"I know how old he is."
"He's been my friend since before you were born."
"I know."
"He was here when your mother—" His voice catches. He looks at the ceiling. Looks back at me. "He was part of this family."
"He still is," I say. "Just differently."
I tell him I'm in love with Declan. I tell him I'm carrying Declan's child. I say both things plainly, looking at my father, and I don't perform any version of this for him. No managing. No softening.
Just Billie. In her dad's kitchen. Telling the truth.
"I'm not asking you to forgive him today," I say. "I know you're hurt. I know you're angry. Both of those things are real." I take a breath. "I'm asking you not to make me choose."
The kitchen is very quiet. The clock. The same clock Declan heard yesterday when the silence got so big it filled the room.
My dad looks at the table. He looks at his hands. He looks at Declan's chair. Then he looks at me.
"You're pregnant," he says.
"Yeah."
"By Declan."
"Yeah."
"And you love him."
"Yeah, Dad. I love him."
His eyes are wet. My dad's eyes are wet at his kitchen table and I did that and I don't look away.
"Your mother would've had something to say about this," he says finally. His voice worn down to the grain. "She would've had opinions. Loud ones."
I almost smile. "Yeah. She would."
"I raised you to know your own mind." A pause. "I can't be angry that it worked."
That's not forgiveness. That's not the pot roast and the candle and Sunday dinner back to normal.
It's a door. Left open. Just barely.
It's enough.
I cross the kitchen and I hug my father and he puts his arms around me and holds on hard, the way he held me when I was small and when mom died and he's holding me now, and his hand on the back of my head is the same hand that's been there my whole life.
***
I drive to Declan's.
. The same route he drove yesterday. I'm not crying. I cried at my dad's and in my car for four minutes and now I'm done. Now I'm going to Declan's house, where he promised to call and didn't, and I have things to say about that.
He's at the kitchen table. Same clothes as yesterday. He hasn't slept. He looks like a man who sat here all night and is now looking at me with an expression that is asking me to fix something he doesn't know how to fix himself.
"You were supposed to come to me last night," I say.
"I know."
