A/N: Okay, screw author's note
4
Standing around with your jaw open is a perfect way to look like an idiot. I was still willing to believe it was a trick of the light, but as he folded his arms and took a step back, that seemed more and more unlikely. My father made a gruff noise that sounded an awful lot like "this was a mistake", but I couldn't be sure.
I heard Loki coming up behind me and quickly slipped through the door and shut it. What are you doing? As if this is any less awkward!
My father hesitated and I tried to break the silence with as innocent a question I could pose: "What are you doing here?"
"Came to see how you were holdin' up," he nodded.
And why shouldn't he turn up at the door step of his unsucceful daughter's run-down and poorly kept shack to size up all the lost opportunities she had to her name? That was believable. Of course he wanted a glimpse of just how sadly I was faring in life, to reinforce his idea of me - the lazy dimwitted second child who would never amount to nothing. I began fighting back the tears I knew were coming. And all this after just eight words? Don't be pathetic, suck it up.
"I'm doing just fine," I said, summoning the most level voice I had. "I have a house and a job and - and," I coughed, "and friends here. I'm doing fine. Not five-star, but decently, if you ask me, and you did."
Gregory McAllister's eyes shone with a kind of depth I had never seen, a falter, two eyebrows pulling together in confusion, "Paton, what are you-"
"This is what it's always been about, right?" I cut in before he had the chance to call me an idiot or sneer at my lodgings and talk about what could have been. "I know I haven't lived up to all your expectations, Dad, but I'm fending for myself and it suits me fine, so you didn't have to drive all the way here to-"
"I didn't drive, I took the bus," he said hoarsely. There was a tremor in his voice that was uncharacteristic.
My father shook his head and tucked his thumbs into his armpits when he spoke again, "You never heard, did you?"
"Heard what?"
"Your mother," he said slowly, "She's been writing you for ages."
"Yeah, so?"
"She's dead."
I thought I heard a scuffling sound behind the door as I tightened my grip on the handle, but it might have just been the knots inside me vying for better positions in the pit of my stomach.
"What?" I blurted.
"Don't pretend like you didn't hear me," he said, and I could tell he was about to fly into a rage. "She wrote you every single month since she found your goddamn address, do you even bother to read those letters?"
"I don't have-"
"She wrote about everything, the accidents, the chemo, the nurses they would send around to the house."
"I didn't know-"
"We had to sell the car to pay the med bills; mortgage for the house piled up; I'm living at new motels every night, god damn it."
This was probably rock bottom for my dad. He had probably never felt this depressed or alone or out of options in his life. Fat lot of good all his planning and gloating had done him! He loved mom so much, just like he loved Olivia. It must have upset him to no end. And just what kind of daughter are you going to be now, Paton? Begrudging? Forgiving?
"So what do you want me to do about it?" I spat and then stood wrapped in the thickness of the silence, half unable to believe my own words or tone.
He shook his head and began turning around.
"I should've known better than to expect any respect from you," he mumbled. "I'm your old man for Pete's sake!"
"What do you want me to do?" I called out and he paused.
"Your mother loved you, you know," his eyes were black with disgust. "And you cut her off. Me, I understand, but she never meant anything but the best for you. I did too, but you never saw that."
I wanted to hole myself up in my room and stay hidden for days, without word, without food.
"Why did you really come here?" I asked, watching him in the driveway.
My father turned to me, a frown I knew so well was plastered on his face, like it killed him to say the words, "You're all the family I have left, Paton, and you make me wish that-"
Whatever it was, I never found out. He began walking.
This is your chance, Paton. Redeem yourself.
I was close to returning indoors and never thinking on the matter again but a small voice inside me was beating around my rib-cage and up my throat until finally:
"You can stay here."
He looked over his shoulder as if to say, I don't need your charity, you're in need of it yourself.
But to my great surprise he squared his shouldered and took the long walk of shame up the drive to the porch. He paused and looked up shamefully at me.
"I mean, that's if you want to," I added. "It's not glamorous living and the toilet backs up a lot."
"I'll take what I can get."
Have it your way, Dad.
Did you forget what's waiting for you on the other side of the door or is this one of your harebrained schemes?