by Nancy Adams
Copyright
From Despair Grows Order
Copyright © 2017 by Nancy Adams.
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Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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SARAH
As I drove along the tree-lined street to my father’s house, Josh sat nervously in the passenger seat beside me. Pulling into the drive, I glanced sideways at him, his body hunched forward, hands gripping his thighs, fingers rapping incessantly on his knees, eyes wide, taking in the sight of my home as though he were a convict being delivered to the prison gates for the first time. Noticing my look, he turned to me and tried to smile, but merely succeeded in pulling off a crooked twist of the lips that denoted his fears rather than any real enthusiasm.
Today marked the first time that he and my father would meet for real. The first time their hands would shake—although in truth, Josh’s already were! The first time that either of them would have no choice but to acknowledge the other.
“You ready for this?” I asked a rather perturbed-looking Josh, all done up in white shirt and cheap black suit we’d purchased recently from a thrift store.
He took in a deep, mournful breath and replied, “I guess so.”
“It’s gonna be okay, you know.”
“Is it?” he asked, taking his fretful blue eyes away from the house to gleam them at me.
“Yes,” I stated, gently taking hold of his hand. “I told you, Dad holds nothing against you in any capacity. If anything, he holds you in high esteem for walking out on your privileged lifestyle in order to be with his daughter. He admires you for that. So can you stop stressing?”
“I’ll try,” he let out in a withered tone.
I leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, holding this pose for some time.
“I love you,” he whispered from within my lips.
“I love you too.”
Once parted, we jumped out of the car and entered the house. There, waiting for us in the hallway, was Dad, his face dripping in angst, and my sisters, with gleeful smiles. My father approached Josh first and held out his hand.
“Welcome to the Dillinger homestead,” he announced.
“It’s very much a pleasure,” Josh replied, taking the hand and shaking it warmly.
I couldn't help smiling inwardly as well as outwardly at this scene. I had dreamed of it ever since I’d first realized that I was in love with Josh. It filled my joyful cup to overflowing to see the two most important men in my life shaking hands so cordially. So much so that I almost bounced up and down on the spot!
Once they’d parted, my father’s face took on a solemn hue and he said, “Firstly, Josh, I’d like to apologize personally for my recent behavior toward you.”
“You don't have to apologize, Mr. Dillinger.”
“Roy, please.”
“Roy, there’s no need to apologize for something that is completely understandable.”
“Understandable, yes. But not justified. I had no right to form a negative opinion on you based on certain insinuations.”
Here he was clearly speaking about Heather Todd without any direct reference. As would be expected, Josh’s face went a little pale, and I hoped my father wouldn’t go too far in his expressions of regret.
“I judged you on the basis of men like the one I used to be,” Dad continued.
“On the basis of men like my father, you mean?” Josh added.
“Yes, exactly that. But I had no right to. I feel that I’ve done you a disservice. And, as well as that, there are other things that make me guilty in regards to yourself…”
The expressions on the faces of myself, my sisters, and even Josh to a certain degree, were becoming a little bemused and embarrassed by my father’s speech, so I decided to intervene.
“Daddy,” I interrupted, cutting him off. “Josh gets it. You’ve apologized. He feels no animosity at all toward you.”
“None at all,” Josh backed me up.
“You’ve apologized and that’s enough. You don’t need to go into things. Let’s just have lunch and enjoy each other’s company. A fresh start.”
Dad, whose eyes had become a little glazed over and moist, nodded his head, and no more was said on the matter. We went into the dining room, which was already set, and seated ourselves, while my father finished off lunch with Lucy. Josh and I sat on one side of the table and Kay sat opposite, a mischievous look on her mischievous face. Josh began fiddling with his sweaty hands underneath the table, and, noticing, I placed my own hand over them, calming him with my gentle touch. He turned his handsome blue eyes to me and the feather of a grin floated across the horizon of his lips.
“You’ll be just fine,” I whispered to him.
“So, Josh,” Kay began in a smirking tone, calling his attention to her, “how’s living in the apartment going? Missing your butler?”
“Kay!” I announced.
But Josh merely grinned, obviously glad for the distraction.
“I still have your sister,” he jokingly retorted. “She’s my new butler!”
“Huh!” I let out, sharply turning my affronted eyes on him.
“I couldn’t imagine that,” Kay remarked, my eyes returning to her. “She barely lifted a finger here. Always working like Daddy; a perfect excuse to get out of housework. I’m more inclined to imagine that it’s the other way around, that you’re the butler.”
This last statement cracked me up.
“It’s true,” I chuckled. “He does all the housework.”
