance - and there were times I thought that those aspects of her might be enough to keep her safe when I couldn't. She shared her mother's compassion, her sense of strength and her determination, and for all of that I was grateful, because I knew that she needed those traits now more than ever. But all of those details combined made it so frustratingly difficult just to read my own child, to determine whether or not I was helping her at all, or only hurting her in the process of attempting to protect her from the world and from herself.

Once I finished a short call over to the hospital in Chicago, to explain why I wouldn't be there any time soon for my shift after all, I finally arrived at the high school - thankfully able to find the admin building quickly enough. I took off my surgical mask then, albeit not entirely willingly, but I didn't want to bar communication if it could be avoided, either. I was distracted from that thought, though, as Josephine waved at me when I was shown into the principal's office. And although she made the gesture almost casually, she'd also kept the good sense to look abashed as she did so. Still, that expression alone made me suspicious, even as I was grateful that she seemed to be acknowledging whichever wrongdoing that had gotten her into this situation to begin with.

The principle, however, glared at me when I sat in the chair opposite her and beside my daughter, though the glare wasn't necessarily surprising to me then. That woman and I had gone through several rounds of conflict in the past, all of them generally having to do with her show of professionalism - or rather, a distinct lack thereof. Reyna Fowler was a deeply religious person, all to the point of actual zealism, and she tended to allow that perspective to bleed too much into her duties as an educator. I had friends that were parents of Josie's classmates who tended to handle more PTA issues than I ever did, but I'd heard one too many stories from them to stay entirely uninvolved for long, and it thus became an ongoing process for us all to attempt to keep our children taken care of in their own school, as well as backing up the district's handling of the issue. As it stood, several district officials all the way up to the superintendent were seeing to the official process of terminating this principal from their system for good, but as a result, she'd been made aware of the names of the faculty and parents behind it - myself obviously included among the ranks.

Suffice it to say, she fucking hated me.

But even though the feeling was certainly mutual, I still had to play nice here, if only for the sake of maintaining the upper-hand, ensuring that my daughter was treated fairly, regardless of what she'd done to earn the punishment. And so I schooled my features into neutrality, made all of the socially expected greetings, and asked, "Why has my daughter been suspended?"

Fowler responded bluntly, "Well, first, she was cited for a dress-code violation - "

" - A what?"

"A dress-code violation," she repeated, and I didn't miss the note of condescension in her voice, "She received a citation for it."

"I know what that is, but I'm not sure how that's possible, since there was nothing wrong with what she was wearing when I dropped her off this morning."

"It wasn't what she was wearing that was the problem," Fowler snapped, "I don't know what kind of father permits a young girl to get a tattoo, but I really have to say that it's shameful. It's completely immodest. And she blatantly broke the dress-code by allowing it to be visible."

A tattoo?

More than anything else in that instant, I wanted to question that accusation - the reason behind it - but I wasn't going to give Mrs. Fowler the satisfaction of realizing that I was ignorant to the fact that my daughter, apparently, had a tattoo. Josie, for her part, had been entirely silent up until that point, and it was only when the principal turned away from us to the stack of files on a desk behind her that I looked at my daughter directly.

What the fuck? I mouthed, but she immediately responded to that with a significant look of her own, one that begged me to just shut up and go along with this - and, incidentally, I didn't have the choice not to, if indeed I didn't want to make more of a scene in this office than the one already playing out. We really didn't have that option at the moment, plain and simple.

So when Fowler turned around again - now holding onto copied pages from the student handbook for that academic year - and before she could speak herself, I stubbornly maintained control over the perspective of the discussion by asking, "What do you mean, 'blatantly'?"

Pointing to the handbook page that apparently outlining the girls' dress-code, she nodded to a paragraph that I didn't try reading as she explained, "This says No visible tattoos, right here in plain English, but she let the one on her arm show. She didn't bother to cover it up."

"How was it even visible? She's wearing long sleeves," I protested.

"When she dressed out for PE - "

" - Hold on," I snapped loudly, forcing my mind to work quickly in order to keep up with the trajectory of this conversation - knowing that if I didn't, then Fowler would likely attempt to hand out a punishment that was disproportionate to the crime. My own temper was sparked by the revelation that Josie even had this tattoo, but that was between us only. I wanted to keep the principal far removed from our business, now arguing, "So y'all saw the tattoo on her arm when she was wearing a t-shirt, when she was moving around, and decided to suspend her?"

Fowler scoffed, though she clearly tried to make the expression subtly as she said, "She was cited for the tattoo, but she was suspended for arguing with her teacher, and then with me."

And then, Josie finally spoke up, "I'm sorry, but I wasn't going to put on a sweater to play volleyball, Mrs. Fowler. I would've ended up with heat-stroke."

