Work Text:
Steal the kitchen stool for the back porch.
Sixteen, long hair pulled up messy, wipe your forehead on your sleeve and bum a smoke from the kid to your left and sit down in cutoff shorts and a loose button-down (your mother's, from the 90s). Tan arms akimbo with the cig in your mouth.
The evening settles with a heave. It's never dark here, you love the far-off orange blush of West Palm Beach against the sky. Neighbour dog barks, headlights bleach the yard. For half a second, you figure it's another buddy showing up, but someone says whose car is that? and the chairs all skid against the tile. You take a drag and snuff it out in the repurposed coffee can.
You hear dad out on the driveway asking for you among your friends, some maybe almost as old as him, many younger. You don't care why he's here or if he smells weed on their shirts. He's not going to yell at you.
"Jolyne," one of them hisses through the screen door.
"Yeah, yeah," but the cadence is too familiar and you say nothing more and ease off the seat, taking the back stairs down to the asphalt and St. Augustine grass. Dad doesn't know he looks out of place and awkward, standing so stiffly, looking at no one but you, his back to the headlights. Some kind of monolith, looming black. How many weeks? Only a month this time? You throw your shoes down, scattering sand, and follow after them into the passenger seat. Roll your eyes and wave goodbye as dad backs the car out into the street and away.
"Nice entrance," you say, not embarrassed, but hoping he won't repeat the same arrival next time he shows up with no invitation (and you're almost surprised when he never does.) "When'd you get in?"
"Tonight. I called your mom to ask where you were."
"You don't have my phone number," you say. It's not a question. Dad doesn't answer, reading the signs and directing the car onto the highway, out of this small town, to head to yours. You hate it when he's quiet, and he's always quiet. No satisfaction in yelling when it's unreturned, so you speak concisely, matching him. Is he unaware he's being mocked? This is a defense, a weapon? You bite your teeth down inside your mouth between short sentences and sit on your hands. Why the hell is he here.
Highway lamps yellow-pink and eerie. Window cracked so your hair blows around. Squint into it. Home is easily another hour away and neither of you move to turn on the radio. Even moving is too personal. Is this how he feels? You don't care how he feels, if he feels at all you'd never know it.
"I'm sorry if I embarrassed you," he says of his arrival.
"You didn't."
Off the highway, off the main roads onto something smaller and into a turnaround point where the swamp greenery grows lower, giving way to mangroves and the ocean scent spills through the windows, and the palm trees are more sparse. He parks the car and watches you throw the door open and turn away, but remain seated. You want to run away like you did when you were fourteen, and cut your feet up on the sidewalk until you were surrounded by shrubs and you knelt down and cried among them as soon as you knew no one would see. It wasn't messy, it was too clean and it was your fault, somehow, you knew it, even when no one would say anything, like always. The water's right there, and dad wouldn't want to get his shoes wet.
You want to love him so badly. Why does he make it so hard, and why in these moments does it seem to come so easy to him.
"I like the city," he suddenly says as if airing some great conclusion, "but I find myself sometimes needing this." He drops the keys from the ignition, the headlights shut off and it's a taciturn dark swallowing you both up. Dad leans out his window and you follow his line of sight; the orange clouds still there on the horizon but the milky band cuts the sky. It's beautiful but it's nothing special. It's nothing special at all. It's some kind of consolation, you both know it.
"Yeah," you offer your own. Dad opens his door and kicks one leg out to rest on the ground, and leans back. Both of you are quiet and listen to the brackish tide. You miss him when he's gone and it hurts not to know if he feels the same. What does it mean. You haven't accepted a hug for about a year, not that there was much opportunity for rejection, with him either in the other house or gone entirely.
The sounds of water. Night birds and frogs taking up their homes in thick roots and round leaves silhouetted on the sky. Practising for years as a child, you know some of the constellations, and now absent-mindedly make note of them.
"I can just take you home," dad says, delayed in realising his forwardness, and fishes for the keys in the centre console. Eye his hand as he does this.
"What if you died and I didn't know it," you suddenly blurt out. "What if I died and you didn't know it? How long would it take to find out?"
He fumbles with the keys and drops them. His surprise surprises you and for a guilty instant you want to snatch those words back.
"Your mom would tell me if something had happened. Do you--"
"I could just die and you wouldn't know and you'd be in who knows the fuck where, and take forever to get here, if you came back at all."
Dad is quiet but you never ever know if it's out of hurt or if the things you say just aren't interesting enough to hold his attention, his eyes so far-off all the time, like there's something better and his amusement in him wanes, until you break something, until you're picked up by the cops for whatever bullshit reason and dumped in his lap before he escapes to some other unnamed errand. You're outdated entertainment.
"I do love you, Jolyne," he says, and you furrow your brow.
"That's it?" spinning around in your seat and glaring at the fuzzy, half-lit shape of his face. As you adjust to the blue, his few days- old stubble and dark circles become clearer, and his expression, despite his naturally stern features, is soft. You wonder how you look to him, do you look the way you do to the people you hang out with, some young gnarly-haired thing with brutish conviction and a knack for landing in the harrowing, some magnetic kind of waif with strong arms and a lashing vocabulary, who nonetheless bares a gentleness to betray mud-caked shoes, grinning with all your teeth and bruises, a map of the day's events.