“It’s because your sister works all day,” Josh explained, feeling the need to expound the reasoning behind his househusband status. “While I just study. I’m at home and have much more free time. It’s only fair—and obvious—that I should do the majority of the housework.”
“Does he do all the cooking too?” was Kay’s next rascally question.
“We share in that,” Josh stated. “But I make her packed lunch and breakfast.”
“Oh! That’s so sweet!” Kay exclaimed in cloying tones.
Josh went red all over.
“He even writes me little poems and messages in them,” I added, making his pale red turn a deep scarlet.
“What like!?” Kay burst out, rocking back and forth in her chair.
“Well, the other day, he left a post-it note on my cuscus box saying: Be-cus I love you.”
“Oh, my gosh!” tore from my sister’s mouth, and she almost rock
ed herself all the way back off the chair, caught in a paroxysm of unrestrained mirth. “Be-cus I love you!” she repeated through her giggles.
“Okay, ladies,” Josh protested, “you’ve had your fun.”
Thankfully for Josh, Kay’s playful interrogation was cut short by the introduction of the food. It was roast beef, baked potatoes, vegetables and all the trimmings, my father and Lucy laying it out on the table.
Once everything was set, and everyone seated, Dad took us through grace, and after that we partook in a family dinner, invariably similar to so many other family dinners that happen all over America and indeed the world every day: father at the head of the table, carving the beef and sending the plates round, everyone helping themselves to vegetables, wine being poured, water for some, then everyone beginning the feast, taking a little time at the start to compliment the chefs, before the table begins to slowly evolve into light conversation.
SARAH
During the initial part of the meal, Dad said very little and I sensed that he was glad my sisters were keeping Josh busy with their intrigue. Kay was still playing the part of agent provocateur and Lucy, being much less intrusive, was doing her best to curb her littlest sister’s gimmickry through her own more sensible questions and conversation topics. Eventually, however, as always occurs around the dinner table, a veil of silence descended upon its members and this was the opportunity for the boyfriend and father to talk.
“So, Josh,” Dad began, his dry mouth exploding into a cough as he did. Then, having cleared his throat with sips of water, he continued, “Sarah tells me that you’re studying corporate business at college.”
“Yes, Roy.”
“And you enjoy that?”
Josh made a slight grimace and his expression twisted while he thought up a suitable answer.
“I guess,” was all he could come up with.
“You don't sound so certain.”
“No, don’t get me wrong, I am. I’ve been studying it long enough, and I’m pretty good at it when I apply myself. It’s just applying myself isn’t always my strongest point.” He stopped here and glanced nervously at me, before returning his eyes to my father and hastily adding, “However, I’m getting much better with that. Much better.”
I squeezed his hand under the table and he turned back to me with the twinkle of a smile.
“You’re Sarah’s age, aren’t you?” Dad asked.
“Yes, twenty-five.”
“And you’ve been at college for seven years?”
Josh went a little red here, knowing that he’d have to explain why.
“Well,” he stammered embarrassedly, “I’ve been at this college for two years, but I was at two other colleges before that.”
Josh gazed down at the food as he said this last part.
“But he’s only got a year left now,” I felt the protective need to add for Josh, who’d clammed up. “He’s studying real hard and goes back in three weeks.”
My father, meanwhile, contrary to looking disappointed by this, merely grinned like a cat.
“I too got kicked out of my first college,” he said.
All our eyes turned sharply to him as he nonchalantly placed his fork in his mouth.
“Daddy!” Lucy exclaimed. “You never told us that.”
“You never asked,” he put back to her, before returning his beaming eyes on Josh. “You see, I originally studied law at Stanford, not Harvard, where I met your father. But only six months in, I got expelled for possession of marijuana.”
“DADDY!” rained from mine and my sisters’ mouths.
Josh simply smiled.
“The college,” my father chuckled along, “wanted to keep it out of the papers and out of the courts, so it was covered up. Plus, my old man, God rest his soul”—and he crossed himself as he always did when he mentioned grandpa—“was a judge and former state governor, so that helped in my favor. The official reason given was that I’d quit the college and taken a year out. Man, my old man was pis…”—looking sheepishly around at us girls—“upset. It took him all his persuasiveness to get Harvard to accept me.”
“I first went to Harvard,” Josh said, the tales of my father’s own misdemeanors having relaxed him somewhat. “You know, the old man wanting me to go to his old college and all that. But I managed to get kicked out after a year and a half.”
“What for?”
“Nothing quite up there with a drug bust,” Josh replied, the confidence in his voice rising. “It was just general stuff: not attending class, getting into trouble around the place, partying hard when I should have been studying hard. I managed to avoid getting caught for anything serious, but in the end I just failed all my classes, and they booted me out for it.”
