The Ever After of Ella and Micha (The Secret 4)

“Yeah, but…” My dad trails off, staring at the back door. “That was different, though… things between your mom and me… they were complicated.”

“Because she was pregnant.” I reveal that I know the truth, unable to keep it in any longer. When his eyes snap wide, I add, “Mom’s mom… my grandmother sent me a box of her stuff and it had this… mom’s journal in it.”

There’s a pause where I can hear everyone breathing and a car revs its engine from somewhere outside.

“That wasn’t from your grandmother,” my dad says with a heavy sigh, unfolding his arms. “Well, it was, but she didn’t mail it to you. Her lawyer did.”

“Her lawyer?” Micha and I say at the same time.

My dad nods, looking very uneasy. “She actually passed away about a month ago and I guess there was this box found in the nursing home with your name on it. The lawyer handling her will called me up, looking for you so he could send it to you.”

She’s dead? I’m a little shocked and I feel strangely saddened, which is weird because I never spoke to the woman. But still she was my grandmother.

I don’t know how to react because I didn’t know the woman at all, yet it makes me sort of sad, knowing I’ll never get to know her. I’d even considered it for a brief second, when I’d read over her note in the box, and now the possibility is gone.

“Why didn’t you give me a heads-up?” I ask my dad and Micha protectively scoots closer to me, like he can sense something bad is about to happen.

My dad reaches for his cigarettes in his jacket pocket. “Because it’s hard to talk to you about that stuff… especially about stuff like death and certain people.”

“About my grandma?”

“And about your mother… because it was a box of her stuff and I wasn’t sure how you’d react or how I felt… feel about it.”

My mouth makes an O as my dad opens the pack, plucks out a cigarette, and plops it into his mouth. He pats down his jeans for the lighter and finds it in his back pocket. Once he gets the cigarette lit and inhales a soothing cloud of smoke, he looks more relaxed.

“It’s a touchy subject for both of us.” He reaches across the counter for an ashtray near the sink. He taps the cigarette on the side and then holds it in his fingers, smoke filtering through the room and erasing the delicious cinnamon scent. “But my… therapist says I should start working on talking about it more, especially with you.”

“You’re seeing a therapist?” I’m surprised. “Since when?”

He looks over at Micha with reluctance, then sticks the end of the cigarette into his mouth and takes another drag. “For a month. My sponsor thought it’d be a good idea.” His phone rings from inside his pocket and he holds up his finger. “Just a second,” he says as he retrieves his phone. He checks the screen and then answers it, walking out of the kitchen.

“God, are all the Daniels seriously messed?” I mutter under my breath. “He’s seeing a therapist, too? First my brother, then me, and now my dad. It could be like the family motto: enter my family and your head’s going to get messed up and you’ll have to have a shrink put it back together again.” I peek over at Micha.

“Don’t even think it,” he warns. “You’re not crazy and you’re not going to ruin my life. You’ll only ruin it if you leave me.”

His words remind me that I’m not that person anymore, the one who pushes people away. I need him and he needs me. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” I blow out a breath. “But can you give me a minute?” I ask him. “I think I need to talk to my dad alone.”

He seems reluctant. “Are you sure? Because I don’t mind hanging around even if it means enduring your dad’s awkwardness.”

I nod and give his hand a comforting squeeze. “I just want to ask him a few things about my mom and I think he’ll answer more easily if it’s just me.”

Micha remains still for a few seconds longer and then, nodding, he backs away, holding onto my hand until we’re far enough away that our fingers slip apart. “If you’re not back in, like, an hour,” he says, opening the back door and letting snow and a chilly breeze gust in, “then I’m coming back for you.”

“Micha, what do you think’s going to happen?” I joke. “It’s just my dad.”

He intensely holds my gaze, making a point without saying it. There have been many times where painful, hurtful things have happened between my dad and me.

“All right, see you in an hour,” I promise and he steps outside, drawing his hood over his head as he shuts the door.

I pull out a chair and sink down into it, then steal another cookie from the rooster jar. I’m stuffing the last bit of it into my mouth when my dad walks in, clutching his phone.

He glances around the empty chairs. “Where’d Micha go?”

I swallow the cookie and brush the crumbs off the table. “Home for a little bit, so you and I could talk about some stuff.”

“Yeah, we do need to talk.” He sits down, then glances at the rooster on the table without the lid on. “I see you found the cookies.”

“Yeah, but who made them?” I wonder curiously. “You?”

He shakes his head as he puts the lid back on. “No, Amanda did.”