Holding up my hand to settle her down, I then said to the principal, "How is it that we're already into the second quarter, and no one's taken issue with the tattoo before now?"

Grudgingly, or so it seemed, Fowler responded, "Their regular phys-ed teacher had to take a leave of absence. Apparently, she failed to cite your daughter before she left."

"Well, I have to disagree with the citation given today. And the suspension."

"She needs to learn to respect the faculty. And that she has a tattoo at all," she shook her head despairingly, "That's such a terrible thing for a young lady to have, and so unprofessional."

"Tattoos are unprofessional?" I challenged.

"Of course they are. She won't be hirable anywhere, and she'll never be able to go into a respectable field, and stay in that field."

"Ma'am, I have tattoos, a hell of a lot more than Jo does. And I've been working in a respectable field for over twenty years. Or did you forget that I'm a surgeon?"

"And an instructor at UIC's medical school," Josie chimed in pointedly.

"Thanks," I returned offhandedly for the vote of confidence, and then said to Fowler as I stood and bid Josie to follow, "We're done here, I don't have to justify anything to you. How long is the suspension?"

"The rest of this week."

"Fine. Then I'll take her home, and she'll serve the suspension. But know that we will be contesting this on her records. I'm not going to have this archaic, conservative bullshit hanging over her head."

When I swore, Fowler bristled, "Thank you, Mr. Riley - "

"That's Doctor Riley, if you'd be so kind as to remember that in the future," I corrected the deliberate slight from the doorway of her office, doing so loudly enough for everyone else in the surrounding rooms to hear. Because even though I was still as indifferent to my title as ever, there was no way in hell that I would allow a woman with a stick as far up her ass as this to turn around and attempt to insult me or my daughter, either; I wouldn't let her win a power-play.

Unsurprisingly, she fumed, "You're both free to leave."

Insufferable bitch, I thought, angered and intentionally failing to give any sort of departing response as I led Josie out of the administration building. We'd remained completely silent all the while, until we were outside, seated in the car - it was only when our seatbelts were buckled and I'd started up the ignition that I turned to the passenger seat to acknowledge my daughter again.

"We'll talk about Fowler and the suspension later," I began evenly, though the calmness that I conveyed was waning significantly, "But don't think you're not in trouble, because you are. It doesn't matter right now if she's getting fired, or if I don't like her, or anything else. I don't agree with her reasoning whatsoever, but bottom line, you still acted up in PE in the first place, and all of this mess could've been avoided. For now, though, let me see it," I demanded, having no real need then to explain what I was referring to.

Rolling her eyes and likely preparing to maintain her own stance in this conflict, she moved her sleeve just enough to reveal a half-dollar-sized, blurry tattoo, "Alright, here. Happy?"

"Cut that attitude right now, Josephine," I said firmly, my patience worn further, and then gestured to her arm, "What the hell is that?"

A pause - wherein she almost seemed embarrassed - before she muttered, "It's Rex."

"That's Rex? Great, that's lovely," I scoffed, shaking my head at her answer as I made my way out of the high school's parking lot. And while I knew that I was being unkind then, quite frankly, I was too pissed off to prevent the words that came when I spoke again, "When we get home, you can just go ahead and let Tulula know that someday she'll be memorialized in cheap ink once she kicks off, too."

"That's not nice, Daddy," Josie said with a glare, showing so much indignance that I was surprised she didn't actually stomp her foot, "Animals have souls, too. Don't be disrespectful."

"I hope you didn't pay good money for that. The ink's already turning blue."

"It's not that bad," she huffed.

Choosing not to touch that subject, I ventured instead, "Who did the work?"

"You know Shauna?" she asked, and once I'd taken a moment to put a face to the name, at my affirmative nod she continued, "Her older brother, Jacob. Right now he's trying to become an apprentice in a real shop, and so he got some second-hand equipment, and he wanted to get to work practicing, so I said he could try on my arm."

"Are you serious?" I snapped, only distantly aware that I was starting to yell. But the shock of everything I was hearing brought immediate fear for my child's safety, and that fear translated as anger, "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

"He knows what he's doing."

"Like hell he does! He knowingly tattooed a fifteen-year-old, for God's sake. No artist that knows what they're doing would ever have agreed to that. There was no accountability for him, he didn't have any supervision from someone that knew better. What if he'd fucked up and used a dirty needle, or - "

" - He didn't do that!"

"How do you know? You don't know what the equipment looks like in a shop, or how any of it gets set up before the work starts. You don't even know what the inside of a shop looks like - "

" - Yeah, I do," she said defiantly, even spitefully. But then she froze, taking on the expression of someone that made a serious error in judgment - because, apparently, she had just made a confession to me.