“I’m surprised you didn't do what a lot of these Ivy League boys do and pay someone else to do your work.”
“I don’t know. I guess for all my faults, I’m against cheating.”
“Wow!” my father exclaimed. “You’re certainly not a chip off the old block!”
I sensed the need to intervene.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked my father.
“I mean, that when we worked it out after graduation, we found that Andrew had paid someone to do at least seventy percent of his work.”
“Daddy,” I stated firmly, “Josh doesn't need to hear that sort of thing about his father.”
“No, it’s okay,” Josh said in Dad’s defense, squeezing my hand under the table. “He’s right. That was what annoyed the old man so much; that I hadn't paid someone to do all the work. He was absolutely livid!”
“Your father was cross at you because you wouldn’t cheat?” Lucy interjected with a look of incredulity.
“Yep.”
“Why didn’t you cheat?” Kay wanted to know.
I answered little sis for him.
“Because it’s dishonest.”
“But what’s the point in being rich if you can’t cheat?” was her next question.
“Because you’re only cheating yourself,” Dad said to her.
The dinner conversation ebbed and flowed after that. Gradually, Dad and Josh became more relaxed around one another, and found themselves discussing other subjects, away from college expulsions. They ended up talking about sports at the lengths to which only men seem capable of, discussing any given physical recreation with a forensic attitude to detail, and a partisan loyalty to their given teams. When dinner was over, myself and my sisters cleaned up in the kitchen, leaving the two of them at the end of the dining table continuing their discussion that had evolved from basketball, through to baseball, and was now on football.
At the end of the evening, Dad was joined by my sisters on the front lawn to zealously wave us away as we drove out of there. A spark appeared to have been lit between my father and Josh, and I’d witnessed a side to Dad that I’d not seen for a very long time. There was something cathartic about Josh’s entry into our lives. Truths had been forced out of the cracks in the woodwork, exposing my family to things that could only make them stronger once they’d dealt with them. And because so much that had remained hidden was now out in the open, my father appeared more relaxed around us.
It was Josh’s turn to drive, and I was leaning across the car, cuddled into his side, my head settled into the crook of his neck as we traveled through an avenue of trees, the night’s sky twinkling overhead.
“See,” I said, “it wasn’t so bad.”
“No, your father’s a real nice guy,” Josh replied. “Noway near as stuffy as I’d thought he would be.”
“I think a lot of that had to do with you.”
“With me!?”
“Yeah. You brought him out of his shell. He’s usually drowned out by us girls chattering away, and I rarely hear him talk at such lengths while he’s at home, only when he’s in court.”
“Well, he enjoyed talking tonight. Especially on the Eagles.”
“Oh, yeah! Dad’s a huge Eagles fan.”
�
�Did you hear his reaction when I criticized Gus Ramey, the quarterback?”
“Oh, that’s what it was. We heard Dad getting a little heated when we were in the kitchen.”
“Yeah. I said that Ramey would be pretty average if it wasn’t for the amazing blockers and running backs that he’s got on the team. But your old man started on about when he was at Phoenix and had barely any protection from an average team and still led the league with yards gained.”
“It was so good to see such passion in him,” I commented. “For so long I’ve associated him with indifference when he’s at home, not passion. He usually spends so much of his time around us girls without saying a single word. I often become conscious of his near-deafening silence.”
“Well, he talked tonight.”
“Because he had you, I guess. He’s become so accustomed to saying nothing around us girls, and he doesn’t really have any friends anymore, only people he sees at work, church or one of the charities. Seeing him tonight with you brought back old memories of him.”
“Like what?”
“Like from my days as a young girl. How Dad would often lead the floor of discussions at dinner parties and other forms of social engagement, show a charm that was almost hypnotic on his audience.”
“I admit he’s a very eloquent speaker. I can see the corporate lawyer in him.”
“It was real nice,” I went on. “Made me feel all nostalgic to see him like that. And it’s thanks to you.”
“To me?”
“Yeah, at dinner, you really brought that side of him out, returned him to the practitioner of playful anecdotes. It was a part of my father that had remained hidden for so long, a ghost of his former self that had, up until now, only ever existed in my childhood memories.”
“And what about his pot-smoking exploits?”
“I know,” I grinned. “Daddy the pot-head!”
“I bet he had long hair, a beard and played the bongo in a drum circle too!”
I giggled at this crazy image of my ‘hippy’ father and kissed Josh’s neck, thankful that the evening had gone better than I could have ever expected.
