I was going to write this closer to the date of the American Thanksgiving, but it insisted on being written now. So, I took a little break from writing 'And Then There Was One'. This is a complete, short story. I hope that it rings true, and that others can find in my CSI world, something they can identify with. Something they can enjoy. Happy early Thanksgiving! Cathy. (Usual disclaimers)
Sitting down on the sofa, leaning over the coffee table, Jim Brass unwrapped the turkey sub, popped open the tab on his icy Budweiser, raised it in a mock cheer and proclaimed to the empty room, "Happy Thanksgiving!"
Not only had Jim worked today, but he had put in overtime, the way he did every holiday. He figured he might as well let the guys with families have that day off, it at all possible, even though he had the seniority to request otherwise. The only exception had been the Christmas after his father had died. Jim had gone back to Jersey, to the two-storey home of his childhood that his mother still refused to leave. She claimed there was no place she'd rather be, even though it was doubtless the upkeep was getting a bit much for her. Jim had taken a week off then, and his older brother Peter and his family had gone back as well. Mom had still had that scrawny, plastic tree that had last been replaced in the seventies, and which still had thin strands of tinsel, representative of each of the decades since, tangled in its artifical limbs. His lips curled in a thin smile at the remembrance.
Most of the time though...a holiday was just another day for Jim Brass. While others busied themselves filling their grocery carts, preparing mountains of fatty foods, and surrounding themselves with friends and family, at his apartment the cupboards were minimally stocked and there was only Jim. When other people placed apple-cinnamon scented candles on their mantles, cardboard turkeys in their windows, cornucopias on their tables, and bought paper plates and napkins with the smiling faces of pilgrims, Jim shunned the vestiges of seasonal decor.
With no one to share the day with, it was pointless to make the effort to celebrate. So on a day when other cops loosened the buttons on their trousers, put their feet up, and watched football on the tube, while their women busied themselves in the kitchen, and the laughter of their children rang through the halls, Jim Brass rose early, and clocked in at the station. The precinct always felt different on the holidays. Subtly subdued. They made an effort to schedule a minimum of staff so that as many people as possible could savour the day. Often business was quieter than usual, as people put aside their anger, their animosity, their hatred, and all of the other negative human emotions that spilled over at other times of the year and which normally kept Jim busily and gainfully employed.
It was dark outside, the sun having set a few hours ago, while Jim, oblivious to the passing of time, had sat at his desk, catching up on paperwork. Telling himself that he enjoyed the quiet and the lack of interruptions. Telling himself that after his last physical he didn't need the added cholesterol of mounds of mashed potatoes awash in thick gravy, anyways. Telling himself that he wasn't much of a football fan and never had been, and that tomorrow night there would be a hockey game on, and he would be off work then, and enjoying that preferred form of entertainment. While the other poor stiffs were trudging back in, sluggish after an overdose of transfats and tryptophan. Dealing with a world that having put its baser impulses on hold for one day, would be spewing ugliness with a renewed vengence.
Yes, this was the way Jim preferred it. If the message light on his answering machine was dark and still, that was okay, because it had been a long day. Even if there had been anyone to talk to...Jim was tired and not in the mood to be bothered with exchanging social pleasentries. And if his voice seemed to echo in the room, bouncing across the wooden floors and reverberating off of the mostly bare walls...well that wasn't the sound of loneliness...that was the sound of welcome solitude.
The sub was tasty, piled high with meat, layered with cheese and fresh veggies. He dabbed at the mustard on the corner of his mouth with the paper napkin, and restlessly flipped the channels of the big screen t.v., unable to settle on any one programme in particular. Jim finished the sandwich, and opened his second beer. Having finally settled on an old Hogan's Heroes re-run, he rolled up his sleeves, leaned back into the leather sofa, and propped his feet on the coffee table, wriggling his socked toes. He had just drained the beer when the staccato knock sounded at his door.