And before she could cover up the mistake, I ground out, "What do you mean? Have you been in a shop? Tell me right now."

"Dad - "

" - I mean it. Tell me now, and tell the truth."

"Fine, yes, I have been."

I sighed, even as I'd been expecting her response, "What business could you possibly have in a tattoo shop?"

She cleared her throat and explained, "Well, I also have a Friday the thirteenth tattoo..."

"You mean like the ones that the shops do for promos? That you have to be eighteen to go to?" I asked to clarify, though once again it was unnecessary, "How did you manage that?"

Thankfully, she seemed to have gotten tired of going around in circles with me, and gave her response without fighting or stalling, "Shauna and I got fake IDs."

My heart had seized almost painfully with the implications of that admission - nevermind that this information was now also added to all of the other poor choices that she'd been making. In turn, it took every last ounce of the strength that I still had in order to maintain my composure, heartbroken all the while as I'd found myself just staring straight ahead at the road, staring out in dismay at the cars lining up in front of me as I forced out the words, "Give it to me."

"Give you what?"

I laughed humorlessly, "You know what."

Her temper flared again at that, "But that's not fair, it isn't yours!"

"Well it sure as hell ain't yours, Jo. Give it to me," I repeated, nearly raising my voice once more, but she did as she was told without needing further prompting - although not without giving a dramatic flourish of the card to prove a point, tossing it to me rather than passing it over.

Purposefully ignoring her unwise decision to start up with the attitude again - because I simply didn't have the energy or the necessary concentration at the time to try and respond to it directly - I just reached out to where it had fallen, and took it without another word. Once it was in my possession, I tucked the ID away to keep Josie from making any attempts to sneak it out of the car later. But then I cursed offhandedly to myself in the next moment, when I realized that we had gotten caught up in the middle of a bottlenecked construction site. By then, and when it was already too late to do anything about the problem, the flow of traffic was almost nonexistent, and I'd driven us right into the worst of it; had I been more focused on my surroundings and less on the aftermath of my daughter's latest round of misbehavior, then I probably wouldn't have taken the usual route home. I'd forgotten about the construction delays - but honestly, in a matter of moments I then decided that I really didn't care about the minor inconvenience after all. I could reprimand Jo right there in the car as easily as I could at home. Wasted time didn't matter - we had nowhere to be.

But although she'd relented on trying to keep information hidden, she didn't seem intent on completely going down without a fight, either, and continued with her own rebuttal before I had the chance to start mine, "You know, I think this is a bit hypocritical, Dad. You got tattoos when you were my age."

"Yeah, I did. And all of them had to be fixed or covered up in under five years. That's what happens when you have shoddy work done," I sighed, still caught somewhere between disbelief and disappointment and everything else in the middle, "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"It's my body - "

" - Yes, it is. I'm not arguing that. But if you'd told me you wanted a tattoo, if you'd waited another year, I would've been willing to sign off for it at a real shop, gotten it done somewhere safe."

"I know the one on my arm looks bad, but - "

" - I don't care how it looks! I'm worried about you. What if you'd gotten sick, or hurt? Would you have even bothered to tell me about it then?"

"Yes, I would have, if that had happened. So it's not a big deal, alright? I'm sorry I didn't say anything. It was just...something I wanted."

"Then you should have asked me!" I shouted, noting the tears choking my voice from the terror I couldn't even begin to articulate, but she was stoic in the face of my fearful outburst; she didn't respond to me, but I knew I wouldn't find the strength to continue even if she had. Rather, slamming my palm against the steering wheel, I yelled once again at no one at all, "Come on!"

Our shared tension painted the air after that heated exchange, not a single word spoken after - nor did I think words could be found any time soon. I knew that Josie was furious with me, with this situation as a whole, because her stubborn streak wouldn't allow for another reaction to her getting caught, certainly not when she sincerely believed that she wasn't being treated fairly. In her mind, getting a couple of small tattoos wasn't the worst thing that she could've done, and ordinarily, I might have agreed with her - or at least, if she hadn't so recently had those incidents of stumbling home piss-drunk in the middle of the night, or of sneaking out of our house again just days later, of just constantly testing the limits of what she could get away with. But her ability to make sound judgments was seriously in question now; tattoos were the least of my concerns. Anyway, regardless of all of that, the fact remained that she hadn't talked to me about her decision to get a tattoo in the first place. She'd lied about it, and she'd caught herself in another lie in a larger sense with that goddamned fake ID, and she'd ultimately added on more weight to a scale whose balance was already so precarious. More than anything else then, I'd needed her to understand that, needed her to stop doing these things before something happened that couldn't be fixed.

