“How’s school?” he said as the server left.
“Fine.”
He poured cream into his mug, stirred. Ginny sipped hers straight. He wondered how long she’d been taking her coffee unsweetened and black, and whether it was part of her perpetual attempt to slim down. Guilt feathered into him. He’d been realizing since he moved here just how little he did actually know about his daughter, how much he’d missed of her childhood, her growing up.
“Want to tell me about the new courses?”
She blew out air.
“I’m trying, Ginn. Cut me a break.”
She moved a fall of dark hair back off her face. “It’s ... just so obvious, Dad. So fake.”
“Hey, I’m here, aren’t I?” He smiled. “How many old dads do you see standing in that line out there in the sleet?”
Her lips curved in spite of herself. “Okay. You win.”
Baby steps. He was going to win this with baby steps. It wouldn’t be simple—his daughter was still so full of old triggers and her mother’s poison—but he was here. He was showing up. And yeah, a shrink might have a field day with him and all his reasons for relocating, including the battered old yacht he’d bought and was trying to renovate, and in which he lived at the West Bay Marina. An analyst would probably also find meaning in the fact that he couldn’t look at, let alone sign, those divorce papers his wife’s lawyer had sent him. But for now he’d secured a job locally—no mean feat since it was a highly coveted position. He started tomorrow.
This was going to work. He was going to pull it all back together. Sort of.
While they waited for the food, which was taking forever, Ginny prattled on about her new semester and how she wanted to eventually get into law. He was proud of her, and he told her so. And she warmed further, telling him about the college choir she’d recently joined, how they sang on Thursday nights at the Catholic cathedral downtown with its amazing acoustics and stained glass, and how they’d all gone out after a practice to a karaoke club downtown last Thursday. “It’s actually a gay bar,” she said. “Owned by a gay couple.”
Maddocks nodded and finished the last of his coffee. As much as Ginny was relaxing into her conversation with him, there remained an underlying and subtle need in her to provoke her father. He was not taking the bait.
“Our singers rocked the place,” she said. “We got standing ovations. And then I stayed on by myself, after the group had all left, because I still wanted to perform a solo. I sang that one fromLes Miz. You know, the one where—”
“Me? Know anything from a musical?” He laughed.
She fell silent. And he knew she was thinking of her mother’s new prick of a boyfriend, who apparently loved opera. She looked down and picked at her napkin. Under the table he fiddled with his wedding ring, which he wore mostly for Ginn, to give her the idea of hope, show her that he was trying to hold on to some half-baked notion of family and long-ago promises.
“How did you get home from the karaoke club, then, if you were on your own?”
She shrugged. “Walked. It’s only, like, five blocks.”
“What time was that?”
Her gaze darted up, and defiance crackled back into her eyes. Eyes so like his own. Dark blue against her pale skin. His Welsh heritage showing in his progeny. His chest tightened with a protective surge, the rawness of a father’s love.
“It’s a totally safe city, Dad.”
“No it’s not. No city is ‘totally safe,’ Ginny.”
“Compared to Surrey, or the downtown east side of Vancouver, it is.”
“I know exactly what goes on in this city. It’s why I have a job.”
“That’s the trouble with your job, you know that? You see so much bad shit—you constantly see such an ugly, ugly side of humanity that you forget there’s even goodness and kindness in people.”
“Ginny—”
“I don’t care what you say. You think everyone is bad. You never laughed at home. You never just enjoyed a weekend with me and Mom. Never went hiking or camping or just had the neighbors around for a backyard barbecue.Thosewere the things Mom wanted from you. ThatIneeded from you. You barely even smiled at me when you did actually come home—”
His cell buzzed in his pocket. She fell silent, stared at him. It buzzed again. He ignored it. The waitress was coming over with their plates of food. The call kicked to voicemail. And almost immediately his cell started to buzz again.
He removed it from his pocket, checked the caller ID. His new boss. He frowned. He wasn’t due to start until Monday morning.
“I need to take this,” he said softly.