Frowning, Jim got reluctantly to his feet. It was a little late for Girl Guides to be out selling cookies, he didn't need a new vacuum cleaner, and if someone was hawking religion Jim had turned his back on his faith a long time ago. The knock came again, impatient and insistent, and Jim sighed with irritation as he reached first for the deadbolt, and then the knob.
In the diffused glow of the exterior hallway, two unfamiliar forms stood outside his door. The one on the right was a short, middle-aged, dark-skinned cab driver, an ID tag from City Taxi clipped to the front of his blue shirt. The man's surname was an impossibly long and complicated mix of letters that Jim couldn't even hope to pronounce. The figure on the left was about the same height, but slight. A Dodgers ballcap was pulled low over the individual's face, over-sized sunglasses, incongruous considering it was night, blocking much of the pale features beneath. Jim could see that beneath the wrinkled white cotton t-shirt and worn denim jeans, it was a woman. Whatever error had resulted in this duo ending up on his doorstep, Jim didn't know and didn't care. Before he could send them on their way, the driver spoke.
"You have money for my taxi?" he demanded suspiciously, in a clipped East Indian accent. "The lady say she has no money, but you pay the fare. You have the money? Or I must be calling the police!"
Clearly they were either at the wrong apartment, or the cabbie's passenger was trying to pull a fast one and stiff him. Jim could sympathize with the lack of funds, but he wasn't bailing out a complete stranger. Even if this was Thanksgiving. He was all for personal responsibility. "Look, I..."
The figure on the right raised it's head then, jutting a delicate chin. "It's me...Ellie..." a tired voice whispered. Even with the distortion, even with the length of time it had been since they had last spoken, Jim recognized that voice.
His mouth gaped, and his thoughts swirled. She truly was the last person he would have expected to see. "How much?" he asked the driver, fighting for composure as he reached for his back pocket and extracted his wallet. Jim gave the other man thirty dollars, a significant tip, mumbled his thanks, and stepped back to admit his daughter into the apartment.
It was the first time Ellie had ever been there. Jim wasn't even sure how she had known where he lived. Wordlessly, he closed and locked the door behind her. His daughter stood there, uncertainly, poised as though to flee if he said or did the wrong thing. So Jim remained rooted there as well, holding his breath. Waiting, letting the next move be hers. There was an impractically tiny tan purse hanging from her left shoulder, and a plastic Target bag clutched between her hands. Her hair...it was auburn now...was pulled back in a high ponytail.
"I'm sorry," the young woman said quietly at last. "I had no where else to go." There was a hint of anger at the pronouncement, a resentment that that should be the case.
"It's all right. It's good. Come on in," Jim stumbled over his words. He was afraid that she was a mirage and that if he took his eyes from her for even a moment, Ellie would disappear. He moved towards the livingroom, slowly, smiling at her coaxingly.
"Nice place," she commented grudgingly. The apartment was tidy, minimally decorated, but the few pieces that there were, were quality. Her low heeled boots clicked against the hardwood as she followed him hesitantly to the area defined by the sofa and loveseat. Ellie remained standing. She had always been slender, small-boned like her mother, but she was even thinner now Jim noticed with concern.
"Can I get you something? Water? Juice? Coffee?" He stopped short of offering her a beer. She was of legal age to drink now, and had been doing so illegally for years, but Jim couldn't quite put his mental perception of her as a little girl from his mind. "Are you hungry? I could make a sandwich. Or how about pizza? I could order a pizza."
Jim was nervous. Unable to comprehend what Ellie's being here meant. Eager to keep things between them calm. Anxious that at any moment they might descend into the bitterness and hurtful barbs that had defined their relationship in recent years. Of course, calling it a relationship was generous. Their interactions had been rare, sporadic, unpleasant occasions. And yet, he had cherished each one, just for the chance to see Ellie and be with her again.
"No. Thanks." Her words were curt.
"Sit down," Jim offered, following his own suggestion and perching on one corner of the chocolate coloured sofa.