Yet I also couldn't think of a single way to resolve any of that without worsening things between us as well - to say I was lost would be an understatement. And so, continued silence appeared to be my only ally for the moment. Driving home was exceedingly uncomfortable for that reason alone, and I was admittedly almost relieved when our house finally came into view - almost. Because simply arriving home didn't mean that anything was settled whatsoever, and quite frankly, I was dreading what else might still go wrong that day. So, during the latter half of the trip, I sent a message to Nadir - the first one to explain that I would be home earlier than anticipated, with my daughter in tow, and then sent another message to explain why she was there with me at all, instead of at school where she belonged. Thankfully, he offered to meet us at the house, to try to help diffuse the situation as much as possible; I'd agreed to the offer immediately, knowing that it would be short-sighted not to.

It was that much more of a reassurance to see him and Sahra waiting on the front steps of the house when I pulled into the driveway, their stance outwardly casual, although I knew they were ready to help with this latest batch of problems just the same - to help with the suspension and Josie's apparent determination to act out, with the looming reality of also having to deal with the fifth anniversary of Christine's death alongside the rest of these issues, with everything that my daughter and I were clearly not able to handle on our own. I was grateful to Nadir and Sahra for coming, but I was distracted from greeting them when Josie slammed the car door, storming up to the house and nearly ramming into them on her way inside, quickly disappearing into the semi-darkness without so much as a 'hello' for either of them. I followed after her, appalled by her uncharacteristically rude behavior; at the same time, Tulula sensed how upset I was, walking earnestly at my side and keeping in step with me as I all but chased my daughter.

"Goddamnit," I muttered, pushing past Nadir and Sahra, barely greeting them myself.

Even so, Nadir called after me, although his tone remained steady even as he warned, "Go easy on her, Erik. She won't stay calm if you won't."

But I ignored him for the time being, unable to respond properly and instead making my way determinedly up the stairs, and straight to Josie's bedroom.

"What the hell was that?" I yelled once I entered the space. Moments like this absolutely killed me; I hated every instant taken up by yelling at one another, hated when our arguments came to a head. Because beyond not wanting to mistreat my daughter in any way that I could possibly avoid, I also never knew which misstep, which sharply-spoken word might prove to be one too far. I didn't know how much more of this we could take before something was damaged beyond repair. Once again, it scared me to death to think about. Still, I couldn't allow her to believe that what she'd just done downstairs was appropriate, either, so I needed to find the correct balance between discipline and understanding, and I attempted to lower my voice as I continued, "You know better than to act like that to anyone that's invited into this house, Jo, let alone Nadir and Sahra. Be mad at me if you have to, but you're going to apologize to them. Is that clear?"

She glared at me when she responded, "Yeah, whatever."

"Not 'whatever.' Damn it, just stop this! You're already in enough trouble as it is, I don't know why you're trying to dig yourself in deeper."

"Daddy, I'll apologize to them later, alright?" she asked - and she cried as she did so.

Hearing her voice then, I froze where I stood; I'd sensed absolutely no insincerity in her tears. She wasn't losing her temper or finding another outlet for her anger as I'd assumed earlier, but rather had appeared to be displaying a raw pain that clearly went beyond getting suspended and having her fake ID taken away. Noting that, I felt an intense pang of guilt when I realized that I'd almost missed that crucial detail, when I realized that I seemed to be failing her once again by not taking a step back and just hearing her - not as she had needed me to hear her that day. She had inadvertently showed me how terribly sad she was, expressing that sadness simply by averting her gaze from mine, by crying so helplessly before me. In those subtle gestures, she'd seemed so much younger to me than she really was - so much younger, and so impossibly vulnerable, somehow pulled back in time to a former life, back to an existence when our family contentedly held onto three happy members, and the only real problems that Josie had needed to worry about were the ones that I could fix almost immediately. And in that instant, in recalling our past and comparing it to the unsteadiness of the present, I wanted nothing more than to take her up in my arms and protect her again as I had before, to save her from the pain that she was so obviously feeling. Whatever was unravelling in her had to be dealt with.

So I softened my tone when I approached her again, "Honey - "

" - Just leave me alone."

"Josephine, what else is - "

" - No! Leave me alone!" she snapped, grabbing an old throw blanket from the foot of her bed and hiding under it in the next second, clearly conveying that she was no longer reachable.

Sighing, I finally registered her message, and backed off. Our conflict and all it involved couldn't just end without a proper resolution - we had to finish this, and we had to try soon - but I also knew when to recognize that we both needed a break from the attempt. Nothing productive would happen otherwise. So I turned and left the room, closing the door carefully behind me.

