After placing an order, he slides into the kitchen chair across from me, resting his elbows on the table and leaning forward to stare straight into my eyes. It’s his no-nonsense lawyer pose, the one he reserved for stern talks when I broke curfew or got a bad grade on a math test.
“All right, enough beating around the bush. I know all about you and that crooner, Jake something or another. I read the tabloids. I know what’s going on in the world.”
“Oh yeah? Since when do you read tabloids?” Despite the heaviness pressing down on my chest, I can’t help but laugh.
Dad throws up his hands in a gesture of exasperation. “Okay, fine, Fran reads them. And I’m pretty sure she’s got a thing for your man, by the way, but we can table that one for now.”
He gives me a pointed look. “But it’s just the two of us here, Loo. Tell me what’s going on, and we’ll figure something out. Unless, of course, this Casanova hurt my little girl, in which case I will punch his lights out. I mean it. I don’t care how famous he is.”
The entire story tumbles out of me—how Jake and I first met and how he came back into my life so unexpectedly. How I tried and failed to balance my work schedule and Jake’s engagements, and how miserable I felt when I couldn’t be there with him. And how, despite my best efforts to juggle it all, I still lost everything. I still got fired from the restaurant. And Jake.Jake. It hurts too much to even think about a future without him.
The food arrives and Dad unpacks everything from the soggy brown paper bag, handing me a carton of General Tso’s chicken.My stomach grumbles with anticipation. After all these years, it’s still my favorite.
“The worst part is knowing that I let Mom down,” I say miserably, as I close my chopsticks around a piece of chicken.
Dad pauses, a hand clutching an egg roll hovering halfway between the paper wrapper and his mouth. “What do you mean?”
“She always said she wished she could have seen me become a Michelin-star chef, that she could have eaten in one of my restaurants. I tried so hard to make it happen, and I just failed.” A treacherous tear slides down my cheek and I press it away with my thumb.
“Oh, honey.” Dad reaches out to rub my forearm. The kitchen light bounces off the thick gold watch band encircling his hairy wrist. “Mommy was always proud of you. You know that, right? But it wasn’t because of your cooking career. It was because of who you are. The loving, caring person you have always been.”
I sniffle. “You don’t think she’d be disappointed?”
He shakes his head. “Of course not. She didn’t care about you becoming a chef in a big restaurant. Not unless that’s what you wanted. Cooking isn’t about achievement. It’s about comfort and taking care of others. That’s why you started doing it in the first place, right? To take care of Mommy when she was sick. Food is your love language.”
I tilt my head, staring at him in disbelief. “My love language? Who are you?”
Dad barks out a laugh. “Fran might have made me take a couple of thoseCosmopolitanquizzes.” He shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “But really, Loo. The only thing your mom really wanted was for you to be happy. To love and to be loved.” He looks across the table, locking his eyes with mine. “Which begs the question. Are you happy?”
Instead of answering, I pick up another piece of chicken and chew it carefully. I might not be ready to admit it out loud, but deepdown, I know I haven’t been happy for a while now. I thought being a chef was what I wanted, what I needed to do with my life. But it never satisfied my need to nurture, to create. Those urges have been lying dormant inside me and neglecting them has taken its toll.
“Listen, I don’t know what happened between you two, but I saw some of those magazine photos, and I’ve never seen you look happier. Even an old schmuck like me can see how you felt about each other.”
“Yeah, well, not all love stories last forever,” I mutter. Love. A word I never even managed to say to Jake. Do I love him? But I know the answer to that one without a moment’s hesitation. I’ve known for a long time.
The realization sends a spark through me, igniting the flame of anger that’s been slowly simmering for years. And suddenly, it’s boiled to the surface.
“Besides, you’re hardly qualified to give me a lecture on forever romances. You spent half of your life with Mom, and you don’t even seem to care that she’s gone.”
My face flushes with heat the moment I spit out the angry words. For so long, I’ve pushed my resentment down, locking it away somewhere deep inside me. But now the dam has burst open, my fury flooding loose.
“You gave up on us, Dad! On both of us. You just packed up and left. You replaced her so fast, it was like she never even mattered. Like neither of us did.”
I stare at my feet, too angry to look at him. A long moment passes.
“You’re right, Loo,” he finally says, quietly. “I did abandon you. It’s my greatest regret. I know it’s why you’ve kept me at arm’s length all these years. And I know that I probably deserve it. Believe me, I would do anything to take it back.”
He lets out a shaky breath.
“But you’re wrong about one thing. I could never replace yourmother. She was my whole world. When she died, I couldn’t even remember how to breathe. And I didn’t know how to be alone. The hole she left behind was too big. I needed someone to fill it and to do it fast, because if not, I would have drowned. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t love her. It was that I loved her so much I didn’t know how to live without her.”
I finally manage to drag my eyes off the ground and take in his crumbled form. His eyes are shining, and I realize it’s only the second time in my life I’ve seen my dad cry. Immediately, the walls that I’ve built up inside me come crashing down. For so long, I’ve felt like I mourned my mom alone, while my dad picked up and moved on with his life. Now I can see that we were both drowning in our grief. We just did it in our own ways.
Rising from my chair, I fling my arms around his neck, burying my face in his chest. For a moment, he seems startled. Then his arms tighten around me, drawing me close. We stay like that for a long time, and I feel like a little girl again as he comforts me, stroking my hair.
Just then, I hear the creak of a door opening. Turning, I see Fran standing in the doorway, car keys clutched tightly in her French-manicured hand. She glances back and forth quickly between me and my dad, her expression uncertain.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she says quickly. “I just wanted to see Lexi before she turned in for the night.” She gives me a cautious smile and for the first time, I see Fran in a new light. She’d wanted kids with her first husband, but wasn’t able to have them, and I think she’s always hoped she could be a proxy mother figure to me. But I’ve steadfastly kept my distance, shooting her down every time she’s offered to spend time with me. Yet no matter how badly I’ve treated her, or how often I’ve rebuffed her attempts to forge a relationship, she’s never given up on me. She’s never stopped trying. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized how lucky I am to have so many people in my life with unwavering faith in me.
