by Alex Howell
For right now, however, it just sucked. He had more space than any man ever justifiably needed, he had an empty bedroom for his daughter, and he had an empty bathroom for his daughter. What was he going to do, just leave the rooms as is? Redesign them? There were so many questions that he hadn’t even considered until now, and he felt like a failure for never bringing them up to himself.
But it was, for at least a little bit, going to get better. He was still going to get to speak to Clara before he passed off into what could very easily become a twelve-hour rest. It wasn’t going to magically bring her back, and it wasn’t going to solve all of his problems, but as far as it being something that would help him recover from what was one of Onyx’s worst mission runs, it would more than do the trick.
Shaking off sleep and drinking the last drops of the cup of coffee he was clutching in his hand to help him stay alert during his call, Mason stumbled into the kitchen and sat down at the table, hoping that sitting up instead of lying down would keep him more awake. Pulling out his cell phone, he pulled up his contacts and scrolled down until he got to Clara, and dialed the number. He knew that she was probably pretty busy getting settled into her new life on campus, attending a class, or just socializing with friends, but he hoped to be able to hear from her all the same.
Funny how she goes and I’m the one who has to adjust the most, he thought. Then again, not really funny how because she left, I’m now the one feeling all alone because Bree’s not here anymore.
“Daddy!”
And now, all is well.
No matter how tired he was, as soon as he heard his daughter’s voice, Mason brightened up considerably. Of course it wasn’t the same as having her in-person. It would never be the same, nor would it even be close.
But as far as things that could make life better? As far as things that could brighten the day? As far as the best thing to end the day on after the previous couple of days?
It definitely couldn’t be beat. It definitely couldn’t be topped. It definitely couldn’t get any better than this.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Mason said, surprised at how exhausted he sounded even on just this very phone call. “How are you? How’s school treating you?”
“Dad! You’re back!”
She hadn’t even answered his questions, and Mason was still feeling happy to hear from her. She’d have to address them eventually, but just that voice, that tone, that familial happiness…
It was enough that Mason briefly thought of moving to Palo Alto before realizing he’d never be able to afford it, and, even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t have wanted to interfere and drive her crazy with her presence. If anything, he’d forever be known as the “ancient pickup truck Dad” to all her friends.
“Yes, sweetie, I am back,” Mason said with a sheepish, tired grin. “Sorry I didn’t call sooner, I was stuck in the briefing room for several hours upon arrival.”
“Don’t worry about it, I understand. How did that go?”
“Oh, jeez,” Mason said, drawing a laugh from his daughter. “You know the feelings of joy we all had when we reunited President Morgan’s family in Kansas? How cheerful we felt? Think the exact opposite.”
“Oh, my,” Clara said. “What the hell happened?”
“Eh, things got hairy in Iran,” Mason said. “But we’re in the process of making it up.”
“I know you will,” Clara said reassuringly.
Mason breathed an enormous sigh of relief to know that his daughter was forgiving of him, no matter what kind of truck he drove or how far off into the world he had to go or how badly his team had screwed up. About the only thing that got her angry at him was him being too risky on missions or not calling her—and so long as he worked with Onyx, the risk of both went down drastically. Minus what we’re about to do in D.C., but that’s not really the same.
“So… how are classes going? Did you actually decide on a major yet?”
“Sort of—I’m taking classes in constitutional history and international relations. I think that’s the path I want to go down, global affairs and what not.”
Damn. Girl is really going to be following in my footsteps, huh? She’s getting right into the very thing that I tried to keep her away from.
At least if she’s a Stanford grad, she’s not going to be spending many years out in the field like me. Hopefully she’ll be overseeing ops from far away, away from the crazy madness of it all. She’ll be at a desk, in an air-conditioned room in Washington D.C. or New York City, far, far away from the desert of the Middle East or the vast lands of China.
Heaven knows she’s had enough insanity in her life.
“Well—you are just a chip off the old block, aren’t you? Following right in my footsteps?”
Mason had tried to keep it lighthearted to avoid the implications of her decisions, but was surprised to realize it didn’t bother him as much as he had feared. She really wouldn’t be on the ground, fighting enemies and taking bullets—most likely.
And if she was?
Well, by that point, Mason hoped he was such an old fart that he’d either be long gone or just too sweetly, blissfully unaware to know what was going on.
“Hey! Nothing is finalized yet! I’m still exploring my options! I could wind up in Spanish, or in history, or… or…”
It wasn’t doing much good. The more Clara spoke, the more she revealed how committed she was to the path of international relations. At least for Mason’s sake, he was accepting and learning this now. And she’ll get paid. So she’s not going to graduate with a theatre degree.
“Sure you are, kid,” Mason said, teasingly. “So, how are your grades so far? You get any back yet? Can’t be an FBI agent if you don’t pass your calculus exam!”
A silence came that didn’t exactly make Mason feel good. That kind of a silence wasn’t usually what precipitated conversations about having A’s in her classes.