He had hoped Ellie might sit near him, but was not surprised when she chose the loveseat. Her knees were pressed together, her back ramrod straight, and she set the purse and the shopping bag on the floor at her feet. The television was still playing, and Ellie turned her face to the screen, silent as the rotund and clueless Sergeant Shultz muttered his signature line, 'Nothing! I see nothing!' Jim wasn't sure if he should turn the t.v. off, or leave it on as a distraction, something to lift the pressure off their having to converse. Ellie still hadn't removed the dark glasses, and Jim figured with a resigned sadness that it was to try to hide the fact that she was stoned.
"I guess you're wondering why I'm here," Ellie commented tiredly.
Jim did wonder of course. A myriad of possible explanations had run through his head, none of them good. The only time they had had any contact in the last few years had been when Ellie was in deep trouble. And his gut spasmed now, to imagine what might be so bad that she would actually come to Las Vegas and seek him out. Whatever it was, he would help her, wholly and unconditionally. There was an optimistic side of him, one that Jim rarely gave voice to, that hoped that his daughter might be ready to battle her drug addiction, and to take him up on his offer to get her into rehab. More likely though, she was embroiled in legal trouble and needed his services and connections as a cop.
"I'm just glad that you are," Jim told her simply, his low voice sincere.
Ellie gave a short laugh. "Yeah, I just bet." She turned her head, and Jim imagined dark eyes behind shadowed lenses sweeping the apartment. "I'm not interrupting anything? I thought you might have company or something. It's Thanksgiving, you know."
"Yeah, well, I had to work," he replied casually.
"Big surprise there," Ellie muttered. She took a deep breath which whistled softly when she exhaled. Suddenly, she reached up to remove the ballcap, and as she pulled it off down over her face, her finger hooked the glasses and she tossed them both onto the coffee table. She raised her head and looked at him defiantly.
Jim drew a sharp intake of breath, his features contorting with sorrowed compassion, while his hands curled into fists against his thighs. Ellie's dark eyes were clear, slightly puffy and red-rimmed as though she had been crying recently, but she didn't appear to be high at all. The hat and glasses hadn't been meant to disguise glazed irises and the telltale pinprick of pupils. They had been hiding the fact of the damage that Jim knew at once had been sustained from someone's fists.
There was a cut above Ellie's left eyebrow, held closed by several stitches. Her forehead and the area around and below her left eye socket were a hideous, puffy design of purples and greens. Jim had seen enough victims of domestic assault to understand at once that her injuries could only have been caused by one thing. "Oh, Ellie..." he choked out. Whoever had done this, Jim would hunt him down and return the pain and the indignity tenfold.
Ellie looked at him impassively. "It's not a big deal," she said nonchalantly. "It doesn't even hurt, really. But I needed to get away for a bit. Somewhere where no one would find me." Her voice was cool.
"Who did this?" Jim asked, fighting to keep his voice level, while the blood that surged through his veins burned a white hot trail.
Ellie shrugged. "No one you know. That's not why I'm here. Not really." He stared at her in confusion. A lopsided smile curved the normally petulant set of her pink lips. "I'm in trouble."
More trouble than being a battered woman? Whatever it was, Jim would fix it. He knew the best defense attornies, and he had enough money socked away to pay for one. Whatever Ellie had done, he would be here for her. He wanted to go to her, to gather her in his arms and make soothing, paternal promises. But he didn't think she would welcome the contact. Even though she had come to him, she might be just as likely to spit in his face, if he tried to be too familiar. "First thing in the morning, I'll make some calls," Jim assured his daughter. "We'll get you the best representation."
Ellie laughed aloud then, but it was a sound devoid of humour. "Of course, you think I did something illegal. Broke some law. Smuggled drugs again. Maybe killed someone this time." She grimaced and rolled her eyes. "Bad little Ellie." The young woman laughed again, a brittle, high pitched chuckle. "I don't need a lawyer," she said disdainfully.