~~oOo~~

By the time the sun was slowly beginning to set on that day, and long after Josephine and I had ultimately taken our separate corners in order to calm down, she and Sahra had gone out into the backyard to talk - able to do so when an unseasonably warm October day had fallen upon the city, the two now given an opportunity to sort through previous issues without the colder weather to bother them during their extended time spent outside. And while they spoke - while Sahra had likely set to working on convincing Jo to settle down again and rationally explain what was going through her mind - I couldn't find nearly as much of that relative peace on my own. So instead, I had resigned myself to just grinding out my own remaining worries and frustrations on the piano, distantly believing that the effort I gave to the task was put to far better use there than it would've otherwise been pacing the room, or in steadily driving myself insane as a result. As I primarily focused on playing a mindless, borderline aggressive series of chords, Nadir spoke to me from his place over on the couch nearby - his voice sounding impossibly composed where mine had been so frantic before. And although I didn't quite bother making full eye-contact with him as he talked, for the most part I was actively listening to him.

"Has she said sorry to you two yet?" I asked him after some time had passed, when the one-sided conversation reached its natural lull and I'd felt that I needed to say something else.

"Not yet," he said, then raised a hand and halted my intended response, "Relax, she will."

Giving a sardonic smile to show him exactly how little that assurance had comforted me, I then only sighed, shifting my playing to a softer dynamic, and hesitating a moment or so before asking a question regarding something I'd been upset about all day, "I need you to be honest. Do you really think that fake ID was just for the tattoo?"

"She said it was."

"Right. But do you believe her?"

"Honestly, yes," he said almost lightly, and then at my dubious glance, explained, "Look, think of it this way. Getting ahold of booze obviously hasn't been an issue for her up to this point. She clearly didn't get the ID for that, and anyway, I think she would've fessed up if she had. So I really think she just wanted to go to the Friday the thirteenth event."

I scoffed, "Seems too easy..."

From the corner of my eye, I saw him shrug, "Maybe. You'd be surprised, though. When Zach was in high school, he had a friend that got busted with a fake ID, and everyone jumped to conclusions about why he'd had it. But then it turned out that he'd only gotten it to be able to get a hotel room out in California so he and some other friends could go to Sea World. They weren't trying to party or anything like that. Just wanted a trip without their parents before senior year."

"That's bullshit."

"I'm not kidding. Teenagers are funny little buggers that way, they're either too dense to function, or they come up with shit like they're super-villains. You should know what the smarter ones can do with too much time on their hands, since you were the same way."

"Right, that's the problem. I don't need my kid acting like I did."

"You turned out fine."

"Barely."

"Erik, I know you're worried, but I have a feeling she's telling the truth on this one."

"Which is great, for this one. But then think about the big picture, and you'll see we're not doing very well right now. I swear she's turning my hair gray," I said dryly, and Nadir laughed at the small addition of humor. His reaction was nearly enough to break me from my tension, but not entirely - it wasn't long before I sighed again, saying softly, "I'm so afraid for her, though."

"I know you are, and you have good reason to be, and that's fine. But I really don't think you need to panic just yet. Take this incident seriously, have her serve her punishment, but don't let this define either of you."

And I almost responded to that - but in the next instant, my attention was pulled away from my friend, directed toward the sudden image of my daughter walking back into the living room from outside. Seeming to note her presence when I had, Nadir gave me a meaningful glance - a stern reminder to keep my composure this time - before he'd turned and excused himself to join Sahra on the deck at her silent prompting beyond the glass doors.

Once we were alone again - now left entirely at the mercy of our near-identical tempers, left to trust one another to speak with far more of a sense of reason than we'd displayed earlier - Josie approached the piano with a decidedly feigned air of casualness, sitting down on the floor just off to the side of me. But though she met my eyes as she moved to settle in, she still hadn't spoken to me all the while, and so in turn, I didn't stop playing yet; rather, I'd steadily brought the music to grow louder, and shifted the melody that I was playing from one of unpredictability into another that was much more familiar to us both.

To my immense relief, her eyes absolutely lit up when she recognized Helena, a favorite taken from her recent My Chemical Romance phase, and one that I'd quickly found and learned the piano arrangement to, just for her - making the attempt simply because I had known that the gesture would make her happy. More than once after the fact, I was incredibly grateful that my doing so had made her smile, even if that smile lasted only for the span of the song. Now, I was almost certain that my choosing this favored piece would help draw her back to me, that it would somehow reach her in a way that I didn't know how otherwise. Sure enough, by the time the song reached its end, she'd already stood up again and had gone to lean over the piano's surface at its bend, now purposely facing me more directly than she had moments before.