“Who’s Amanda?”

“This woman I met while I was staying at the alcoholism treatment center.”

“Was she another recovering alcoholic?” I ask.

“No.” He pushes his sleeves up and rests his arms on the table. “She was the secretary there.”

“Oh,” I say. “So… are you, like, dating her?”

He scratches his head. “Um… sort of… I guess.”

“Oh,” I say, at a loss for words. It’s weird he’s dating because he’s my dad and the only person I’ve seen him with is my mom, but then again their relationship was beyond rocky. “Is she the one who cleaned the house?”

His hand falls from his head to the table. “No, I cleaned it. Why?”

I shrug. “Just wondered. It looks nice.”

He gives me a look, like he wants to say more, but then he changes the subject, relaxing back in the chair. “So what was in the box?” he asks rigidly. “I know it was stuff that belonged to your mother, but what exactly?”

“Mom’s journal and a few other things, like drawings and photos.” I pause at the sudden increase of my heart rate. “I didn’t know she liked to draw.”

He stares down at the table with a sad look on his face. “She did when she was younger,” he says quietly. “But she stopped not too long after we got married.”

It’s so hard to be talking about this aloud, asking him questions, but I force myself to continue because I want to know—understand. “Why did she stop?”

When he glances up, his eyes are little watery. “Because she stopped enjoying it and so there was no point, at least that’s what she told me.”

I trace the patterns of the wood in the table, staring down at them, because I can’t look him in the eye with what I’m about to say. “You told me once, when I was… when I was dropping you off at the recovery clinic, that things weren’t always bad. But when was that? I know her bipolar disorder progressively got worse, but even from the start it always felt like mom was sad all the time.”

He’s silent for a while and I worry I might have upset him. But when I look up at him, he’s just staring at me like I’m a person, not a painful reminder of the woman he once loved, which is how he used to look at me all the time.

“Things were never one hundred percent normal when it came to your mom,” he says, his voice strained. “But in the beginning she had way more ups than she did downs. And her… episodes… they were few and far in between.”

“Was she ever happy?”

Again it takes him a moment to answer. “She was happy sometimes. I think anyway. It was so hard to tell.”

“Why was it so hard to tell?” Deep down, though, I think I know the answer. Because sometimes it’s hard to be happy or to even admit that you’re good enough to be happy, that you do deserve it, so you refuse to feel it, fight it. It’s my own thought process sometimes and I hate it, but I’ve also learned to deal with it… I think.

He smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “It’s just the way she was, Ella May. And I really want to believe she was happy, even though she didn’t show it.”

It’s weird hearing him call me that and it throws me off and I let a question slip out that I probably shouldn’t. “Why did you love her?” I ask and then pull a remorseful face. “I’m sorry, Dad. You don’t have to answer that.”

He shakes his head, more water building up in his eyes. “It’s okay. You can ask me things. I’m doing better with… stuff.” He pauses, deliberating, and then his breath falters. “I loved her because in the beginning she was erratic and impulsive and she could make life really surprising and… unpredictable. ” He stares over my shoulder, lost in memories and for a brief moment he almost looks happy. Then he blinks his eyes several times and the look disappears before he turns his attention back to me. “I think she was happy when she had you. And Dean.”

I can’t tell if he’s lying, but I don’t really care if he is or not. He might just be saying it to make me happy and I’ll take it. “Thanks, Dad.”

“No problem.” He seems like he wants to say more, squirming and popping his neck, like he has nervous energy flowing through him. “Ella, I don’t want to make you mad but I… I really wish you’d think about waiting to get married.”

What? “Why?”

“Because…” He rubs the back of his neck and leaves his hand there with his elbow bent upward. “You’re so young… and should live your life before you tie yourself down to grown-up stuff.” He lets his arm fall to his side.

It takes me a moment to speak, because there are a lot of mean words that want to push their way up my throat. Like the fact that I was tied down by grown-up stuff since I was four. Bills. Cooking. Cleaning. Taking care of people. That stuff is not new to me.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, but I don’t mean it. I back toward the door, zipping my jacket up. “And, Dad… thanks for talking about Mom.”

“No problem,” he replies. “I should have talked about her more, I guess.”

I don’t say anything. I agree with him, but I don’t want to say it because it’ll only hurt him, ruin this whole weird, good father/daughter vibe we have going. I open the back door and the wind blows inside, dusting snow across the floor.

“And, Ella,” he calls out as I’m about to step out into the snow and the glacier-cold breeze.

I pause and glance over my shoulder. “Yeah.”