Jim frowned, confused. Had Ellie been turning tricks? His gut twisted to even consider it. Had she run out on a violent pimp? Was she in trouble not with the law, but with some shiftless con boyfriend she had hooked up with? "I can help you. Protect you," he avowed. "Just tell me what we're dealing with." Jim leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. The adversarial glint in his eyes gave indication that whatever foe there was to battle, had better be prepared for the fight of his life.
"No, you don't get it," Ellie said tiredly. "I'm in trouble. Pregnant trouble." Her thin shoulders drooped then, curving inward protectively, and she cast her dark eyes downward, as though in shame.
Jim was stunned. He remembered with clarity the day that Nancy had told him she was pregnant. Had so many years really passed since then, that their daughter could be having a child of her own? He clasped his hands, the knuckles white from the force of their grip. If Jim was honest with himself, he'd been worrying about this, on some level, ever since Ellie was in her teens. Wild and uncontrollable, always breaking curfew, hanging out with the boys who were drop-outs, and juvie offenders. Seeming to deliberately seek out the worst partners for her youthful romances. First boys...and then later men...who didn't appreciate her and were nowhere near good enough for her.
That Ellie had come to him though, flabbergasted Jim. In spite of her rebellious teenage years, Ellie had always maintained at least a tenuous relationship with her mother. That she would come here to Vegas and him, rather than to Jersey and her mom, was something that Jim couldn't fathom.
Ellie seemed to read his thoughts. "He wants me to get rid of it and...and I don't want to. I can't go to Mom's, he knows where she lives and he'd find me there."
Jim sighed heavily, and ran both hands over the craggy, deeply etched planes of his face. He was grateful that Ellie had come to him, even though he was surprised, but he realized that it signalled just how desperate she was. He wondered immediately if she was still using drugs, worried about her health and that of her baby. A baby...his Ellie, his baby, was having a child of her own. "Of course, I'm glad you're here. Anything I can do...anything you need..." Jim's voice trailed off. He was having a hard time thinking beyond the moment.
"I know it's an imposition, and I hope it won't be for long," Ellie went on, as though she hadn't heard him say he was glad to have her, and didn't understand the full scope of his offer.
"Ellie," Jim said insistently, "it's not an imposition. You're my daughter, and though we've had our problems, that will never change. This...this is my grandchild..." he hesistated wonderingly, in awe at the sound of the word on his lips.
"STOP IT!" Ellie shrieked then, inexplicably, as though he had said something unforgivable. Her dark eyes glinted and two spots of colour showed high on her cheeks. "I figured you'd help...'cause you're like that...but don't say that! Don't ever say that again! It's a lie! You know it and I know it, and I can't stand the pretense anymore. I just can't!" She dipped her head then, turning it into her shoulder, her body trembling. Ellie squeezed her eyes shut against the hot tears that made salty tracks down her cheeks.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Jim asked in confusion. The sight of her tears caused his own heart to ache.
"I'm NOT your daughter!" Ellie cried out, bringing her hands to her face "You're not my father...not really. And we both know it."
Jim blanched. Damn you to hell, Nancy! He felt a cold fury, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. This was a betrayal to trump all others. She had promised! Nancy had sworn, when she had agreed to put Jim's name on the baby's birth certificate, when she had agreed that they would raise the infant as Ellie Rebecca Brass, that she would never...never...tell Ellie the truth of her paternity. And despite all of the betrayals, the broken marriage vows, the cruelty, and the bitterness...Jim had believed her. He had thought Nancy would keep their secret, not just for his sake, but for Ellie's.
And if somehow, somewhere along the way, Nancy had changed her mind...if she had either spilled the truth in a moment of weakness and anger...or if she had decided that it was important for some reason for Ellie to know...why, oh why, hadn't she told him? Why hadn't Nancy allowed Jim to share his side of the story with Ellie? To explain the reasons behind his actions. To reassure the girl of his love. Nancy had done some lousy things, but nothing to compare with this. Even after everything that had happened between them, all of the ugliness...Jim would not have believed his ex capable of this.
