I give Cory a side eye when she calls him this. The look he returns is apologetic.
“I better get answers soon,” I mouth at him. His quick nod ends our clandestine conversation, and then we’re slathering pancakes in syrup.
“Do you have any ketchup?” Cory asks.
“In the fridge door.”
After retrieving the mismatched condiment, he drops a few dollops on his eggs.
Lizzie wrinkles her nose at this.
“Ew. You’re weird.”
“You two are the weird ones. Pancakes were meant for syrup, and eggs were meant for ketchup. Want to try?” He holds the bottle above Lizzie’s plate. And much to my surprise, the pickiest daughter on Earth nods. Her first bite is cautious, but then she’s smiling and they’re both pressuring me to try it.
“It’s really good, mom. Why didn’t you ever tell me about this before?”
“Because it’s unnatural,” I say with the primness of a queen who has spoken a truth that shall not be questioned.
As Cory and Lizzie compete to see who can fit the most pancake in their mouths at one time, I take a step back mentally and capture this moment in my memory. Even if everything goes south after this meal, if Cory decides not to reveal his identity to Lizzie, I want to remember what this moment feels like. Because when I look back on this through the window of memory, all I’ll see is the happy family that could have been.
Lizzie is the first to finish eating, and she’s right back to being squirmy and bursting with energy. “Can I go watch my show now? Please. Mr. Cory got the internet working so fast.”
“Put your dishes in the sink first.” At the speed of light, she deposits her fork and plate in the sink, and then she’s around the corner and the TV is back on. Which leaves Cory and me alone.
“What was that?”
“A pancake-eating contest. And you’d be proud to know that I won.”
My deadpan stare tells him that I’m not playing around. “You know what I’m talking about.”
His deep inhale tells me that he does, indeed, know exactly what I’m referring to.
“I don’t think this is the right timing.”
“The right timing for what?” I come back with. “For a daughter? For a family? I’m so sorry that we couldn’t accommodate your oh-so important Hollywood schedule.” My words are glazed in a thick layer of sarcasm that I make no attempt to hide. It’s one thing for him to be rejecting me because it’s not good timing, but to blow off Lizzie; that’s just something I can’t abide.
Cory leans into my space. There’s an intimate air between us, and I can’t help, as angry as I am, when my breaths go shallow.
“That’s not it,” he says. “At all. What I mean is that I realized if I tell her I’m her father,” he says, whispering this last word, “there’s no way that she’s just going to accept that. I mean, what kid would just go, ‘Oh, okay. Great to meet you, dad who abandoned me before I was born. Really love how you’ve been showing me affection from thousands of miles away this whole time’. Who could ever take it in stride like that?”
He pauses here, maybe to give himself time to think. Maybe to let this idea sink in.
“I just kept playing simulations in my head, and none of them were ending on a positive note. But then I thought that maybe I can tell her later. After we’ve built a bit of rapport.” Here the serious façade drops and the never-take-anything-serious Cory comes back in full force. “I figure after a few more pancake contests, I’ll be good to go.”
But I’m not following his happy-go-lucky shift.
“I don’t know if this is the best way to go about it. It might backfire on you. I mean, you’re basically lying to her. And kids are quick to pick up on that sort of thing.”
“It’s not lying. I’m just not telling her that—wait, yeah. I see what you mean. Look, I don’t know what I’m doing here. This is all virgin territory for me. If you have a handbook on how I should be handling this, I would love to see it, but for the time being, the best I can do is to just try and navigate this minefield on cautious tiptoes.”
I might not be happy with this result. This morning was supposed to be the big change. Instead, it falls as flat as a pancake.
A ringtone I’ve never heard goes off, and Cory pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Shit. I completely forgot.”
“What?”
“It's a reminder I set up for myself. I have an hour to make it to the airport if I don’t want to miss my flight.” He starts tapping away on his phone. “I’ll call and cancel the ticket.”