At eleven o’clock, she texted to say good night. He was in the ambulance bay updating the whiteboard on the wall and he stopped as soon as his phone vibrated.
Becca: I’m going to sleep now. Front door is locked.
He grinned.
Owen: And what about the back door?
Becca: Left that hanging wide open for the monsters to get in.
Owen: Love you.
Becca: Love you too.
The rest of the night passed without incident. He listened to some dispatch calls to make notes for performance review meetings, got ahead on some of his other monthly tasks, and finished his shift by taking inventory on the gear in his own truck.
When he got home, Becca’s bedroom door was still firmly shut.
But she wasn’t asleep.
His phone lit up with a text message as he was thinking about knocking to wake her for school. It was a group message, sent to both him and her mother. Apparently, Becca had decided it was time to tell Rachel.
Becca: Can we have a team meeting after school today? At Dad’s place?
Team meetings are what they’d taken to calling co-parenting discussions when Becca hit the teen years and demanded they include her in any talks that related to her—which was every talk between him and Rachel.
On the screen, dots appeared. Then disappeared, and finally reappear.
Rachel: What time? I need to pick up the little ones at three-thirty.
Becca: Dad’s on nights, so he needs to sleep but he’s usually up by the time I get back. Remember I don’t have a class last period. How about two?
It was such a grown-up reply. Thoughtful, which she wasn’t always, because teenage hormones were something wild, but when she was…man, she was a good kid.
Not. A. Kid.
But he thought of everyone younger than him as a kid, especially his own daughter, and God damn it, he was too tired to fix that right now. He sighed and shook his head, then tapped out a quick reply that it worked for him.
Fifteen minutes later, she found him in the kitchen. She was dressed already, in skin-tight jeans and an oversized sweater, with a full face of makeup on.
“I made oatmeal,” he said gruffly.
She smiled faintly. “I probably can’t tell you that I need to go, can I?”
“You’ve got five minutes. Eat a real breakfast for me, okay?”
She grabbed a bowl and the glass jar of brown sugar. “Oatmeal, huh?”
“It’s good for you.”
“You haven’t made oatmeal in years.”
“And I’m regretting that right now, so…eat up.” As if more oatmeal would have prevented this turn of events.
She shoved the bowl into his hands. “Only if you eat some, too.”
He didn’t feel like eating, but she’d cornered him with logic. “Fine.”
This had been their dynamic for so long. He did his best, even when it wasn’t enough, but at least it was something. And she showed him how to be a better person, too.