'You're not my father...not really.' They were the words Jim had dreaded hearing for the last two decades. Ever since he had held the six pound, four ounce newborn in his arms, and gazed into her impossibly beautiful face. When a feeling of such fierce paternal love and protectiveness, unlike anything Jim had ever imagined, washed over him, and Ellie had claimed his heart forever. They were the words that had haunted his dreams. And hearing them now, was even more painful than he ever could have anticipated. Jim watched Ellie cry, as his heart bled into his chest.
"How long have you known?" he asked dejectedly.
She brushed at her tears with the backs of her hands, and raised her head now to look at him, her eyes wild. "I was nine years old," Ellie began bitterly.
Christ, that long? Jim thought dully.
"I was home from school with the chicken pox. Mom thought I was upstairs, sleeping. But I tried to sneak downstairs to get a cookie. She was sitting at the kitchen table, on the phone with Aunt Carrie." Ellie's voice was thick with animosity. Her eyes glazed over as she recalled the one-sided conversation she had eavesdropped on, and repeated for him now.
"I swear, Carrie, she looks more like Mike every day. It just breaks my heart sometimes. I miss him so much. By the time he gets out of prison, if he survives that long, she'll be a teenager." Nancy had paused. "No, I can't ever tell her. What good would it do? She believes Jim is her father. That's what we agreed." Another pause while Nancy listened to her sister's comments. "I know he's been a crappy father of late. But at least he's someone she can look up to. Not like Mike O'Toole. Ellie would never understand, never accept that her real father is a dirty cop and the man she just thinks is her father, is the one who put him away."
Jim's groin drew up tight, and he felt as though someone had knocked the wind out of him. Oh dear God, Ellie...
Ellie's eyes shone with fresh tears. "I didn't wait to hear anymore. I went back upstairs to my room, and I hid in the closet, so she wouldn't hear me crying. Suddenly...suddenly it all made sense." Her eyes narrowed, holding his with a pentrating stare. "Why you didn't want to be around me. Why you hardly ever called or came to see me. Why you were always working. And when I did see you...it explained the way you would look at me sometimes. That strange look you would get.
"Why should you waste your time on somebody else's kid?" she asked with forced brightness. "It must have grated on your nerves, and been a terrible reminder of my mother's infidelity, ever time I called you daddy."
"Ellie..." Jim protested in a strangled expulsion.
"Of course...a big hero like you...well of course he would do the honourable thing. Give his wife's bastard child his name." She gave a mocking laugh. "And I gotta hand it to you, you really gave it your all in the beginning there. You really had people convinced. Hell, you really had me convinced." She inclined her head in mock deference. "But you couldn't keep it up, could you? So first you moved from our house. And then from Atlantic City. And finally...you moved from Jersey altogether."
She had the timeline right, the chronology of events, but Ellie had put her own interpretation on his actions. It had been Nancy who had told him to leave, though he didn't blame her. Both of them had been going through the motions, telling themselves they were trying to make things work, for Ellie's sake. But the truth was that both had given up on their marriage long ago, and each had been waiting for the other to make that final move to end things. So that they could absolve themselves of guilt for the breakdown of their family.
Finally, it had been Nancy who had had the courage to call an end to the charade. Tired of the humiliation of his indiscretions, though guilty of her own, Nancy had been unwilling to look the other way after Jim had begun his blatant affair with Annie Kramer. When her friends had begun to talk and whisper behind her back, Nancy had had enough. She'd packed Jim's suitcases, and told him that it was over. His sorrow at having to leave Ellie behind, had been tempered with his overwhelming sense of relief that his loveless marriage was at an end, and he wouldn't have to pretend anymore.
