What About Us

by Sidney Halston

  “It’s almost done,” I say, so excited for him to see it. I ordered office furniture as well, and that’ll be delivered on the same day as the bedroom things. I’ve planned it out so he’s not home when the movers come to rearrange everything. He gets up abruptly and begins to walk toward the door. “Where are you going?”

  “To see it.”

  I grab his arm to stop him. “No!”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s a surprise. I want you to see the finished product.”

  He smiles and rolls his eyes. “I hate surprises.”

  “It’s a good one. Trust me?”

  He kisses the top of my head. “Fine. But if it’s not done in the next two weeks, I’m going to call in a new contractor and project manager to get it finished.”

  “You are such a grump sometimes.”

  His eyes roam over my computer screen and his brows furrow. “What’s that?”

  I glance at the laptop, then close it. “Oh. Uh…”

  “Helen?”

  “I think I’m going to go with you to Seattle, after all.”

  “That’s good. But that’s—”

  “The site for the penitentiary. I was checking the visiting hours. I thought since I would be in town anyway, I’d visit my dad.”

  “Your dad?” he bellows, shocking me. With all that we’ve been through in the last few weeks, I’ve never heard him yell so loud. “You cannot go see your dad. Over my dead body.”

  “Excuse me? Over your dead body? Have you lost your damn mind? He’s my father!” I am seething. How dare he?

  “He’s a liar and a thief, and there’s no way I’m taking you home to see my mother after you’ve gone on a cute little visit with your father. You may not be responsible for my father’s death, but your father sure as fuck is!”

  “What’s insane is that you have the nerve to ask me to accept your mother. She knew me. You both knew me and you never once tried to find out what happened to me. You never gave me the benefit of the doubt and instead just assumed I’d stolen money from you and was out gallivanting all over the world with stolen money. And still, I’m trying to be the bigger person because of the shit you’ve had to endure, and go to your mother’s birthday party. But, Alex, if you think for one second that it’s not hard for me, you’re absolutely wrong. And then you have the gall to think you can forbid me from visiting my father? You are completely fucked up in the head if you think you can decide to ignore the past when it suits you but not when it suits me.”

  “Don’t curse.”

  “Fuck. You!”

  “My mother didn’t do anything wrong. If she’s willing to sit in a room with you, the least you can do is not visit your father.”

  Sit in a room with me? As if I’m some sort of leper!

  I stomp up the stairs. In the weeks since Luke was imprisoned, I’ve gone home once a week, mostly to get clothes. Every time I plan on leaving, Alex lures me back to his delicious bed and I end up staying over. But I need some distance from him right now. I’m too upset. I grab a duffel bag and start shoving things into it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to go home. I can’t stand you right now.”

  “You can’t stand me? Me? You’re the one who refuses to see the truth! Your father fucked us all! You included! I’m actually even madder at him now and it’s on your behalf!”

  It takes all I have not to slap him. “Oh my God, you really are crazy! He did not do anything wrong! He is innocent!”

  “Don’t be naïve, Helen! He even pled guilty, for Chrissake.”

  “I’m not being naïve! He had no choice. There was no money for attorneys and he got a plea deal, and—”

  “Who pleads guilty to a deal where you rot in jail? Come on, think about it. He pled guilty because he is guilty! Otherwise, he’d have gone to trial and risked the loss. It would have been the same outcome!”

  His words ring loudly in my mind. Who pleads guilty to a deal where you rot in jail? I’d never thought about that.

  “No, you’re wrong.” But I hear the doubt in my own voice. I zip up my bag and stomp back down the stairs.

  “Do not walk out that door, Helen.”

  I look behind me, narrow my eyes, and defiantly walk right out the door and straight into my car. I don’t stop until I’m safely inside my house.

  My dad’s a good man. The best man I’ve ever known. Why can’t others see that? Why can’t they understand that he didn’t have a choice but to plead guilty?

  Damn Alex. Now I’m doubting myself and doubting my father. But why would he plead guilty? Even if he had used a free public defender and was found guilty, he’d have had the same outcome. I was so young when everything happened, I never really looked into it. I took my father’s word for it and never doubted him. But now I’m starting to think about what he said when I told him about running into Alex and how anxious he became. Was it because he thought I’d learn something he didn’t want me to know?

  I’m pacing around my house, unable to think of anything but needing to talk to my father. But I can’t call him and I need to know.

  Fuck it. I take the same duffel bag I packed at Alex’s and decide that my visit to my father can’t wait one more day.

  While I’m at the airport waiting to board an expensive last-minute flight to Seattle, I think about how Alex hasn’t called me once. The hurt I feel is indescribable. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed that he hasn’t reciprocated my words of love and I haven’t said them again. With a sigh, I try to put Alex out of my mind, so I decide to do something I hadn’t done before. I search the Web for my father.

  I know it seems stupid to anyone looking in—why wouldn’t a Google search be the first thing I did back then?

