“Hi, Dad.” Her voice was light and clear and warm, the way kids’ voices were when they had not yet learned to weigh every word. “Mom said I should call you.”
“Your mom is smart,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. Mom told me about Mr. Callahan, are you sad?” she said quietly.
“Yeah,” I said honestly. “I am.”
There was a pause on the line. I could picture her, lying on her bed in her room in Calgary, feet in the air, phone to her ear, brow furrowed in the way she had when she thought hard.
“I’m sad too. He was always nice to me. Did his niece come home?”
“Yeah, Tessa’s here. I was with her for a bit today.” Maddy hadn’t ever met Tessa, but over the years, Ray had been like a grandfather to my daughter, even if he grumbled about the inconvenience.
“I bet she’s sad too,” Maddy said softly as if she was trying to imagine what it would be like if roles were different and it was her mourning me.
“Yeah,” I said. “She is having a really hard time.”
Another pause.
“Did you give her a hug?” Maddy asked.
I exhaled, the corner of my mouth lifting. “She’s not really in a hugging mood right now.”
“Is she mad at you?” Maddy asked.
“You could say that.”
“Why,” my daughter asked, straightforward as only a child could be.
“Because she thinks I am the bad guy. And I didn’t do a good enough job convincing her otherwise.”
“Are you the bad guy?” She asked hesitantly.
I looked around the empty room. At the big house. At the land outside. At the life I had built with my hands. At the memory of Tessa’s eyes when she had called me a vulture.
“No. But I did some things that are hard to explain when a person is hurting.”
She made a small humming sound, the way she did when she was turning something over in her head. “Is it like when you told Mom it was okay if I stayed in Calgary for my birthday because we’d already made plans with my friends, and I got mad at you because I thought you didn’t care, but you did, you just didn’t want me to be disappointed?”
“That’s not a bad example.”
“You’re not very good at feelings.”
I laughed. The sound surprised me. “That’s probably true.”
“I’m good at feelings.”
“I know. You got that from your mom.”
“Maybe I can help. You should say sorry to Tessa. And maybe fix something for her. Without asking for anything. That is what Mom says makes a good man.”
“That's what your mom says, huh?” I used to be the good man for her, but my focus shifted, and I hadn’t realized until it was too late.
“Yep.”
I leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and rubbed a thumb across the edge of my phone. “I have tried to fix some things. Sometimes you have to go slow. Pushing too hard makes it worse.”
“Like when you tried to teach me to lope, and I cried.”