He had left Atlantic City not long after that for professional reasons. Ever since the undercover sting operation that had resulted in busting open the corruption on the ACPD, and which had culminated in the arrests of several cops who had been in the pocket of the mob...including Mike O'Toole...Jim had been on the outside. There was a public appreciation for his efforts, but privately, the other cops had had mixed emotions. Understanding intellectually that dirty cops gave them all a bad name, eager to see those men rooted out and ousted, nonetheless there was a contradictory emotional resentment. Jim had betrayed the Brotherhood. No matter how justified, there was no going back. He'd crossed that line, and his colleagues no longer trusted him. So he had hoped that a transfer might mean a fresh start.
But there was nowhere in the state where Jim's former exploits weren't know. When he had left Jersey altogether, it had been due, in part to the final acceptance that he would never have a career there, and in part, to Ellie. But not for the reasons she apparently thought. Fighting his bitterness towards Nancy, tired of the ways she had tried to block his access to Ellie when he wanted her to honour his visitation rights, boiling over with guilt that he worked so much and disappointed his child so often, Jim had taken the coward's way out and had simply distanced himself from his pain. He hadn't wanted to deal with the envy and the feelings of inadequacy that would slice through him every time he was reminded that his precious child was not entirely his. Lonely, empty inside, investing every bit of himself into a job that bled him dry, Jim had had nothing more to give. And so he had simply run out.
But Ellie couldn't know that. She couldn't know the guilt that had plagued him or the nights he had lain awake in the darkness, wishing he could change the past. She couldn't know the hollow place in his soul that had ached with her abscence. Because he had never told her about any of that. Jim had never told anyone. And so, devoid any true explanation, and with a child's logic, spurred by what she had overheard, Ellie had reached her own conclusions.
"You know, I used to wonder what it was that I did wrong. Why my daddy didn't come to see me in the school play. Why he wasn't there for my birthday. Why...why he didn't love me."
Jim's face crumbled with grief. "No..." he tried to interject.
Ellie nodded to herself. "And when I heard mom on the phone that day, suddenly everything was clear." Her lips began to quiver then. "I understood it all. And I knew who I was." She wrapped her arms around her chest as she began to quake. "All of those years, I thought I was Ellie Rebecca Brass. My daddy...he was a hero! There were citations and plaques. A key to the city. Even a letter from the President of the United States!
"I used to tell my friends stories, about how brave you were. How you made Atlantic City safe for everyone. I was always so very proud. If my daddy was such a wonderful man, and I was his little girl, then that must mean there was something wonderful in me too." She swallowed hard, blinking furiously. "No one was smarter, or more handsome, or braver, or more special than you."
Memory knocked Jim back across four decades. Once again, he was watching his father put on his State Trooper's uniform. Watching him load and holster the gun that was kept locked in a box on the highest shelf of his parents' bedroom. Looking up at a man who though only of average height, seemed impossibly tall. Larger than life. Bigger and stronger and smarter than any two dimensional super heroes that moved across the black and white screen of their small t.v., or who had adventures between the pages of young Jimmy's comic books. How he had idolized his father, with the purity of childhood innocence. Dreaming that one day, he too, as the son of this wonderful man, might aspire to that greatness. It stunned him to think that Ellie might once have felt the same way about him.
But there was no happy remembrance in the contours of Ellie's youthful features now. Jim's intestines knotted, and a wave of nauseau swept over him. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to see the truth of her pain that glowed in the depths of her lovely, dark eyes.
Ellie continued, "I used to tell myself, all of those days, then the weeks and months that you were away, that you were on some secret mission. For the FBI or the CIA or the President himself. That it was dangerous and difficult, and that you wanted to be there with me, and you wanted to call me, but you just couldn't." She shook her head self-deprecatingly. "Pretty stupid, huh?
"And then that day, I understood everything. Why you behaved the way you did. And I understood who I was. I was Ellie Rebecca O'Toole. The daughter of some skank who played around on her husband and broke her wedding vows, and some two-bit loser, disgraced ex-cop doing hard time in the grey bar." The bravado faded then, and Ellie began to sob. "That's who I was! Not the daughter of a hero! Not Jim Brass' little girl! God, how I worshipped you! How I wanted to be like you! I wanted to be worthy of being your daughter, worthy of your love.
