After one final, unhappy survey of the rapidly darkening, nearly empty parking lot outside her classroom windows, he did. Jogging to catch up with Bea, he fell into step beside her as they trundled down the stairs and toward the main school entrance.
For once, his daughter remained silent, even without her earbuds in place. And in that brief oasis of quiet, his brain picked through images from the afternoon. The vivid sunflowers on Keisha’s dress and the charming way she kind of crossed her eyes when making a point she considered vital. The personality-free patch of the department office where he’d spend his own planning periods, a space containing only a countertop, a chair, a cart, and a few shelves overhead. Lists of test dates and schedules and learning objectives.
Rose Owens. Ivory covered in ebony, polished from crown to pointed toe. Tall. Lush. Controlled. Scrupulously polite, undeniably helpful, and unfathomably distant.
A frozen monarch, melted by a teenager in a quippy tee.
Funny how he’d enjoyed both the ice and its temporary thaw. How he’d found both impressive. How something inside him had awakened when his nonsense earned her smile.
As they settled into her car and buckled their belts, his daughter finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
Despite the dusk, Bea’s hair still gleamed from the driver’s seat. His golden girl, now staring at him with beetled brow, clearly remorseful. Why, he couldn’t guess.
“What about, sweet Bea?”
The childhood nickname didn’t elicit a protest, which was evidence enough of her distress. She didn’t say anything for a minute, and he tried not to cringe as she reversed the car out of the parking space with a speed he’d never have attempted and zipped out of the lot.
“I thought…” She came to a full halt at a stop sign and looked both ways before proceeding through the intersection, and he sent a silent thanks to the ever-patient instructors at her former driving school. “I didn’t think you minded the names.”
“The names?”
He knew which names. But she needed time and space to work through what she wanted to say, and he wouldn’t insert his own words into the process.
“Old Sobersides. Resting Proctologist Face. I thought they were kind of like…I don’t know.” Her throat shifted in a hard swallow. “Family jokes, or something.”
“They were.” He hesitated. “They are.”
“But we’re not a family anymore.” At his immediate protest, she raised a staying hand from the steering wheel, eyes still on the road. “I know, I know, you and I are still family. Mom and I are still family. But the three of us aren’t. Not since the divorce. And definitely not since Mom got engaged to Reggie and came here.”
“Sweet Bea…” He gave her arm a brief, gentle squeeze. “I moved to Marysburg to be near you for at least one more year. You’re my family, no matter what. Never doubt that.”
“I don’t doubt that. That’s what I just said.” His daughter’s voice contained an uncharacteristic snap. “Please listen to me.”
He subsided back into his seat. “Okay. Okay. I’m listening.”
Her voice lowered. “This isn’t about whether you love me, Dad. You do. I know that. This is about whether you ever really liked those nicknames, or whether you put up with them because Mom and I thought they were funny. And if you didn’t like them, you shouldn’t have had to hear them. Not when we were all a family, and definitely not now.”
Befuddled, he squinted against the glare from another car’s headlights. “What brought this on, Bea?”
She licked her lips. “When I called you Old Sobersides in front of Ms. Owens, you looked…I don’t know. Uncomfortable, I guess. Maybe a little embarrassed. And I got worried that I’d hurt your feelings. That we’d hurt your feelings, for all these years.”
“You didn’t hurt my feelings in front of Ms. Owens.” He shifted in the seat until he was facing her profile. “Please don’t be concerned about that.”
Bea, true to her stubborn nature, was not mollified. “But do you actually think those nicknames are funny? Do you like them?”
That…that was a hard question. “I guess I’ve had similar nicknames most of my life, so I don’t think too much about them.”
He’d certainly had worse ones, especially as a kid. Casper, for how invisible he’d tried to become. Mute Boy, for how seldom he’d spoken at home. Pansy, for how he’d proven a liability in organized sports and hated playing the violent, mean games his older brother Kurt and Kurt’s asshole friends had preferred. How he’d cried that time their father used the spatula on him.
“But do you like them?” Bea flicked him an impatient glance. “Come on, Dad, answer the question.”
There was really no simple answer. That was going to be true of many questions in Bea’s life, so she might as well learn it now.
“Sometimes I think those names are funny. Because you’re funny, and because you say them with affection.” Just as Bea had no doubt of her place in his heart, he didn’t worry for a moment about whether she loved him back. “But other times, maybe not.”
He certainly hadn’t appreciated them the last few years of his marriage. Not when the fondness in Sabrina’s tone had become edged with scorn. Not when she’d flung those nicknames between them like a gauntlet, a challenge to be better. Less boring. A worthwhile husband, one not so preoccupied with grading and other people’s children.
Then, the edge in those familiar phrases had left him bleeding but unable to complain about the slice of pain. Because it was just a joke, after all. Just a family joke.
Bea cut to the point. “Not when Mom uses them.”
Not in the last decade, no.
He chose his words with the care of a man disarming an explosive. “That’s a matter for your mother and me to address, if we ever find it necessary. It’s not something you need to worry about.”
Bea’s lips thinned. “Whatever. Either way, I won’t use those nicknames again.”
“That’s up to you.” He tried to convey his sincerity, but wasn’t sure he succeeded. “My feelings won’t be hurt if you do.”
“Hmmm.” In that moment, his daughter sounded very much like Rose had earlier.
Long minutes passed, and Bea had pulled into the fast food drive-through line, grabbed his wallet to pay the cashier, handed over their food, and started for home before she spoke again. “Ms. Owens is pretty. She seems nice, too.”
He almost laughed. Pretty and nice were such pallid terms for the woman he’d met that day, and neither strictly applied.
Gorgeous. Generous. Self-contained. Inscrutable. Those words captured Rose Owens.
But Rose had been nice to his daughter, and he didn’t care to reveal his thoughts about his colleague to Bea. Not when this conversation already had him skirting landmines.
So, sure. He could agree to Bea’s assessment. “Yes. I’m glad you liked her.”
“She’s really different from Mom.”
In so many ways. Thick and curvaceous where Sabrina had been slight and athletic in frame. Regally tall, rather than petite. Dark-haired, instead of blond. Monochromatic when Sabrina had loved bright colors.