  Well, first, he’s my father; I believed him.

  Second, he asked me not to. He said that the media was spinning things to make him look like the bad guy and everything they said was lies. And again, since he’s my father and I was just a naïve eighteen-year-old, I believed him.

  But, if I’m being truly honest with myself, I’ve always been a little scared. Scared of reading awful things about him, but also…well, what if he’s not this great person I’ve made him out to be?

  I search his name and there’s article after article about him.

  Prominent stockbroker, investment advisor, indicted.

  Fraud.

  Sixty billion.

  Pleads guilty.

  Twenty years in prison instead of the one hundred and fifty that he could have faced.

  Ponzi scheme.

  Fabricated gains…

  I keep reading, and then start to pull the actual legal documents that I find in public records. My head hurts and when I finally look at my watch, it’s time to board the flight.

  Alex

  She’s not answering her phone. And, why would she? I was an asshole. Again.

  I needed to cool down, but when I get in bed—alone—it hits me that I need her here with me. I don’t just need her, I want her. I want her all the time—talking, laughing, fighting with me, understanding me. I just want to be around her all the time. Forever.

  I’m an idiot. Of course she’s going to defend her father. He’s her father. Forcing her to believe me isn’t going to get her to understand.

  I try her again, but this time the call goes straight to voicemail. I spend the next hour pacing around the house like a madman. Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I get in my car and go to her house. She can’t ghost me if I’m knocking at her door. She’ll have to talk to me.

  Except that her car’s not there.

  Now, I’m getting worried. I knock, but there’s no answer. I look through her windows, and it’s dark and empty inside. I must’ve called her twenty times
before I finally return to my house. By three A.M., I’ve had two strong drinks and I’m a complete wreck.

  Restless, I lie down on my bed, throw an arm over my face, and think back. Everything has happened so quickly, and I’ve reacted without really analyzing any of it, which is completely out of my character.

  When I was a boy and the Blackwoods had Helen, our parents gushed that we’d be married one day and they’d all be family. Through the years, my parents called Helen their future daughter-in-law and even talked about how our kids would look. I always ignored them, thinking it was ridiculous because she was so young. And even if she hadn’t been young, and even if her parents seemed to like the idea of a Blackwood-Archer merger, her father was very overprotective and would have cut my dick off had I made a move on little Helen. She was always off-limits.

  Thinking back, she never made it a secret that she had a crush on me. But I always thought of it as just that: a crush. An innocent adolescent crush that I frankly tried to ignore.

  Even when I couldn’t help but pay attention to how beautiful she’d become, or how she craved my attention, I had to remember she was off-limits.

  Then on her eighteenth birthday, when I saw her walk down the steps and my breath caught, I thought…well, maybe now I don’t have to pretend anymore. And then we kissed.

  Had all that shit with her father not happened, I’m one hundred percent sure that I’d have pursued Helen. I would have stopped at nothing to kiss her again.

  Except, that night ended in chaos.

  And not until this very moment did I ever think about what it must’ve been like for Helen when her life fell apart. I’d been so busy trying to mend my own life and take care of my own family, I never even thought about how humiliating and scary it must have been to have federal agents storm your home with an arrest warrant, to not have anyone help you sort through the mess.

  And her sonofamotherfucker father left her alone to deal with the mess. An eighteen-year-old girl.

  My heart aches at the way I reacted to that day. Or rather, failed to react. All these years I thought she was selfish, but hell, so was I.

  I dial her cell again, not caring that it’s four A.M. It goes straight to voicemail. Again.

  Damn it.

  At some point between fits of worry, I fall asleep.

  Helen

  I land at Sea-Tac Airport, exhausted. With only ten percent battery life left on my cellphone, I turn it off to conserve the little I have until I check into my hotel.

  I feel as if I’ve been flying all night. Which I have. I need a shower and a bed.

  This little trip is going to take a huge toll on my bank account, but I have to get the real story. I haven’t seen my dad all year and we have a lot to discuss. Plus, I miss him. It’s been almost a year since I last saw him. Our weekly calls aren’t enough. I want to see him. I haven’t told him about my new job yet and absolutely haven’t told him about Alex. It’s been weighing on me. We don’t lie to each other, and my omission feels like a lie. But I know he’s going to be disappointed in me for working for Alex, and definitely for falling in love with him.

  Once I am finally inside my room, I rummage through my bag for my phone charger and connect it while I shower. Then I turn on the television and lie down on the bed. My phone beeps with a bunch of messages—all from Alex. All asking me to call him immediately.

  Right now, it’s the middle of the night, his time, and I don’t know if replying at this time is such a great idea since he’s most likely sleeping.

  I quickly type out a response letting him know I’m fine and I’ll call him tomorrow.

  I’m dozing off when my phone chimes with an incoming text from Alex,

  “Are you home? Where were you? I went to your house and you weren’t there. Where have you been all night?” I see the dots on the phone blink and then stop, and then blink again and stop again. What the hell is he possibly writing? “I’m sorry about everything. Come home. I need you.”