"But the truth was that I didn't deserve it, and that love wasn't mine to claim!" Her voice was hoarse, strained with her heartache. "All I ever wanted to be, was your little girl, and all I ever wanted to do, was have you love me." Her cries tore at Jim's soul. "But when you looked at me, all you saw was a reminder of the fact that your loving wife spread her legs for another man...and not just any man, but the lowest kind of man...a dirty cop!"
Jim had never thought that, and he shook his head helplessly, in an ineffectual effort to negate the accusations. No matter what he had ever felt about Nancy and Mike O'Toole, he had never transfered his negative thoughts to Ellie. Ellie had been the one thing that was good, and pure and right in his life.
"There was no point in pretending any more, no point in trying to be something that I wasn't. My destiny was predetermined before I was even born. So I figured that I might as well stop fighting it. I waited, and waited for you to finally say something. To admit the truth. I knew that one day, I would push hard enough, and you'd be so angry, so digusted that you would have to say it! 'That troublemaking little bitch is no child of mine!'. "
And oh, how Ellie had pushed. In junior high, and then even moreso in high school, her grades had begun a downward spiral. Previously such a good student, she started to bring home Ds, and then Fs. Nancy had been bewildered, and had taken the drastic step of calling Jim in Vegas to discuss the matter. He'd sent money for private tutors, but Ellie had been disinterested in even trying to keep up her grades. Truancy officers had visited to warn about the repercussions of Ellie's skipping classes.
Then there was the inappropriate clothing, and the friends that Nancy hadn't approved of. Each year Ellie had seemed to slip further beyond Nancy's reach. There were instances of shoplifting. Ellie would come home after curfew, with liquor on her breath. Finally, Ellie's involvement with a group of peers who had been responsible for a series of break and enters in an affluent, nearby neighbourhood had shown just how unrecognizable Ellie had become.
Ellie, fifteen then, had been arrested. Frantic, Nancy had called Jim, begging him to come back to Jersey, and to help their daughter. He had flown back, nervous but eager to be seeing Ellie again. It had been a long time since they had spoken, their contact in recent years limited first to an occasional phone call, and then finally to cards at Christmas and Ellie's birthday, containing large cheques, proportionate to Jim's feelings of guilt. It had been two years since he had seen his daughter, and Jim had foolishly envisioned an idyllic reunion. A frightened Ellie falling into his arms, ready to put the rebellion behind her. Happy to see her father, and ready for a fresh start.
He had used his old connections with the Atlantic City police department, to encourage them not to press charges. In all likelihood, they would have been dropped anyways. Ellie was not the main target of the investigation, and while she had been caught with incriminating evidence of stolen goods on her person, they were after the older ringleaders of the group. She had been let go with a warning.
At the station, Jim had approached her to give her the good news. He was embarassed by the provocative clothing Ellie wore, and the garish make up. She had looked at him with boredom, expressing neither pleasure at seeing him, nor gratitude for his help. When he had reached a hand for her shoulder, telling her that everything was okay, and he would take her home now, Ellie had moved with cat-like quickness, knocking the offending hand away, her long nails raking the back of it in the process. Then she had spit on his shirt, and told him that she already had a ride. He had stood there, deflated, and watched her walk away, and into the arms of some eighteen year old punk, who had planted a sloppy kiss on Ellie's lips, and then grinned at Jim derisively.
"But instead, you would keep with the lies," Ellie's disgust broke into his reverie. "And every time I called you 'Dad', and you pretended it was so, I died a little bit inside. I could never understand," she said now with real wonder, "why whenever I was in trouble, you would say, 'Ellie, you're better than that'. "
How many times had he voiced that very reproach? Jim thought to himself. Unable to comprehend the destructive streak in Ellie. Unable to understand why such a beautiful, young girl, with so much to offer, with nothing to stand in the way of her success except her own lack of confidence and ambition, would allow herself to settle for so much less than what she was capable of. So much less than what she deserved.
