I take a seat, and when he returns to sit next to me, I blurt out another apology.
“I’m sorry I argue all the time. I’ve been angry at you — some of it reasonable, some of it not so much — but you’ve borne the brunt of it, and it probably wasn’t obvious to you that for one week of every year I felt like an outsider who’d finally been allowed to come in from the cold.”
Dad stares at me, his eyebrows pinching in concentration. He rubs his head, then shakes it and raises his cup. “This is my first coffee, and for some reason I got no sleep last night while someone poured bourbon down my throat. I’m not running at full capacity, so that riddle went over my head. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”
“I can do that.” I take a restorative breath and gesture that he should drink his coffee. “Okay.” I nod to myself and take another breath. “I should just say it. Just rip the Band-Aid off and try not to throw salt.”
“Aw, fuck.” He wrinkles his nose. “This is going to sting, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” I say, scrunching my nose too. “The thing is, you probably think I had everything I needed growing up, but I didn’t.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t belong with those people, Dad.”
His eyebrows plunge back into confusion and concern. “What are you talking about? Your mother loves you.”
I sigh as I nod. “Yeah, she likes me okay. But I’m notlikeher. I’m not like any of them. I don’t fit in with the Bakers the way I do with the Hawkins crew. I know I’m different, but at least with you guys I’ve feltwelcome. Mostly.”
Dad scowls, and his knuckles blanch white on the handle of his coffee mug.
“What are you talking about, Lana? You grew up with… the perfect family, perfect house, school, grades, perfect everything. Your mother wouldn’t have settled for anything less — I know her. Intimately.”
“Gross.”
He grunts at me. “What I mean is, I wasn’t up to scratch, and we all fucking knew it. I thought you didn’twantme in your life. You certainly made it clear you were the snarling, independent type who didn’t need me. You wouldn’t even let me pay for your college tuition. You told me you got all those jobs and scholarships so you didn’t have to feelindebtedto me for your education. Then there’s Clarence fucking Baker. Father of the century and the best fucking thing since three-ply toilet paper, who I had to hear about every fucking Christmas.”
I close my eyes and groan. “I may have played him up to get a rise out of you,” I admit. “But heisa great dad,” I add, considering all he does for the Baker clan. “Amazing, really. Tohisdaughters.”
Dad sets down his coffee. He looks on the verge of the axe-wielding behavior he threatened Bates with last night. “What did you say?”
I shrug. “Being Clarry’s stepdaughter sucked swamp-donkey dick. I told you my daddy issues weren’t all your fault, and the original point I was trying to make was that although I was angry and didn’t really fit in anywhere, I at least understood that I belonged somewhere closer to the man I could hurl rage at for twenty-odd years and still know that both his door and arms would remain open. Even though he can be a real fucking dickhead sometimes. The conclusions you draw from that information can be your own.”
Dad launches himself out of his chair and hugs me before my next breath. “Why didn’t you eversayanything?”
I shrug in his arms, but he’s squeezing tight, so it’s hard work.
“I was angry. And sad. And a kid — a kid who everyone looked sideways at for being herself. What power did I have? I was pretty sure nobody fucking wanted me, and I had suspicions that even the aliens who left me behind might have done it on purpose.”
Dad leans back to study my face and then winces. He swallows visibly, and his eyes take on a glassy sheen. “That’s not even meant to be a fucking joke, is it?”
“What do you mean…? Oh.” I shake my head, wishing I had said it to be funny instead of feeling like it was the bone-deep truth.
“I didn’t ever mean to be like this,” I swear to him. “I was only trying to be useful to people, so they’d want to keep me around. But no matter what I tried, I only rubbed people the wrong way. I could see by the end of each Hawkins Christmas week that I’d always worn you down with the strain of having me there. I couldn’t ask you for more. One week had to be enough.”
Dad pulls me back in and holds me even tighter as he groans.
“I was struggling by the end of the week because I didn’t want you toleave, Lana. The closer those special weeks got to their end, the more I had to pull back so I didn’t fall into grief again. You have no idea how hard it was to let you go that first time. I shouldn’t have let your mom give you the clean break she swore you both needed from me and my depressive bullshit. Every Christmas you’d show me what I was missing, and then it was like losing you all over again, every time — but I would’ve held on and not let go if I’d known you wanted tostay. I thought you were happy without me.”
“Dad, you’re squeezing too tight.”
“Sorry.”
He lets go and swipes at his face as he sits back in his chair. “I’m sorry,” he says again, clearing his throat when his voice breaks.
I take his hands and tug him forward until we’re face to face.
“I need to say some things to you. And I can see that you’re tender…”
