Pet. I haven’t heard him call me that since I was a girl. Before the slamming doors started. Before I became the expensive, inconvenient thing that needed an endless supply of shoes and relentless driving around. It feels foreign. A coat that doesn’t fit me anymore.
‘Was it the petrol?’
Dad stops checking a dowel. ‘What?’
‘The driving. The pointe shoes. The fees.’ I dig my thumbnail into the rigid rim until the skin stings. ‘You and Mum… You always fought about the ballet. The money.’
The grooves in his forehead deepen as he shakes his head. ‘Ach, Ava. Don’t be daft.’
‘I’m just saying.’ I shrug one shoulder. It’s a defensive jolt.
He lets out a weary sigh. ‘It wasn’t the money. It was never the dancing. We were twenty-one when we got married. We grew up, and we grew apart. Simple as that.’ He turns the Allen key over in his fingers, studying it as though it holds instructions for this conversation, too. ‘We should’ve admitted it a decade earlier, instead of screaming over the bills to avoid the truth.’
Dad turns his attention back to the white veneer and dodges my gaze. But he points the small tool directly at my knee. ‘You were the only right thing we did back then.’
The plastic cap slips from my fingers and rolls across the floorboards.
It’s not an epic emotional breakthrough, but it’s a tiny, pressure-relieving fracture in a guilt I’ve dragged behind me half my life.
Dad wipes his hands on his jeans. ‘Let’s get this upright.’
Together, we lift the bookcase up.
‘It’s squint,’ I say.
He sits back on his heels, surveying his handiwork. The shelf leans perceptibly to the left. It seems drunk.
‘It’ll hold your books,’ he says firmly. ‘Good enough.’
Good enough.
‘But it’s not straight, Da.’ I reach out to shove a wedge of cardboard under the left side. ‘The tilt is going to bug me.’
‘It’s standing, isn’t it? And it’s not the shelf’s fault that these old houses are crooked.’
My throat draws so tight it’s a chore to draw air. I mean, yeah, the past still sucks. But the story I tell myself – that I’m too much to be loved and cared for, that my needs are exhausting and destructive to others – is getting a little thinner with him here, and that’s a horrifying thought.
Because if I’m not too much, then why am I alone?
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s awright.’ He stands up with cracking knees. ‘I’d best be off. Traffic will be murder. You get your bin bags out of my car, mind.’
We walk out to the street. The rain has stopped, but the air is like lead. At the back of the Vauxhall, I clutch my stuffed bin liners. He zips his fleece back up and looks a bit awkward now, hands hanging by his sides. He’s not a hugger. Neither am I. We haven’t done that in ages. Best not to start now.
‘You’ve got the number,’ he grumbles. ‘If you need anything else. Or if that thing falls over.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.’ I don’t know if I mean the shelf or that I might need him again.
‘Good.’ He tosses the car keys from one hand to the other. ‘I’m not…’ He stops, grappling with the words like they’re a stripped screw. ‘I’m not good at the…the heavy stuff, Ava. You know that. But I love you, and I’m glad you called. Don’t wait until you’re in a hole next time, aye?’
‘Aye.’ I don’t trust my voice to produce more than a syllable. He hasn’t asked much about Nevin, and I haven’t told him anything beyond ‘we broke up’.
‘I…I love you, too.’
He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. ‘Right. Cheery-bye, Pet.’
He turns and gets into the car without looking back. I watch the rear lights flare red as he pulls away. And then I’m standing in the doorway of a stranger’s house.