"What if I drowned and no one found me until weeks later and they had to do a whole Law and Order thing about it." You hum the theme song.
"Stop it," dad says quieter than you expect. Suddenly it feels like there's a barrier between you two and you watch the hair on your arms stand up. It stays that way and then subsides, a ghost's exit, a ghost of what if not your father's patience, because when you say "It could happen"-- not even to guilt him this time-- he quickly, quicker than you can stop him, and you're fast-- reaches out and grabs you by the back of your head, just holding you, thumb splayed behind your ear. It's not violent. But it's not what you're used to, with him always seeming entirely immobile outside of his minimal programming.
"You can't talk like that," he says, and now his voice matches the austerity of his face. You move to wiggle out of his grasp, all elbows and knees, and after a minute, he lets you go, and sits back, exhausted.
"Fuck you! You're mad because I'm right." Spilling out of the car onto your ass.
"I'm not mad," dad says, like a dad would, only he means it.
"Yes you are!" you counter the lie, "So yell at me! Tell me I'm being a shit, tell me I'm wrong, or, for fuck's sake, tell me I'm right!" He's heard you yell before but not for a while, and the outbursts are usually indirect. Instead of screaming into his face you slam the door after being dropped off by the cops for kicking the vending machine at the nearby motel. No way they're out of Coke.
Like he's never been upset. But you'd believe it, if you heard it.
"Stop being such a stoic piece of shit, it just makes it seem like you don't know what to do with me. I know you don't. And that's what I hate."
A car passes, dad's face glowing in their lights until he fades to blue.
"Can you open the glovebox?"
"Are you for real," you mutter, but lean back into the car and pop the compartment open. Papers, assumingly the registration, pack of smokes, a sandollar and another in pieces. You know what he wants and you fist it up and hand it to him in a shoving gesture and he takes it from you with considerably less force. God. If he wanted them, why not get them himself, not make his bad habits your problem.
"Thanks."
"I thought you quit."
"I did, I am." He slips a cig out of the pack and this time places the rest in the cup holder instead.
"Well, that's good, keep it up."
Dad takes off his coat, black shirt revealed underneath. Thank god it's a t-shirt, sometimes looking at his outfits makes you mad when you're standing with your belly in front of the AC, chewing ice and chiding him for not turning it on before you arrived for the weekend. Used to the unrelenting humidity and complaining when it drops below 70 but some days the heat permeates the stale air in his apartment and you beg to go back to mom's where she keeps it running at all times. He always apologises.
Reach out. Without looking, he hands the coat off to you. Swivels so he's facing away to the road as another pair of cars go by, lighter flicking, old, dry tobacco crackling. You can smoke in here, you want to say, but don't. Even if he wouldn't be mad, he doesn't need to know you bum them off your friends who have IDs. You've watched the ones with parents smoke together and it makes you uncomfortable every time. You suppose at least it's something-- these little activities, shared.
Shake it off. You can hear loud exhaling through his teeth, watch him ash.
"How can you wear this?" you ask under the draping fabric of his coat, instantly too warm. Adjust it so it covers only your shoulders, flick the hair from your face and relax into the seat sticky on your back.
"It's comfortable," he says about something greater than temperature or cloth. He's mostly keeping the cigarette between his fingers and less in his mouth, and whatever you feel about it, you guess it's pride, even if it's unwarranted.
"Can I tell you something?"
Dad's shoulders shake a little when he coughs through a laugh.
"I'm sure you can."
It doesn't come easy, the words have been there a while but he hasn't, resting, some still-submerged truth without a shore and here it is. He doesn't speak in full and neither do you, it's necessary, small things scattered between the now-and-then outbursts. Neither of you proper keepers of what you both have to offer but there's no one better.
"Sometimes I hate fish," you admit, all husky under breath. Dad looks over his shoulder, eyes uncharacteristically wide. You realise you were funny by accident.
"Really? What, why?" he asks as if you don't mean it. Your chin balanced on your knees, eyeing him until you break into a sheepish grin, and he knows you're serious. He doesn't laugh, or smile, but you can tell he's thrown.
"Because," you know the only way to say it is to sound like a diary too embarrassing to reread, "ugh. Fish're always taking you away. They're not even cool-- okay, some of them are-- but sometimes seem you like them more than me. I know it's stupid, like, I know," you emphasise and he nods, understanding, not agreeing, "but sometimes, man, I just fucking hate fish."
Dad laugh-coughs this time but it's less, he turns back around and sighs through what's now a smile.
"Fish are cool," he says, "but I don't blame you." You laugh weakly. "I'd hate what keeps you from me." If not this, then what? He seems to read your mind. "It's not the..." but trails off. "When all this settles," he tries, and you wait with patience you know he hasn't earned, but you give it now, as he lets the night and its sounds eat his pauses. He purses his mouth, and then, "All of this will settle."
"And you'll be around then? Is that a promise?"