Only when the last notes had died out did she murmur, "I need to tell you what happened. I mean, about today."

I nodded at her words, then slowly and deliberately lowered the fallboard over the keys, admittedly taking that extra measure of time to prepare myself for whatever it was that she was about to say to me - and, in many ways, to allow her to prepare herself for what was very likely just as upsetting for her to have to give voice to as well. From there, I rested my arms on the fallboard's surface as I responded bluntly, "Go ahead."

"I did it on purpose."

"Did what?"

"Let everyone see my tattoo."

That was a surprise for me to hear - up until then, I had readily assumed that she'd been caught by chance, and only by chance. It hadn't even occurred to me that any other explanation was possible, that the thing that she'd done on purpose would turn out to be so absurdly innocent, at least in comparison to her other transgressions. So, of course, I then asked the next most logical question, "Why, though? Would you care to give me a reason for that?"

She looked away from me again, fidgeting with an old silver bracelet at her wrist and keeping her voice so low that I almost didn't hear her say, "Because...I did it because of Mommy."

Caught off-guard once more by the way that this discussion was heading, I very nearly flinched at my daughter's whispered mention of her mother - at this one of too many unexpected reminders of my wife, her stark absence so much closer to my thoughts this day than most. But beyond that initial response to Jo's words, the idea that there was some hidden meaning behind them finally had the chance to catch up to me; for the moment, confusion replaced sadness, and I had to ask yet another clarifying question, "Honey, what are you talking about?"

Still looking away from me, Josephine only sighed, seeming to be attempting to weigh her words and to steady herself again - she truly appeared then to take that breath just to keep her explanation unbroken by the tears that had begun to form in her eyes, exhaling determinedly before she spoke everything that followed in a rush, "Alright, well, I knew you'd be upset today, because of...because of what it is, and since you're missing Mom so bad. And I just wanted to distract you from all that, and I guess I wanted to distract myself, too, because now it's been five years, and I feel really crappy about it, so I figured that getting into trouble would be a really good distraction. So I let the PE sub see my arm and everything, and then I picked that fight with Mrs. Fowler over it, 'cause I know I'm on her radar already anyway," Josie went on, and by then, her voice finally caught as I'd expected it to, "I didn't think it would go so wrong...I thought they'd just call you and I'd get sent to the office, and maybe sent home for the day, not the whole rest of the week, but I had no idea that she'd get so mean, and I yelled at her and got suspended, and - "

" - Sweetheart, stop," I interrupted, and I held a hand up for emphasis, just trying for the time being to process what exactly my daughter was saying. Then, when each bit of information had settled into my mind, I somehow laughed in spite of myself, in spite of the shock I'd felt from everything I just heard. I found it in myself to laugh even as I choked back a sob at the gravity of it all, "So, you're saying that you got your ass suspended to distract us?" I asked, and when she nodded - an exceedingly timid gesture that betrayed her renewed embarrassment - I could only stare in the immediate moments after her answer, distantly considering this fifteen-year-old, my stubborn little girl that had never ceased to amaze me, even as she drove me up the wall. For everything that she'd done to sabotage herself, it seemed that she could still manage to think beyond her own feelings after all, beyond the burden of her anger and confusion; to be perfectly honest, realizing that fact alone was an incredible relief for me then.

Although I'd be lying if I didn't admit that this wasn't the first occasion that she'd decided to calm down enough to leave her rebellious streak in the past, even if only temporarily. Josie's odd, endearing showing of compassion - once again proving itself to be so much like Christine's - was something that I had witnessed after Willow had to be put down, only about a year ago; I'd seen both genuine compassion and innocence there when Josie cried for the loss of her elderly pet, when she'd held a memorial service with her friends and insisted that the little cat be buried safely out in the backyard beside Rex. I recalled thinking that Christine would've been so proud to see that display of humanity within our daughter, and while that idea hurt, I knew I needed to see an example of that humanity for myself now - frustrating though it had been in practice. I'd needed to be reminded that my child wasn't lost to her pain for good. Considering that, I shook my head and continued, "Your noble sacrifice was incredibly short-sighted, my dear."

She sighed, "My distraction was a bust."

"Right. Even the best laid plans..."

"You still thought about Mommy?"

"I did. Just like I do every day."

