And…more.
Everything.
I barely madeit through her senior prom. I think the only reason I let her go was because she had an EPU team taking her and her “friend,” Ashleigh, and I gave the officers orders to not so much as let them go to the bathroom alone.
Overkill, I know, but hey, what kind of dad would I be if I didn’t take at least one opportunity to embarrass the hell out of my daughter?
Besides, they spent the night hereafter prom, in the guest bedroom down in our basement.
Don’t ask, don’t tell.
And I got a hug and a, “Thanks, Dad,” from Aussie the next morning when they made me breakfast as a thank you.
Life’s short and brutal and fucking mean. I’ve learned that first-hand. I don’t need to be a dick to my daughter when she and her girlfriend just want to spend the night together after their senior prom.
I don’t want my daughter to think I’m a controlling asshole, even though Ellen used to teasingly call me her controlling asshole—frequently withmotherfuckeradded in there somewhere, and always wore a smile when she did—and this is a battle I don’t need to fight.
I damn sure don’t want to fight it.
As I blink back tears, we all sit while she finishes making her way across the stage.
Dammit,I wish you were here today, girl.
* * * *
Casey made us reservations for a late lunch at Aussie’s favorite restaurant, the pizza place by our old office. We take up the entire back room and laugh and talk and eat ourselves nearly sick. Ashleigh and her parents and family joins us, and I pick up the whole tab.
Tonight, the girls are spending the night at my house again, but after lunch they’regoing to go with Ashleigh’s parents—with a security detail in tow—to a graduation party with her family.
That means as lunch breaks up and it’s just “us guys” making our way back to my house, I’m left in quiet contemplation as my sons and brothers chat while the security teams drives us home in a large, black SUV.
Casey and Declan rode together today and are heading off somewhere, but she’sgoing to drop by my house later tonight and use the excuse that it’s to do with work.
She and I had a wordless conversation earlier where I know she understood what I needed.
“Why’d she have to pick Vanderbilt?” Logan kvetches. “How thehellare we supposed to beat up the guys she dates and terrorize them if she’s not going to UTK with us?”
Ryder laughs, and my sons exchange a fist-bump. Everyonesays they’re carbon copies of me, and they are. They both have my blue eyes and light brown hair and look a lot like me.
“She’s happy, guys. Please be happy for her.” I stare out the window.
It’s a gorgeous day today and reminds me too damn much of the day of Ellen’s memorial.
“Sorry, Dad,” Logan mutters, echoed by Ryder, and I realize what I said came out in far too harsh a tone.
Definitelynot what I meant to do.
“I’m sorry, guys.” I force my Dad mask into place and fake a smile as I look at them. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.” As a father, I apologize a lot faster now—and with far more frequency—than I ever did before. I don’t want my kids’ last memory of me to be me barking at them over something.
Again, it all comes back to Ellen was the heart and soul of our home. My girlhad all of us completely wrapped around her. I’ve spent the last school year feeling useless in many ways. I’m an attorney and suck at math, but Aussie wants to get a degree in economics, for fuck’s sake. I can balance my checkbook and read a simple ledger sheet, and here she is, bringing home AP-level math books with class names that I’ve never even heard of, much less taken and passed.
I cansit there on my laptop or with a binder of information to study and stare at her as she does her homework, but that annoys her.
I know, because I tried that, thinking I was being a “present” father.
A month into the new school year, she finally set some ground rules with her old man—she’d snuggle with me on the couch to watch TV, or to do her homework, but I had to quit trying so hard.
BecauseI was trying a lot harder now than I used to, which makes her feel weird and makes me feel…