"No promise. I wouldn't do that to you." You stare at his back not knowing what he means. He ashes his cigarette on the ground and crushes it with his foot, then thinks better of it, leaning down and picking it up to put it with the other trash in the car door.
"I want to be around, Jolyne, but before I can do that, and especially if I can't..." Too much honesty you don't expect from him, and he doesn't need to finish his sentence for you to understand just enough, and you want to be angry, but you can't. Anger like the condensation hangs in the edges of the windshield but dissipates with the doors open for so long and you're just tired, always staring at him under your hair, miles away and now suddenly so close the breath's knocked out of you. You lean into your knees again.
Dad checks the time on his phone. You forgot to look at yours. He shifts in his seat and you expect the car to start but he turns to you. Straightfaced and serious he says,
"Do you know how I'm happy I am that you're here."
"I know, me too," you answer evenly. Not following it up with any deeper remark, you let your father and his deceiving countenance shuffle awkward with uncertainty so familiar, until he puts his arm around you. You lean against him, also awkward, with the low centre console between you two, but grow used to it. He's breathing with his chin over your head. Chest rising and falling against your back. He's gentle here. You wonder if it's scary for him. To look down and see this thing with the same eyes glaring back.
"Tell me something sick about sharks."
"Ah, well..."
He describes to you in a gentle voice the way the world was when sharks first appeared, their uniquely fine-tuned senses, their superiority among marine apex predators, and like always, when he speaks with undeterred passion, he is serious and articulate but pauses to find the right words, not for the sake of eloquence, but for you, to better understand not the science but the person who says says it. The phrase "they're wicked complex" is used when he describes the social orders, and mentions they have the ability to form friendships with one another, learning from success and mistakes and passing them on.
You concede that, perhaps, fish are cool, and he tries to explain why sharks aren't technically in the same group as most fish, but you aren't ready to go that far.
"It's me." He calls your house and mom reminds him she knows it's him, his name comes up on her phone. She asks where you are, and if everything's alright. "Yes. She was out near West Palm." Mom's voice is quieter. "She's fine. I'm sorry we're running late. We've been enjoying the drive."
Highway lamps again and the drive to St. Lucie is narrated by NPR interspersed with the radio. Rihanna and Lady GaGa. Dad asks you if you know them, if you like them, and you talk for a bit about music, intently and in greater detail when he says he likes what’s on. Turn to a Spanish station that plays the best music, and pick out the pieces you know and translate them for him. He is quiet as ever but responds to what you say and even takes his eyes off the road to answer. You relieve him of your proclivities for a while and turn the dial to a classic rock station, and he taps his fingers along to the Clash. You know the words and sing them when it's too loud for him to hear.
"Are you hungry?" you ask, because you are. He shrugs. "You probably are. Where'd you say you got in?"
"Miami."
"... Not West Palm?"
"I like Miami."
"Let's get something to eat," you say with vigour, turning down the radio. "I'm buying." He starts to protest but closes his mouth and relents. Grin, keep your eyes out for a McDonalds. You know he likes it, or has no standards, the trash in the back says so.
Dad can't remember the order and you lean over him towards his window and shout for three-- no, four-- burgers, and fries, a Coke. And whatever toy's in season.
"And a McFlurry for mom," dad says quietly to you so you'll repeat it. "With m&ms." You say it, then eye him when you clamber back to sit. "She likes them," he explains.
Bleary and confused, you feel his hand on your shoulder and you rub the sleep from your eyes and pat your cheeks. Headlights reflecting against the closed garage door. Mom's in the doorway, and waves when she sees you look up. You almost forget your shoes and remember when your calloused feet hit the gravel driveway, and you scuttle back and grab them, and he pulls his coat off of you as well. Somehow you didn't think to shrug it off, and he takes it and puts it where you sat. Mom sees this and seems happy. Dad waves to mom as he gets out after you and watches wordlessly as you head towards the doorway where the light spills onto the dewy hostas near the front steps.
You hug your mom tightly, she asks how the drive was, and you reply tiredly that it was fine. She'll ask you more about it later and you'll be as honest as you can, and no more.
"Thanks for getting her," mom calls.
"Not a problem," dad says warmly, and mom looks down at you with a surprised and beaming grin. "I'm going to be in town for a week," he adds.
"Then maybe we'll see you," mom says. You catch the two friends exchanging glances and when they fall on you, you scoff and push your mom inside, exasperated. She takes your shoes and goes in, calling your father's name and saying goodbye. You take up her spot in the door and shove your hands into your pockets before realising he's in the same position, and you bite the inside of your cheek, but leave them. He's the first to move, away from the fender and back to his door.
"We should do that again, if you want to," you say, walking down the steps to where the driveway starts, even with your tough feet you don't want to walk on the tiny stones again. He meets you at the edge and hands you your unfinished and lukewarm Coke.
"I would like to." You stare past him and miss the moment where he kisses you on the forehead. Nothing else is said. You smack a mosquito against your arm. He's walking back to the car, getting in, pulling on his seatbelt in between looking up to see if you're still looking at him, his face dimly illuminated by the lights on the dashboard, and he turns to check behind him, and they fade out, and you watch him with sleepy eyes until he drives out of view and is gone again.