“I wanted to tell you about that. I did just get my most recent quizzes back.”
Uh oh.
“Wait, didn’t you just start class?”
“We did, but Stanford does it weird,” she explained. “Now, to help set an example for what we can expect, they give us like pre-tests. Like quizzes we have to study before classes even start.”
Man, I’m really glad I never went to college if this is how it is. Considering I never was a great student, I’d probably have just dropped out right there.
“Dang, that’s rough. Well, how did it go?”
“Well, they are not at all what I expected.”
Mason reminded himself that this was not a community college they were talking about, but quite possibly one of the hardest schools in the world. A C in Stanford was worth more than an A+ from the nearest college, save Johns Hopkins. That Clara could even have the chance to graduate was a real accomplishment.
But he also reminded himself to give Clara just a smidgen of tough love and encouragement to push her to do better than she likely was.
“Really? How so? It is just the first quiz, and you haven’t even started school yet; I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
Mason told himself to not say anything else like that; it was up to Clara to worry about it now, and it wasn’t fair for Mason to dismiss her concerns as invalid or not.
“Well, we had a quiz for my constitutional history class. I could have sworn I aced it, yet when I got it back… it was a B minus.”
Images of a transcript full of Cs and Ds had crossed Mason’s mind from the tone of Clara’s voice. He hadn’t thought that he would ever feel so happy to hear that she got a B minus.
“That’s not bad!”
Damnit, Mason…
“For Stanford it is! Practically everyone gets As and Bs here, dad. And besides—I am absolutely positive that I should have gotten an A! I studied all night for that test, yet when the grade comes back, it’s crap! It just doesn’t make sense!”
Mason had forgotten, perhaps because of fatigue and general weariness, that
whatever standards he had for Clara, she had them at ten times the level he did. It was a world of difference, and he had to bring his own expectations for her in life with her own. Mason, as a student at Stanford, would have danced for joy at just not failing a course.
But that was why he was the military grunt and Clara was going to be the successful businesswoman or politician someday.
“Honey, it’s just the first month. You’ll have plenty of time to make it up. Just try to take it easy for right now. I know you’ll do fine, just keep at it.”
Then, remembering his own advice to himself, he changed his tune a bit.
“Don’t ever lose those high spirits for yourself, Clara. You’re going to kick butt, you just need to take a few weeks to get used to the standards there.”
“I don’t know, dad. I know it sounds a little crazy, but I just can’t shake this feeling that someone is sabotaging my grades.”
That got Mason’s attention.
Both he and Clara’s paranoid levels had become much more acute over the years, so if she believed that, then Mason was going to believe it too, no matter how overbearing-helicopter-deranged parent that sounded. He was sure dozens of parents would call Stanford demanding better grades, but few had the background he did. Probably none had seen their daughter kidnapped on camera.
Certainly none had learned that there was no such thing as coincidences or poor gut feelings like he and Clara had.
“Sabotaging your grades? What would make you say that?”
Even though he asked the question, Mason already believed her. He just needed to hear the why for himself.
“Because I get back one grade on paper, and then receive another grade online. I know it sounds absolutely nuts, but I can’t help but wonder if someone is somehow hacking into my student account and changing all of my grades. The only realistic way is if these are graded on a curve, but if that was the case, they’d curve up, not down.”
Mason had always taught his daughter to go with her instincts, and seeing how strongly she believed that someone was altering her grades, he felt compelled to believe her. Admittedly, hacking a freshman’s grades at Stanford carried significantly less weight than using the daughter of a SEAL as leverage to accomplish international terrorism goals, making it less likely, but if Clara was saying it, he believed it.
“Did you speak to the professor?” Mason asked, wanting to cover all the bases.
“Not yet, I just noticed this afternoon,” Clara said. “I just wanted to come to you first to see if you thought I was crazy.”
“Not at all,” Mason said. “But it might be good to speak to the professor. It could have just been fat fingers on the keyboard.”
Not likely to be the case, though. Clara’s not stupid.
“Okay, let’s explore the other possibilities,” Mason said. “Do you have any potential suspects? Anyone who for any reason would want to mess with your grades?”
“No—not really.”
It wasn’t meant to be a question to dismiss the possibility, but rather, to remind Clara that a suspicion wasn’t anything more than a mind virus without action to confirm or dispel that suspicion. Plus, it was just too early to say; classes had only just started, and if he and Clara went into full attack mode on the administration and the professors, it was a real good way for them to develop the wrong kind of reputation.
“For the time being, all you can do is keep a look out, and if you see anything suspicious, tell your instructors immediately.”
“Okay.”
It was not the strongest answer that Mason had ever heard Clara give, but he tried to remain empathic to her situation. She was going through a lot, and she needed to learn to stand up for herself without Mason present. Sure, she had stood up to Mason, but that was very different than standing up to people who were relative strangers.
She was just eighteen, though. It would come in time.
“Hey dad, have you decided on who you were going to vote for yet?”
