“I’m not coming over tonight, Frankie,” Lina says quietly. I cut my eyes to her again. She picks up a pen and starts signing the papers. She’s blinking a lot and taking deep breaths. “I have a lot of work to do.”
“You work too hard,” Frankie frowns at her. “You look tired. You have to eat,” she says, sounding like a seventy-year-old lola. And my subconscious. “Just come over and have Sassy Shrimp. It’s your favorite.”
“Don’t push, Frankie,” I reprimand my daughter forcefully.
Frankie whirls towards me, outraged that I’m not taking care of this woman who I presumably love.
“It’s okay, guys,” Lina says. She places her pen down and pushes the stack of papers towards me, then busies herself with the contents of one of her desk drawers. “I really have a lot of work to do. Thanks Frankie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Frankie huffs and picks up her things, unreasonably irritated now, and strides out of the office.
It’s so silent in here that I hear Lina swallow. “Dom,” she tries, in a voice barely above a whisper, and it’s like someone rips my ribcage open.
I clear my throat. “Thanks. I’ll text you if anything else comes up before Saturday, but I think we’re all set.”
She’s silent while I stuff the papers back in my bag. I’m glad I’m halfway out the door when I hear her whisper, “I’m sorry,” in a voice so unlike her own, broken and defeated instead of bright and ferocious. I’m glad I don’t look at her, because seeing it would be a totally different experience than hearing it, and I’m not sure I’d be able to pry myself away.
“I know,” I say into the hallway instead, stopping just outside her office and looking for Frankie. “I’m sorry, too.”
* * *
The rest of the week is much of the same.
Me picking up Frankie from Lina’s office.
Lina and I being generally miserable but keeping it together for Frankie.
Frankie in a terrible mood and not yet comfortable telling me why.
Dr. Fung tells me to broach the subject slowly. To answer Frankie’s questions immediately and honestly if and when she asks them, but otherwise to take it slowly. To talk about it when I’m ready. Frankie luckily hasn’t noticed or asked any questions about it, but I think it’s because she’s been so preoccupied with whatever’s been bothering her at school. I don’t think I’m ready to talk to her about it yet, because I’m still in the denial phase, or whatever it is, of the stages of grief.
I try to lose myself again in the mundane routine of parenthood, but it’s nearly impossible. Now that we’ve had a taste of color, it’s nearly impossible to go back to black-and-white.
But I do it for my daughter.
* * *
The Fall Festival fucking sucks.
Fuck the perfect weather, a brisk sixty degrees, no cloud in the sky. Fuck all the money we raise. I know, from previous conversations with Lina, that the school’s finances look good this year, and we will probably be able to use these funds to redo this shitty excuse for a school yard. But fuck it.
Fuck all the pleased parents. Fuck the happy Fort Greene community. The kids are fucking thrilled, or at least it sounds like they are as they hurl their bodies down the fifty foot tall bouncy slide.
You know who else looks happy?
Lina.
But today I’m not actually sure if she’s turned it on just for the event. If she’s faking it or if she is really and truly over it. Because I’m certainly faking every back slap and hand shake and smile I share with the fucking people around me.
The color has crept back into every inch of her body. In her posture, in her face, in her smile. The saturation’s been turned up. She looks like the beach siren I met in Westerly, the one holding my hand as we danced down the shore in hysterical laughter. Hi-def. High-def. Her hair is loose and flowing down her back. She’s wearing makeup, heels. Floating around the yard, every ounce the beloved school principal, shaking hands and doling out hugs and sharing her laughter.
She shines. She’s incredible, and I gave her up.
But really, I shouldn’t have started anything with her in the first place.
Protect your daughter, Dom. Don’t be selfish.
The hair on the back of my neck raises when I see some fucking dude approach her. It’s that very successful, handsome fucking guy who owns the fancy restaurant a block away from the school. I feel positively feral when she gives him that shit-eating grin that she used to direct at me. I almost tear his fucking face off when it looks like they exchange numbers. Just kidding. I almost burst into tears. But fuck that guy, too.
