Ms. McKinnon goes to her desk and brings back a packet of tissues, and I take it and pull out three. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” she asks. “You don’t have to; I can write you a pass to go see Ms. Maciel if you’d feel more comfortable talking to a counselor.”
But I trust Ms. McKinnon, and I suddenly find that I do want to tell her what’s wrong. Soon the whole story is pouring out—my parents’ divorce, the way my dad doesn’t seem like himself anymore, all the dog show stuff, Head Over Heels, the zoo, getting stuck under the table, the way Beth turned out to be Libby. The only thing I leave out is the way I tried to set her up with my dad at the open house. Ms. McKinnon’s hand is warm on my back, and it feels good to say everything in order. Talking it all out makes the world stabilize under my feet, and I let go of the lab table.
By the time I’m done, lunch is nearly over, and my tears have slowed to a trickle. “Oh, Ella,” Ms. McKinnon says. “You’ve been going through a lot. Thank you for telling me about it.”
I shrug and wipe my eyes with yet another tissue—I’ve used up almost the whole packet. “Are you going to tell me I couldn’t have done anything differently because everything in the world is pointless and random?”
Ms. McKinnon laughs, a sudden, surprised sound. “No, of course not. None of this is pointless at all; it’s really important. And it’s not exactly random either, though some of it is coincidental, and some of it—like the dog show and the ways people feel about each other—is very subjective. Those are things you couldn’t have controlled, no matter what you did. I know it’s hard, especially for someone as conscientious as you, but I really hope you can stop beating yourself up about those things.”
“I get how falling in love is subjective, but I don’t see how the dog show could be,” I say. “Like . . . it’s about who handled their dog best. We all did the same exact procedure. It should be obvious which person did it closest to perfect, right?”
Ms. McKinnon thinks for a minute, and then she says, “You do ballet, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Say two professional ballerinas did the same choreography, and both of them did all the steps exactly right, no mistakes. If you asked a whole audience to pick which dancer did the routine better, do you think everyone would choose the same person?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess not.”
“Why do you think that is?”
I think about something Miss Caroline said at last week’s rehearsal for the winter concert. “Because . . . dancing is about more than getting the steps exactly right. It’s about the way you feel the music and stuff.”
“So each person might look a little different when they do the same choreography, even though each of them is technically right?”
“Well . . . yeah.” I suddenly see what she’s trying to tell me. “Oh,” I say.
“You got it. Now, as for your dad . . .” She sighs. “That’s more complicated.”
“He’s so mad at me,” I say, and a few more tears threaten to sneak out. “I wanted things to be better for both of us, and now everything’s all messed up, and I have no idea how to fix it. How do I make him—”
“That’s the thing about emotions,” Ms. McKinnon says, cutting me off. “You can’t make them do anything, especially when nobody’s totally right or totally wrong. It’s not an exact science, and there are a lot of things you can’t control. But there are also lots of things you can.” She ticks them off on her fingers. “You can control how honest you are about your own feelings. You can control how much empathy you have for someone else’s situation. You can control whether you own up to the mistakes you make and how you express that you were wrong.”
Even though her entire point is that emotions aren’t like science, it’s comforting to hear it broken down like steps in a procedure. “Make things right” seems so huge and overwhelming, but all these smaller steps seem more doable.
I can definitely say I’m sorry. I can tell Dad how I’m feeling and explain what my thought process was, step by step, like how I explained my experiment to Ms. McKinnon. And this time, maybe I can do it in a way that doesn’t involve screaming my head off.
“You’re a compassionate person, Ella,” Ms. McKinnon says. “And I’ve met your dad—he seems like a reasonable guy. I know you two can find a way forward if you’re both honest.”
When she smiles at me, my heart feels lighter for the first time in days.
“Okay,” I say. “I think I can do that.”
21
I spend the rest of the day nervous but determined, practicing what I’m going to say to my dad over and over in my head the same way I go over dance steps and dog show patterns. But I guess I don’t seem very confident on the outside, because Mom takes one look at my face as we pull into Dad’s driveway and says, “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Why?”
“You look like you’re steeling yourself to go off to war.” She tries to pull me into a sideways hug, which doesn’t really work because of our seat belts. “I know you’re nervous about seeing your dad after this weekend. You’ll probably need to have some tough conversations. But don’t be afraid to tell him what you’re feeling. If he and I had been more up-front with each other about how we felt, we might have a friendlier relationship now. And even if you did make some mistakes, the things you said to him on Saturday were totally valid.”
“I know,” I tell her. “I already know what I’m going to say to him, actually.”
“Oh.” She looks surprised. “Do you want to do a practice run?”
I shake my head. “I think this stuff should be private between Dad and me.”
Maybe that’s ridiculous, since I screamed out half of it in front of a whole convention center full of confused strangers, but Mom nods. “That’s fair,” she says. “If you want to call me later and let me know how it goes, you can. But I understand if you don’t.”
“Thanks.” I lean over and kiss her cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you too, Ellabella. See you tomorrow.”
I grab my bag out of the back seat, march up to the door with my head held high, and take a deep breath. And then I stick my key into the lock and turn it.
