I stand up from my desk and sigh. There is so much to atone for.
That feeling of unease pushes me past my desk to the light switch just by the door. With one click, the room is covered in darkness, bringing with it a drop in the tension. It’s silly, but not being able to see clearly the files stacked on my desk and the papers that desperately need my signature somehow helps me breathe easier.
The widow facing the west is a painting of pastel colors. Sun rays brush the manicured lawn and trees outside. Starting my usual ritual, I try to give the sun my worries, letting it set and cleanse them, but today it doesn’t work. That hint of a storm, that feeling that something has already gone very wrong, it stays with me and won’t let me release my breath.
Unsure what to do, I glance at my computer. The screen is set to a flight tracker site. A little cartoon plane is followed by the line of its trip. A completed trip. Arrival was over twenty minutes ago. Enough time for the drive here.
My stomach tightens, forcing me to frown at the sunset. I can’t sit down. It’s easier to wait while standing.
The knock at the door doesn’t shock me, but I do flinch slightly. The waiting is done. The storm is here.
“Sir?”
I don’t turn. Calvin, my assistant, clears his throat, and I hear the soft brush of his clothing as he relaxes into an at-ease position and waits.
“There’s a problem,” I supply calmly. The knot of worry that was holding me down earlier is gone. Now that the storm is here, it will be dealt with and passed over. This is the way the world works. I have been alive too long to see otherwise.
Calvin shifts again. His behavior is uncharacteristic. Usually, he also excels at calm. The news must be grim for him to hold back.
I know it’s not a plane crash. So, what else can it be?
“Miss Lewis was not on the plane, sir?” His voice hitches like he is embarrassed. Like a file I asked for has been overlooked or misplaced, not my only daughter. My daughter with a rebellious streak a mile wide.
I can feel the muscles in my back drop. Sighing, I bring my fingers up to my temples and rub them slightly. It’s a reflex I thought I had given up — along with a marriage. Only one person in the world makes me act this way, strained and suffocated, and now I have to call her.
“I assume the plane was searched?”
“Yes, sir. I insisted. I also checked their manifest. Miss Lewis was checked in. Her boarding pass was taken upon boarding.” Calvin hesitates. “She should have been on there.” There is a shake in his voice I don’t like to hear. My assistant is taking this too personally.
“Okay.” I turn, cross back to my chair, and slide into it. “Let’s try to figure this out.”
Looking at Calvin, I wave to the chair in front of my desk then temple my fingers. It’s a typical move of mine, one my assistant recognizes, and the familiarity does him good. The man eases into the chair before me and mimics my pose. This is the way we plan.
“One. We know that Miss Lewis boarded the place,” Calvin starts lifting one finger away from the others.
“No,” I interject. “We do not really know that. Myah is crafty. Laura told me about her hiring other students to take tests for her. Got away with it by just giving them her student ID.”
Calvin chuckles but quiets quickly when I don’t join in. Even in the low light of just the sunset through the widows, I can tell he is blushing slightly. Calvin would never be good at gamboling.
“One,” I start again, raising my first finger like he did earlier. “We know that my daughter, my only daughter, does not want to move to DC. She does not want to live with me, her lonely, single father.”
A snort stops my speech. Leaning towards me across the desk, my assistant looks me square in the face. “Theatricals are not like you, Owen.”
I try to hide the smile that is pulling at my lips, but I can’t.
Calvin waves his hand slightly. “I can tell that you are not truly worried.” That same hand slides over his short blonde hair. “I figured that I was walking into my death. It’s not every day that one loses a general’s daughter. Sir.”
“It happens more often than you think. That little girl has a mind of her own. I understand that she gets that from her father, but it’s still hard to deal with.”
“Like looking into a little mirror, eh?”
The childless man in front of me grins like he would say more if it wouldn’t cost him his job. I know what people say about me, and it might.