The question caught Mason a bit by surprise and made him laugh. He supposed the conversation of the grade hacking thing was over and done with. It was a bit abrupt for him having just spent several minutes trying to contemplate a potentially serious issue, but at this point, it was more about just talking to Clara than anything else.
“You mean between the two guys who are secretly best buddies, and plan on doing the same stupid stuff, yet act like they are completely different—and pretend they hate each other?”
An awkward pause came before Mason laughed.
“I’m just kidding. You know that I’m smarter than to spout out off things like that. No, I’m going with Pierce Richards.”
“Really?”
“Yep,” Mason said. “We’re in alignment on most issues. Oh, and he’s an alum of Stanford, right?”
“Yeah, Richards went to Stanford, how come?”
“Just gives me another reason to vote,” Mason said with a smile.
In reality, he was mostly sad to see President Morgan leave at the end of his eight years, if for no other reason than that he had built up a strong rapport with him over the last few months. He’d have to form a relationship with the new guy, whether Richards or not, but of all the people whom he thought could run military operations and handle stress the best, Richards seemed like the clear cut answer.
Of course, he had given thought to many of the issues Richards ran on, but for the most part, Mason understood they had very little impact on him. No president, since he had begun his job as a soldier, had ever done anything so drastic that it affected his ability to do his job. All of the changes in Mason’s world were at the margins, not at the core.
“Gotcha, thanks for letting me know,” Clara said. “How’s Raina?”
“What?” Mason said, completely caught off guard by yet another switch in conversation—and this one wasn’t going to be as lighthearted as who he was voting for.
So much for an easy talk, he thought, though he wasn’t mad in the slightest about it. An intense conversation with his daughter was still a treat.
“Yeah—your partner, Raina?” Clara said, as if Mason needed the reminder. “How is she doing? You guys hang out much lately?”
Mason regained his composure as he realized what Clara was implying. While he could easily deny the question to his colleagues or to the outside world, he had learned something harsh from his mission with Warrior before—he could fool many people, but he sure as hell could not fool his daughter.
Still, that didn’t mean he was just going to admit it without question.
“Clara, me and Raina don’t hang out. Everything we do together is strictly business related.”
“Aw—Come on, dad. I’m not stupid. I know you like her.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t,” Mason said, the closest thing to a confession at that moment. “But it’s just nothing like that, Clara. She’s just my team member, that’s all. We work together. Nothing more and nothing less.”
“Sure, dad. If you don’t want to talk about it, then that’s cool.”
Maybe it was the tone with which she spoke, but there was something aggravating about Clara’s tone that seemed mocking. And while Mason was happy to have his daughter on the phone, he was a little annoyed that he was now having to deflect personal questions from her as well.
“Why are you suddenly so concerned about Raina?”
“Dad—you know,” Clara said, choosing her words carefully. “I know how much mom meant to you, but I want you to be happy. And I just worry about you being alone all the time.”
Damn, she really hit it right on the nose. She’s not subtle at all.
But Clara was absolutely right. Mason had spent all day stressing about this very situation; it would be hypocritical and beyond reproach for him to dismiss Clara’s concerns. And yet, with her having to live a new life across the country, at the hardest school in America, while making new friends, he sure as hell wasn’t going to put his romantic life—if he could even
use that adjective—on her as well. Sweet as it was to have her concern, he wasn’t going to increase it.
“Clara please—I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not, dad.”
Well, I tried, Mason thought with a snort. And in any case, there was something to be said for ripping the band-aid off. Raina was not just someone Mason could dismiss so easily, and did he really want to spend the next fifty years or spent wallowing in lonesome pity?
“You try to hide it—but I know how sad you are all the time,” Clara said, sparing nothing in her words. “And it’s not good for you. It’s eating you up inside! All I’m saying is Raina seems like a nice woman and it might do you some good to go out with her some time. All right?”
Mason sighed, knowing full well that sooner or later…
Yeah, sooner or later, he was going to crack. Of course, “crack” didn’t mean fall in love with her. It just meant give her a chance, go out to coffee with her. It meant taking a sip of alcohol with her.
And, eventually, it would mean moving on from Bree and putting his wedding ring away for good.
But that day was not today. That day was not tomorrow, either. That day was not likely going to be until after the mission was complete.
But for the first time since Bree had passed away, Mason could now admit that “that day” now had another synonym.
Someday.
“You’re probably right, Clara. Thanks for thinking about me.”
“Of course.”
At that moment, Mason heard background in Clara’s room as what sounded like her roommate coming back. Combined with that and the general fatigue he was feeling, it felt like the perfect time to close down the call. He didn’t want Clara to look like the girl who couldn’t spend an hour without hearing from her old man.
“All right, sweetheart. I’ll be sure to call or text you tomorrow, okay? And keep your eyes peeled on that grade thing. It might not be anything, but you know, coincidences aren’t a thing. Stay alert.”
“I will,” Clara said. I know you will. “All right, dad, thank you so much for calling. I’ll talk to you later.”