"When you would say that, I just wanted to scream! I wanted to lash out and hit you and shout at you and tell you to stop the lies. That we both knew I wasn't better than that!"
With a sick clarity, Jim heard again the response Ellie would make when he would voice his frustration. She would look at him with an unreadable expression in her dark eyes, and she would say dully, 'No, I'm not,'. For the first time he understand everything that that simple statement had encompassed.
Ellie's voice was raw. "Because that's the truth isn't it? We both know the kind of blood that runs through my veins. We both know you aren't my father, and my kid isn't your grandkid. If you'll help, that's great. I'll pay you back, make it up to you eventually. But you don't have to lie anymore. No...more...lies."
The anger that had been sustaining Ellie drained from her then. She drew her knees up to her chest, and buried her face between them, rocking back and forth. The soft keening, muffled by the denim of her jeans, was the most sorrowful sound Jim had ever heard. Silent tears ran down his own cheeks. She looked so small, so young...so terribly broken. It was an image Jim knew would stay with him forever. The image of the enormity of his failure.
What could he say to Ellie? How could he make her understand? Would she ever believe that his abscences, the distances he had put between them were not a reflection of the depth of his feelings for her, but a result of his own demons, and his own jealousies, pain and perceived inadequacies?
Jim was kneeling on the floor in front of her before he could quite think what to do. He put his arms around his daughter and pulled her towards him, rocking with her. He rubbed her back, and kissed her head. "I'm so, so sorry, Ellie. Sorry that I wasn't there for you. Sorry that I let you down. Sorry...sorry that I didn't let you know how much you mean to me so that you would never, ever have doubted my love for you."
Jim's voice was rough, the words catching in his throat. "You may not be the child of my body, Ellie, but you are the daughter of my heart. I love you. I've always loved you. You are everything that was ever good and precious and meaningful in my life. I'm sorry that I couldn't be that hero that you needed me to be." He continued to rock her. "You are Ellie Brass. And I am your father. Even if you don't want me to be. And I'm here for you now."
Ellie reached her own arms for him them, burying the unbruised right side of her face against his chest, while her tears dampened his shirt. She clung to him wordlessly, with all of the bottled longing of a decade and more. Jim held her for a long while, letting her cry. Eventually, he realized that the tears had stopped. That, emotionally exhausted, Ellie had fallen asleep in his embrace.
He settled her onto the loveseat, where she curled up fetally, as though to protect herself from the sorrow and ugliness of the world. He took a cotton throw from the back of the sofa, and shook it out, gently covering her. Jim turned off the t.v. and switched off the lights. He stood in the darkness, gazing down at Ellie in the dappled moonlight that filtered through the window. Her delicate features wore the bruises of another man's angry and cowardly fists, an obvious and evident wounding. But there were other bruises, hidden in the corners of her soul, not quite as obvious but even more hurtful, that Jim alone bore the culpability for.
Jim had made so many mistakes. He had so many regrets. But the past was done, he couldn't change it. He could acknowledge it though, and try to make it right. Perhaps this would be a new start for them. Maybe Ellie would let him be now the father that he had never been. And in time, maybe he could make her understand how it had really been. Jim would have to admit to the ways he had failed Nancy as well. Explain the loneliness, the unhappiness and the humiliation that had caused his ex to turn to another man. He couldn't let Ellie continue to judge her mother so harshly, or negatively, or for Nancy to bear solitary blame for a situation that she and Jim were equally responsible for.
Ellie looked so young and innocent in her slumber. It was hard for Jim to imagine that there was another life, growing inside her. He didn't know what her plans were, or even if she had any yet. But whatever Ellie wanted to do, he would be there to support her. Because he was her father, and she was his daughter.
All of the unspoken fears and misassumptions that had plagued them both over years of misunderstandings and miscommunications, he was determined to finally put to rest. And next Thanksgiving, Jim Brass thought to himself as he gazed down at Ellie...he was going to take the holiday off.