That simple, sentimental phrase earned me a smile from her - one that was perhaps the first genuine expression of its kind that I'd seen all day. But her smile faded as quickly as it appeared, replaced in the following instant by more tears that I knew, painful though it was to acknowledge, wouldn't be so easily banished, certainly not as a slight smile could be inspired. It didn't matter how much I'd wanted to protect my child, how desperately I'd wanted to see her happy again - I couldn't erase the past, and I couldn't make us forget about the worst of it. Still, I wasn't just going to step aside and leave her alone with it, either; so I quickly stood up from the bench and walked around the piano to where Josie had bowed her head, dejected and tense and crying silently, standing with her arms wrapped around herself, a gesture meant to be a barrier to the world that I knew all too well. I wordlessly bid her to come to me instead of staying alone, holding onto her tightly as soon as she'd buried her face in the fabric of my shirt. For a time afterward, I simply held her close to me as I had so often when she was younger, her muffled sobs now the only sound in the room. And as I kept her in my arms, I wondered if the pain I felt in response to her own would suffocate me...

Regardless, there was nothing that I could say or do then that would lessen the fallout of this lingering grief for either of us; but even so, I'd just wanted to believe that at least this shared embrace could be enough, if only for the moment.

~~oOo~~

It became cold to the point of discomfort only after the sun had set completely, when the neighborhood was brightened by ambient lighting alone, and a significant portion of my backyard had been washed out by the lights lining the sliding door leading out to the deck. While Tulula ran in the grass beyond where the light had reached, chasing after her Kong and periodically barking at the other dog on the opposite side of the fence, I sat at the wrought-iron glasstop table set closer to the house, steadily filling the ashtray with cigarettes. Shivering, it distantly occurred to me that it was only October now, yet the air had still gotten cold enough to start bothering me the longer I stayed outside, even in spite of the warmth of the daylight hours - I hated to think how bad the winter months would be if this kind of weather persisted.

But regardless of the cold, I'd stayed out there just the same, chain-smoking and dwelling in parts of my mind that I had absolutely no business occupying anymore. And all the while, I was adamant on keeping largely to myself when Nadir and Sahra opted to stay in the house instead, each of us determining that some relative down-time was in order once Josephine calmed down and asked to be left alone. Honestly, it was easy enough to agree to that request. For my own part, I'd felt so overwhelmed by everything that happened that I was still rather jarred from the experience - it wasn't surprising that Jo needed to stand down as well. And so, it seemed wise to take some time away from each other to let it all settle properly - even if it was apparent that our tempers weren't flaring and colliding for the moment. Emotions were running high in general anyway, and thus, any truce that could be found in the wake of several regrettable decisions was welcomed in an unspoken agreement between myself and my child, each opting for swift resolutions - especially now that they were far more feasible than they'd been earlier in the day.

In the end, I'd taken away Jo's phone, had taken her laptop and her e-reader, had taken anything that could be even remotely considered as a form of entertainment. If it wasn't absolutely necessary for school, then was now in my possession indefinitely - at the very least until I'd decided on an appropriate time-frame for her restriction. And while in past circumstances she would've fought me on every last point - and God knows that she wasn't above drawing out those kinds of fights, always willing for them to be the hill she died on - this time, she had accepted her punishment graciously, and in turn, I knew that she'd done so sincerely. However, that had been the only acceptable resolution we were granted for the time being, insomuch as her misbehavior was concerned. She was still in trouble otherwise - I hadn't lied when I'd said she would be, and even hearing the motivations behind her actions hadn't swayed me as much as I believe she'd wished. I went easy on her in some ways - solely for the fact that her heart was unquestionably in the right place - but that was the extent of my good humor. While I truly had appreciated her sentiment, there were several obvious factors about her approach that I'd taken issue with, and those factors couldn't just be overlooked; but, luckily, she'd understood that much, and this was probably the easiest time I'd had in punishing her to date.

Someday, hopefully, I might find the humor in that.

I hadn't heard the door open or close again, but suddenly, Josie's voice pulled me back to the present - the sight of her wearing one of Christine's old university sweaters simultaneously pulling at my heart - as she spoke, ignorant of my sadness and with an air of amused authority, "Sahra said that if you don't come inside and eat dinner, she'll force-feed it to you herself."

I smirked at that, and ashed my cigarette, turning around just enough to see through the glass door behind me and into the kitchen, holding my hand up in a five more minutes gesture. Sahra rolled her eyes from where she stood near the eating-bar, but I didn't stay facing her long enough to see any more reactions she might've had, asking Josie instead, "Do you feel better?"

"No," she said, her eyes cast to Tulula approaching us, then, "Can I have my phone back?"

"No."

"I figured," she responded flatly, but when she looked up again, she smiled.

"Lulie, go get your toy," I prompted the dog, tossing the Kong far into the yard when she brought it over, then said to Josie, "I'm not mad about the tattoo, Bean. I want you to know that."

"You're mad because I got it."

