Seth continued. “You believed in the mission and it was a good one, and while a lot went wrong, this will pass and you’ll be fine. When is your interview?”
She knew he wasn’t referring to any of the seventeen job interviews. Nor was he talking about the latest three resumes she’d sent to companies in Atlanta, Charlotte, and Minneapolis. He was talking about the only interview, in the end, that mattered. The one with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“The message didn’t say anything, just that they can interview me out of the Chicago office. They have all my emails. Heck, they have every keystroke ever made at XGC, so they have to know I knew nothing . . . But what if I really am to blame?”
“You’re not to blame.”
“You don’t know that. I don’t know that. Because no one will tell me anything. Even my lawyer doesn’t know what they’re up to . . . Do you know they’ve interviewed every other department? He told me that. Even members of my team. But not me. Nothing. Silence.”
“It might be clear you’re innocent.”
“But I’m not . . . My team created that code, made those predictive algorithms. If someone got told they were headed toward ALS, it’s because we told them so. Then all that data was sold. Did you hear that? That’s what they’re saying. Fox News and CNN reported it, and if they both agree, it must be true. Who knows what kind of marketing these people have gotten. Can you imagine? Your most horrid fears showing up as ads in the sidebars of your Google searches? I’m going—” Alyssa couldn’t pull in air. It felt as if her heart was thumping up and out of her chest and closing off her windpipe.
“Enough.” Seth leaned over and clamped a hand on her knee. His grip was so tight she gasped as the pain shifted her attention. He released her knee and sat back again. “My college soccer coach used to do that. Worked every time.”
“Oddly it does.” She rubbed her knee.
“Sweetheart.” He waited until she met his eyes. “Looking to the past, especially when you don’t know the whole story, won’t get you anywhere. Take it from me—and I don’t mean just about work. I mean life. You’ll make assumptions.”
He paused so long Alyssa sensed he was talking about more than XGC.
“You will make mistakes,” he continued without prompting. “Focus on here and now, and your next first step. Only that . . . And I’m glad you’re home.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Alyssa felt her pulse slow. She knew he was trying to encourage her, and no matter how hopeless it all felt, she appreciated it. But she also feared he was skirting close to talking about her mom. She didn’t want to—no, she couldn’t—go there, not today.
She looked around her dad’s small apartment, the most visible and tangible reminder of their divorce. While it wasn’t what she imagined for him, it did look like him. She envied the cozy, comfortable space he’d created for himself. Fly fishing photos from his trip to South America displayed on his bookshelves, Cubs tickets pinned to the small bulletin board outside his kitchen, the pillow she’d made for him in eighth-grade home economics class tucked behind him into the corner of his one armchair.
She looked toward the outer wall. Two French doors opened onto a tiny balcony. The eighteen inches didn’t even allow for a chair, but double doors gave the room a sense of space and filled it with clear morning light. It was an apartment she could envision for herself. She could rest here.
The realization that she could, in fact, rest instantly heightened her exhaustion. Her stomach started a slow burn, but she couldn’t bring herself to cross the living room for her handbag and Tums by the front door.
“Can I crash in your spare room while I find a job and build up some savings? I’ll be gone by Labor Day. I’m giving myself the summer to get a cushion under me. I’ll work anywhere. Maybe Lexi will let me wait tables at Mirabella.”
She mustered up bright expectation and was a little confused by his steady stare back.
Then it came . . .
“You can’t stay here.”
Four words and nothing more.
Alyssa blinked. Her dad now held her gaze—without blinking. She felt her mouth drop open, but no words came.
He leaned forward and tapped her knee. This time it was gentle. It was the kind of tap you give a five-year-old soccer player rather than one falling apart on the field in college. “It’s not that I don’t want to help, Alyssa, but it’s not what’s best. I have only that pullout chair in the other room and . . . You need to stay with Mom. She’s got that whole house and . . . That’s it. You need to stay at home.”
Alyssa smashed the heels of both hands into her eyes. If she rubbed hard enough, maybe the exhaustion, the conversation, or best yet, both, would disappear. When the stars dimmed in her dark blue inside-eyelid sky, she opened them. “It’s true then, isn’t it? Chase said you two are dating.”
Seth’s ears tipped red. “I never thought my children would gossip about my love life, but yes, and if you had been willing to talk about it, I’d have told you directly.”
“Mom tried.”
“You talked to your mother?” Seth’s voice lifted in approval.
Alyssa bit her lip and shook her head. “She left a couple messages.”
“I see. Then this will be good for you both.”
“How is this happening? She cheated on you. You divorced her. How can you just forget that?” Alyssa pressed her lips shut. She sounded like that five-year-old.
Seth moved his head in a slow nod. “While true, that’s too simplistic. Don’t make her the bad guy and let me off the hook. And I haven’t forgotten. I’ve forgiven her and she me.”
“What’d she have to forgive you for? You weren’t the one playing Hide the Paintbrush with the art teacher.” Alyssa gasped. Sharp, snarky comments usually resided in her head. If there was one thing her mom had drilled in deep, it was to never let them out, to never give less than a perfect impression of herself.
And besides all that—had she really just said that? To her dad? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. That was horrible.” She held up her hand, fully expecting her dad to deliver a well-deserved lecture on rudeness and respect to his thirty-one-year-old daughter.
Instead he chuckled. “I can see you and Mom are going to have a wonderful time together.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Seth stood, and that was lecture enough. Alyssa knew the conversation was over.
She looked up at him. “Can I have a day? Can you let me crash here, then I’ll head home tomorrow morning?” She offered a shaky smile. “Sometimes we don’t say things the right way when we’re tired, and Mom and me, we’re not . . .”
He raised a brow.
“Again, I am sorry I said that, Dad. I promise I will go tomorrow.”
“Of course.” Seth sighed and moved toward his front door. “Before you sleep, let’s get your bags inside and make up that pullout.”
“I’ve only got my purse . . . Everything else got stolen on the way back here.”
He turned around. “You have had it rough.”
Alyssa managed a weak nod. Anything more would have brought the tears again and the only four words she wanted to say.