The delicious smell of garlic bread hits me immediately, and I almost start crying before I even see Dad; I really love our traditions, and I’m suddenly terrified that things will never be the same between us. Maybe it would be better to take back everything I said and accept all responsibility for being wrong, and we can go back to the way things were.
But I hear Ms. McKinnon’s voice in my head, telling me to be honest, to take ownership of the things I can control. The way things are is safe, and I always know what to expect, but it’s also exhausting, pretending to be cheerful all the time and dancing around certain topics to protect Dad’s feelings. I deserve better than that. We both do.
“Hello?” I call. “I’m here.”
Dad comes out of the kitchen in an old Sox T-shirt and his ripped, grass-stained jeans. There’s a smile on his face, but it’s a strained one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and he stops short in the doorway, like he’s not sure if he should hug me. We stare at each other for a long moment, and then he holds out his arms, and I dive into them.
“Hey, Ellabee,” he says, and hearing him say my nickname again makes me feel so much better and so much worse all at once.
“I’m glad to see you,” I say.
“Me too. I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, too. About Saturday, and what I said, and so much other stuff, and I—”
He cuts me off. “Why don’t you come in? Dinner’s ready, and once we have food, we can talk. Okay? I made your favorite Bolognese.”
“Okay,” I say. Just the fact that he cooked my favorite dinner even though he’s mad at me makes me think we might be able to work things out after all.
When I’m settled at the table with a heap of pasta on my octopus plate, Dad says, “All right. I want you to start
from the beginning and tell me about this whole dating website situation. Maybe you should start by showing me my profile.”
So I do. He reads it carefully on my phone, occasionally wincing or snort-laughing at something I’ve written, though I’m not sure what’s so funny about it. Then he listens as I tell him about Penny and the zoo and about Linda and getting trapped under the table at Little Pete’s. (“Wow, everything makes so much more sense now,” he says. “I really thought that woman was insane.”) I show him the interactions “he” had with each woman, and then I pull up all the texts I sent Beth.
When I’m done, he heaves a huge sigh. “You understand that what you did was really wrong, don’t you?”
I nod.
“And you understand why it was wrong?”
“I shouldn’t have tricked all of you,” I say. “None of these women had any idea what they were getting into, and neither did you. It wasn’t fair to any of you. I’m sure I hurt everyone’s feelings. And people shouldn’t impersonate each other on the internet, obviously. That’s probably, like, identity theft or something.”
“I want you to write e-mails to Penny and Linda and Beth explaining what you did and apologizing for your behavior.”
“Okay,” I say. “What exactly ended up happening with Beth, anyway? After we left the dog show?”
Dad sighs again. “We, um . . . We decided we weren’t really very well suited to each other.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Was the ride home super awkward?”
“Pretty awkward, yeah.”
“I’m really sorry. I hope I didn’t, like, ruin dating for you forever.”
“I don’t think one failed relationship can ruin dating forever. But I probably won’t look for someone else right this second. And when I do, it definitely won’t be on Head Over Heels. You’re going to have to show me how to delete that account.” I promise I will, and then Dad is quiet for a minute, rubbing his temples like this whole conversation is giving him a headache. “I just don’t understand why you did this,” he finally says. “It all seems so . . . complicated. What made you think tricking me into dating was the best way to get me to come to your show instead of talking to me about it?”
“I tried to talk to you about it,” I say. “But I knew you’d refuse to come if it meant you’d have to be in the same room with Krishnan. Every time I even say his name you shut the conversation down. And you made it clear that you don’t like me doing dog shows. You tried to talk me out of going back after that first one. So I . . . I thought it might be easier for you if you had someone to go with.”
“I’m fine with you doing dog shows,” Dad says. “I would never try to control what hobbies you pick as long as they make you happy. I wasn’t staying away because of that or because of Krishnan. I was trying to give the two of you space to bond.”
My brain struggles to wrap itself around this information. “Wait, what?”
“You know I talked to Dr. Obasanjo once in a while when you started seeing her after the divorce, right?” I nod. “Well, she told me it was important for me to let you establish a relationship with Krishnan on your own terms, one that was completely separate from me. Dog shows were your thing with him. So I thought it would be best if I stayed away from that whole world altogether.”
I blink at him. “So you wouldn’t come see me compete because you thought it was good for me?”
“Obviously I went a little overboard on the whole staying out of the way thing,” Dad says. “But I honestly had no idea how badly you wanted me to come. You never told me how important it was to you. Why didn’t you say something? I would’ve been there in a second.”
And here comes the hard part. Honest and forthright, Ms. McKinnon’s voice whispers inside my head.
“Sometimes it can be kind of hard to talk to you about stuff,” I say.
“What do you mean? We talk all the time.”
“We talk, but we don’t really talk.” That doesn’t even make any sense, so I take a deep breath and try again. “It’s just that ever since you and Mom got divorced, you’ve been . . . different. Not like your old self at all. You seem, like . . . faded or something.”
That crease appears between Dad’s eyebrows again. “Faded how?”