  My heart pounds. Coming from Alex, who doesn’t understand how to verbalize emotions, this is a huge deal.

  “I’m in Seattle. I have to visit my dad.”

  After a moment, my phone rings, and I look at it as if it’s a bomb before reluctantly answering it.

  “Hello?”

  “Helen,” Alex says in a gravelly sleep-fogged voice.

  “Alex, it’s late.”

  “How are you in Seattle?”

  “How? I flew.”

  “Alone? You just got on a plane and flew across the country without telling me?”

  “I didn’t know I had to tell you.”

  I hear a groan over the phone. I’m not being fair. If he was leaving the state, I’d expect him to tell me. “Sorry I didn’t call. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

  He breathes into the phone. “I’m sorry. What I said earlier…I should not have said anything. He’s your dad and it’s not my place.”

  “I need to talk to him. I hate that you planted doubt in my head.” My eyes water, and before I know it I’m crying. “I’m tired, Alex. It was a long day and a long flight. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon, okay? After I’ve spoken to my father.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Nothing else to say.”

  “Call me as soon as you get out tomorrow. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Good night, Helen. I hate not sleeping with you.”

  “That’s nice to hear, Alex,” I say, truthfully. It’s difficult to know how he feels sometimes. He tries to take care of me, even if he sometimes does it by steamrolling me into giving in. Rarely does he tell me how he feels. Hearing that he needs me as much as I need him feels good. “I’ll miss sleeping with you too. G’night.”

  “G’night, baby.”

  We hang up, but I have a heavy heart in my not-so-comfy hotel bed.

  * * *

  —

  I go through the usual security check at the prison. Now I’m sitting at a picnic table in a courtyard surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Since this isn’t a high-security prison, I can sit and talk to my dad without Plexiglas separating us.

  I hear the loud buzz signaling that the metal door is going to open, and there’s my dad, wearing the orange jumpsuit all the inmates here have on. When he sees me, he smiles warmly. I watch him as he gets closer, taking note of how much he’s aged since I last saw him.

  “Honey!” he exclaims excitedly. He takes me into his embrace, but it’s short-lived because physical contact is limited here. “How are you? I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you so much too, Daddy.”

  “You look good, princess. Better than I’ve seen you in a long time.”

  “Really?” I say, surprised, and then shrug.

  “Tell me everything. How’s work? What’s new?”

  “Well, I finally signed the divorce papers and Luke’s out of my life.” I don’t tell him all the details. We have limited time and I need to talk to him about other, more important things.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I know how much that must hurt.”

  When I married Luke, I was head-over-heels in love and I told my father all about it. But that love faded a long, long time ago. “It’s fine. I’m okay. It’s for the best.”

  He smiles knowingly. “It’s for the best?” He chuckles. “So, who’s the new guy? That’s why you’re glowing, isn’t it? It’s why you’re not too sad over the divorce.”

  I take a deep breath and exhale. “I have to ask you something, Daddy, and I need you to be honest with me. You promise?”

  “I’m always honest with you, honey. I’ve never lied to you; you know that. What’s going on, Helen?”

  “Dad, I don�
��t even know how to ask you this.” I’m so nervous, my hands are shaking. How exactly do you ask your father if he’s a lying, thieving felon?

  “What is it? You’re scaring me. Did something happen?”

  “I need you to tell me the truth. I need you to swear to me that you are innocent. That you did not—” It’s hard to say the words. “Swear to me that you didn’t embezzle all that money, Daddy. Tell me the absolute truth.”

  “Honey…” His voice breaks.

  I feel the tears flowing out of my eyes as I talk and the lump in my throat is choking me. “Tell me the truth, damn it,” I say firmly.

  “Honey, I…I never lied to you.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. Just because you didn’t come out and say you didn’t steal the money doesn’t mean you didn’t lie to me. Although, you did tell me you pled guilty because of the legal fees. Was that a lie?”

  “Helen…” A tear falls from his eye, and I know right then and there that every single thing he told me since the arrest has been bullshit. Hell, everything he’s told me my whole life has been bullshit.

  I stand up and pace the small area. “Oh God. I can’t believe it. How could you?”

  “You had a wonderful life. You did things most people will never get to do. I did it for you, honey.”

  I slam my palms on the table. “Do not ever say that. You didn’t do that for me. You did that for you.”

  “No! That’s not true. I did do it for you. It started as a risky investment that went great and my clients threw more and more money my way. I reinvested but the next didn’t do so well. I got scared and made a number of bad investments. I didn’t tell my clients. I thought I had it under control. I wanted your life to be great and I didn’t want any of my problems to ever affect your life.”

  “That worked out great, Dad! Don’t you think having my father around, even if we were living in a one-bedroom apartment, would have been better than coming to visit you in prison? Or how about living out of my car, or sleeping with an empty stomach, or just…everything!”