She watches her father as he flashes his smile, acting as always the part of the charmer. Sitting on the hot leather seat of the Harley, wrench in hand, she watches him smile and wonders if that’s how she looks when she does it. Like the world is nothing but a giant playground for their amusement.
Her mother never had that kind of joy. Her mother had always been a memory of thoughtful faces and nose buried in a book. Always writing in her notebooks as she was struck by inspiration, very often ignoring her children’s tugging hands until the urge to calculate and expand left her. Only some of that intelligence she had passed on to her daughter, who had preferred to daydream, musical notes to mathematics.
The sun is as hot as she liked it, preferring to sweat instead of freeze. Living in this northern climate is ridiculous, and every single snowflake mocks her. It’s almost sinful knowing now that whenever the cold strikes, she has a guaranteed spot on the couch next to her father, snuggled up under blankets and nursing cups of hot chocolate (his with just a splash of brandy). The closeness soothes her, even if he doesn’t do all those fatherly things you see on television. Most days they’re fine merely talking.
But it’s hot now, and she’s sitting on his Harley, watching him as he talks to the woman he thinks he loves, knowing personally that he doesn’t. It’s a sad thing to know what people truly feel and having to watch them act as if they don’t know, continuing to order their lives they way they want instead of the way they should be. She wants to tell him the lady isn’t worth it – she can tell they’ll hurt each other – but she’s just his daughter. This is the beginning of their own relationship. Maybe in a few years she’ll tell him.
She watches her father as he slumps back into bed, still too tired to sit upright. A certain amount of charm in his smile would inspire anyone to sympathy, but she’s already there. She’s also the only frequent visitor to his side, which adds to the depth of anger sparking her eyes as she holds out the bowl of soup.
It had taken no time at all to learn how to read him; they were two of a kind. She knows now the fragility surrounding him, even as he tries hard not to show it. All he wants to do is pretend everything’s fine, that all he has to do is get up and find the woman he thinks he loves and tell her…
Tell her what? He won’t tell her. Secrets, chère, they have to be kept.
Bullshit, she says, forgetting the soup in her hands, forgetting she’s supposed to be feeding him. A reversal of roles, though there had never been much of the traditional relationship between them. Secrets. They both had them. Everyone in the mansion had them. But they were supposed to be different, the two of them. He was supposed to tell her when something was wrong.
She hates watching this man, who she knows could be so much stronger, continuing to act the part of the weakling. What would he have been, had she found him earlier, before he had joined this team of manipulated loners? She likes to think he would have been amazing. Not the songbird her stepfather had been, always airing his dirty laundry for a dollar, but the rogue. Someone to confide in who would take on the world with her at his side. Her father and her friend.
The soup grows cold as he sleeps, and she dreams.
She watches her father as they argue, seeing in his eyes what many others didn’t. Fear. There was no charm now, no devil-may-care smile. It was nearly Christmas, and they were arguing to bring down their world.
Always it was about her. It would always be about her, she reflected. The woman who had nearly killed him with a kiss, and who would never, in her opinion, be strong enough to control herself. Why did he continue to lie to himself that he loved her? Their relationship was one of distance and safety. The lady could be forgiven because she was naïve as the child from the swamp she was, but her father should have known better.
It never seemed to matter that she could sense everyone’s emotions, that she could read him like a book. On the subject of his love life, she was always wrong. She was misreading them. The lady would learn to overcome, she’d be happy with him. Even if she was currently running around with that Joseph guy who so conveniently made himself available to her.
She was old enough herself now to know how to flash a smile and lay the world at her feet. Old enough to know how he did it, and often going into the city to do it herself. Telling him that keeping himself cooped up like the court eunuch was going to drive him mad, like it nearly had her before they found her. All for the shadow of love for a woman and a past he felt he needed to atone for.
When he tells her that she herself had no basis for telling him what love was, she shouts at him. She couldn’t remember a time before that day that she had shouted at him, or a day she had really let her emotions get the better of her since she had come to the mansion, but she shouts at him now. That he doesn’t have a clue about her past what he’s bothered to find out, because they’ve existed as a strange partnership of blood and friendship. That he’s always seemed more comfortable thinking of her as some kind of distant surrogate of her mother’s comforting ear than as his daughter to get to know.
Even when he looks defeated, she doesn’t stop. Her shouting sounds distant and far away, because part of her is watching with a strange detachment. Because it’s true, and she doesn’t want it to be. She wants to be his daughter, not just his best friend. She wants to share these secrets with him, because they should be closer than this. They should be a true team.
After it’s all over, she knows nothing has changed. The apologies he offers her are hollow, because he’ll keep choosing the lady over her. Even when she tells him she’d rather leave the mansion with him, exploring the world as a pair, all he does is tell her they’re better off here. Making amends for a past she doesn’t understand. Always keeping one step apart from one another as he spirals further into his self-dug hole.
Whatever you say, mon père. Just don’t be surprised when I’m no longer here.
She’s sure that even though she never told him exactly in so many words that she was leaving, with or without him, he understands that night.
She watches her father as he smiles at the camera, shading his eyes from the sun that hot day. If she moves her hand, she can see herself sitting on the Harley behind him, sunglasses over her eyes hiding the burgeoning disappointment at the picture taker. But of course, it’s only a picture; all she can see is a hot summer’s day and two people who should have been closer. Them against the world. Just Alex and Remy, needing no one but each other.
Thumbing the cell phone in her pocket, she wonders what difference a day would have made. But, on reflection, she knows it would have been just another day.
Fin.