"Because you didn't tell me. You have no idea what could've gone wrong. That, on top of the bender you went on a few weeks back...I don't want you acting the way I did. And don't say I turned out fine," I added when she'd tried to respond - very likely about to use just that argument against me, as Nadir had earlier - and continued, "That was dumb luck, and years of fixing all the things I'd fucked up when I was younger. Can you understand that?"

She sat down across from me, finally seeming ready to engage with this discussion, and shrugged before she said thoughtfully, "I don't know, it's hard to imagine you like that. Like, drunk or messed up or anything. I've never seen it."

"It's happened in your lifetime, Josie," I admitted, and then at her expression of surprise, explained, "I relapsed after Grandpa Gene died. I started drinking again. Do you remember any of that?"

"I remember his funeral, and you being gone a lot afterward, before we had to go to court because of your dad."

"Well, now you know why, and it was horrible. Your mom didn't want you seeing me like that, and I'm glad she did. She wanted to protect you, though days like this I almost wish she hadn't."

Another sigh, and then the subject shifted once more, the next words inevitably bringing us both back down into our grief, "I really miss her."

"So do I."

"I'm sorry, Daddy."

And I just nodded, unsure of what exactly she was referring to then and too exhausted to sort through any more details, but I didn't say anything else to her apology. Once again, I'd found myself at a complete loss for words to attempt to make a difference in this situation, to try to turn it around for the better and make it stay that way. Frankly, I didn't even know how to continue on with this conversation at all, let alone anything beyond it - at least not without making everything I'd said from this point on sound cliched to the point that Josie stopped listening entirely. I didn't know how to move forward, plain and simple, nor how to express to my daughter exactly how afraid I was for her, terrified that she would never learn from these mistakes and wouldn't go on to take my words to heart. By then, so much remained at the tipping point, and not for the first time in the past five years, I sorely wished that I wasn't facing that tipping point alone. Even having a handful of close friends offering to help, I still couldn't ignore the fact that the majority of help they gave should have come from my wife, that we should've been together in this.

Stubbing out the cigarette, I realized then - and with no small amount of resignation - that I couldn't solve any of this in one shot, regardless of how badly I wanted to. Rather, I'd have to struggle with it, would have to reach out well beyond my own frame of reference to find the right answers and pray that my doing so would work out somehow; I needed to trust that Josephine would make it through this bout of destruction intact. Because otherwise, if I wasn't able find that trust within myself, then I was almost certain that I'd drive myself insane in the meantime, and would be guaranteed to fail my daughter as a result.

So instead, I stood up and motioned for Josie to follow, "It's cold. Let's go back in, we've been out here too long. We'll talk about this again later, though, alright?"

"Alright," she said evenly, a note of level-headedness in her voice that told me she might actually be considering her decisions, and I nearly breathed a sigh of relief at the idea.

Josie lead Tulula inside, then stepped into the house herself, walking toward Nadir and beginning to talk to him easily, speaking to someone that she'd known her entire life - and though I knew how upset she was feeling in those moments, something I'd shared with her in spades, I could at least be grateful that she seemed content with her surroundings, seemed content with the people that were spending their time under this roof for our sakes. By comparison to the the turmoil we'd dealt with only hours ago, this relative contentment was a fair trade-off. Altogether, though, this certainly wasn't the life that I'd envisioned when Christine and I had set out together. This wasn't what we'd anticipated for our lives, for our marriage, and that was always so painful for me to consider. It wasn't the happy ending that we'd both so badly wanted and worked so long to see set in motion; rather, it truly felt as if half of me was missing now, only a constant aching left behind, and nothing I could do would even come close to filling the void that my wife's devastating loss had created in me - I would never know that form of happiness again. But during moments like this, I could be content, could understand what the concept was, even if it was different now.

Because this was no longer the bitter, lonely existence that I'd always assumed I would have to live through. From the moment that we met, that part of my life was altered significantly, irrevocably; in turn, what I held now, what remained that I'd so fiercely loved and protected was far more than I'd ever thought I could have. Just knowing Christine, loving her, building the life I'd had with her was so much more than I would've asked for, if only for the fear of not deserving it from the start. Having the opportunity to continue being a father for our child - to see Josie's life unfold, even as she steadily grew up and away from me - added that much more motivation for me to carry on, and to be grateful for the perspective. There was always pain without Christine by my side, and I was sure that there always would be; keeping in touch on occasion with Meg and Raoul and Samantha over the years, I knew well enough that this pain was shared with everyone that had known her, that had been impacted by her, because anything else was impossible. But every now and again, I could bring myself to remember that this life as I knew it was enough.

Turning my wedding ring around on my finger, the steady and familiar repetition anchoring me to what I was experiencing now, I stepped inside as well, shutting the door securely behind me.

~~oOo~~

The End