“Like, you and Mom used to go to parties and shows and movies and host dinners and stuff all the time. And now all you ever want to do is sit around the house and watch baseball and work in the yard. And I read online that decreased activity and pulling away from people are signs of depression, and obviously it’s normal to be depressed when you get divorced, so I know it’s not your fault or anything. But sometimes I feel like I can’t be honest with you about stuff that’s upsetting me because you’re obviously so unhappy already, and I don’t want you to be even more upset because you’re worrying about me on top of everything else. You know?”
Dad looks super upset now, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. I’m starting to wish I’d never brought this up at all. But then he finally opens his mouth, and the words that come out are the ones I least expect to hear.
“Sweetheart,” he says gently, “I’m not depressed. Not at all. I’m so sorry you’ve spent all this time feeling like you had to protect me, but I’m fine. Seriously. I’m happier and more content now than I’ve been in years.”
“But . . . no, you’re not,” I say. “If you were fine, you’d act like your old self. Mom acts the same as she used to.”
“Maybe I’m not acting like my old self, but I’m acting like my real self,” Dad says. “All those parties and all that hosting? That was for your mom. I did that stuff because she loved it, not because I wanted to. There are lots of reasons the two of us weren’t compatible, but that’s one of them. Doing that kind of stuff exhausts me. I’m happy to go out sometimes, but watching baseball and working in the yard and cooking for you on weekends is really much more my speed than entertaining. I’m an introvert. Do you know what that is?”
“It means you’re shy,” I say. “But you’re not shy at all. You’re super friendly and good at talking to people.”
“That’s not quite what it means,” Dad says. “It’s more that I get my energy from being alone. When I’ve been out socializing, I need to have time by myself for a while to recharge. Your mom is the opposite; when she’s alone for too long, she starts to get really lonely and sad. But when you see me sitting quietly and reading or something, it doesn’t mean I’m depressed. It probably means I’m relaxed.”
I’ve spent most of the past few days feeling like everything I know has been tipped on its side, and now I feel like the world has rolled over yet again, leaving me hanging upside down. But when I flip back through my memories of Dad with this new lens in place, what he’s saying actually does make sense. He has seemed quieter, and he’s wanted to stick closer to home, and he’s definitely not the snappy dresser he used to be. But I guess he hasn’t actually seemed unhappy, now that I really think about it. I just assumed he was because he’s been acting how I’d probably act if I were depressed. I guess I’m not an introvert.
There are so many things to say that I have no idea where to even start. I’m so relieved I haven’t destroyed everything between us, and I’m thrilled Dad will come to any event I want if I ask him, and I’m struggling to come to terms with the fact that the guy I thought was my real dad may never have actually existed in the first place. It’s a lot to take in. I decide to start with, “I’m really glad you’re not depressed.”
Dad laughs. “Yeah, me too.”
“I guess I shouldn’t have tried to get you to date,” I say. “I thought that maybe if you stopped being lonely, you’d turn back into your old self. But I guess you didn’t want to be your old self in the first place.”
“I really appreciate that you care about me enough to try to fix me. But I don’t need fixing. There are lots of ways to have a happy life.”
I know this isn’t the most important thing right now, but a question won’t stop tugging at the corner of
my brain, so I let it out. “Does it make you tired to be with me?”
Dad reaches out and grabs my hand. “Never,” he says. “Absolutely not. You’re my kid. You’re not in the same category as everybody else. Being with you is as relaxing as being alone. I never want you to worry about that.”
Something deep inside me releases, and breathing is suddenly a little easier. “Okay. Good.”
“I’m really glad we finally talked about all this,” Dad says. “And we can talk about it more any time you want. How would you feel about going to see Dr. Obasanjo together a couple of times? It seems like we both have a lot to figure out, and maybe she could help us find some strategies for communicating better.”
Going to Dr. Obasanjo after the divorce was kind of hard—she always asked me a ton of questions about things that were difficult to face head-on. But it also made me feel better to confront those things, and I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what Dad and I need to do right now. If someone can help things start to feel normal between us again, I’m okay with giving it a try. “I guess we could do that,” I say.
He squeezes my hand. “Good. I’ll give her a call tomorrow. I want to be the best possible dad for you.”
“And I want to be the best possible kid for you.”
Dad gives me a real smile for the first time all night. “You already are, kiddo,” he says. “No matter how many mistakes we both make, that’s never going to change.”
To: PennyForYrThoughts,
To: DrownedInMoonlight
To: Sirsasana77
From: SuperDad_DSC
Hi! This is David’s daughter, Ella. I’m writing to you from “his” account because I wanted to tell you that I’m really, really sorry.
Each of you has had some pretty weird interactions with my dad over the last couple of months. Please don’t blame him if those messages and conversations were confusing and/or upsetting. I’m the one who made this account, not him, and I’m the one you’ve been chatting with . . . he didn’t even know I was doing it. He honestly is a really great guy and the best dad ever, and all the nice things I said about him were true. (For example, he IS really great at making Italian food!) I thought I was doing a good thing by helping him find love, but it was sneaky and mean to mess with your lives, even though it was for a good cause. I’d be upset if someone lied to me about who they were, and I should’ve thought of that much sooner. Like, before I did it.
Ella Unleashed Page 15
