I went back to work. But the ward felt smaller than it had ten minutes ago.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jack
It took her two weeks to leave me completely stumped.
More than any engine I’d ever pulled apart, more than any problem I’d encountered on a rig in North Dakota or a highway in Nevada, more than anything my father had ever thrown at me or my own head had managed to come up with in thirty-six years of trying. Two weeks, and she did it over macaroni and cheese on a Tuesday night. She didn't even look up from her bowl when she said it.
"Are you my dad now?"
I set my fork down.
She was eating, still, working through the macaroni with her usual methodical focus. She asked it the way she asked everything. Straight, no preamble, like it was just a missing piece of a puzzle she needed to find.
"I'm your uncle," I said. "Your mom's brother."
She considered this, her spoon hovering mid-air. "But you live here now."
"Yeah."
"And you pick me up from school."
"Yeah."
"And you make my dinner." She looked down at the bowl. "Mostly."
I let that one go. I knew exactly where I stood in the culinary rankings, and it was somewhere just above "cereal for dinner."
She put her spoon down and looked at me properly for the first time since she’d asked. "Tommy Henderson has a dad," she said. "He picks him up on Fridays. They go to McDonald’s." A pause. "I had a dad once."
"I know," I said. My voice felt thick in my throat.
"I don't remember him though." She said it without particular sadness, just as a fact. "Mommy said he was very kind. And that he had a nice smile." She looked at her own small face in the toaster’s reflection. "She said I have his smile."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't.
"Mommy said he’s in heaven," she said. "Looking down at me." She looked at the table, her brow furrowed. "Is she there too? With him?"
The kitchen was very quiet. Even the hum of the refrigerator seemed to cut out, leaving us alone with the question.
"Yeah," I said. "I think so."
She nodded slowly, like this was satisfactory information. Then: "Do you think they can see us right now?"
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe."
She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, assessing the plaster as if it were a two-way mirror. Then she picked her spoon back up. "I hope she can’t see my room," she said. "It’s messy."
Something moved in my chest that I didn’t have a name for—something heavy and sharp that felt like it had been waiting years for a reason to wake up.
We ate in silence for a moment. Then she said, without looking up: "If you're my dad now, will I get a new mom too?"
"That's not really how it works," I said carefully.
"Tommy Henderson’s dad got a new girlfriend," she said. "She makes him eat broccoli. He doesn't like it." She paused, considering the trade-off. "I don't mind broccoli."
"Good to know."