“Hey, folks! What’ll you have?” A waitress in a blue-and-white gingham dress appeared at our table, pen at the ready.
“Girls?” my dad asked.
“I’ll have a short stack of blueberry pancakes,” Darcy said, shoving the menu across the table. “And coffee.”
“Toasted bagel and orange juice, please,” I said.
“I’ll try the whole wheat pancakes with a side of bacon and coffee as well,” my dad put in. He stacked up the menus and handed them to her. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” she said with a smile, then turned and sauntered away.
My father blew out a sigh and laced his hands together on top to the table. “Listen. I owe you guys an apology.”
I gripped the edge of the vinyl seat on either side of my legs. Next to me, Darcy stopped breathing.
“It’s been really hard on me…since your mother died, and I know that’s no excuse, but I didn’t realize until recently how…closed off I’ve been,” he said, looking back and forth between the two of us. “How…angry.”
I cleared my throat. Darcy shifted in her seat.
“Actually, that’s not true,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “I did realize how angry I was, but I didn’t want to admit it, because I was angry at her and that just felt wrong.”
My stomach hollowed out because I knew exactly what he meant. There were times when I felt mad at my mother for leaving me, for leaving us. Like she had any control over it. Last year I’d taken first place in the regional science fair with my study of cancer cells in field mice, beating out Samir Clark and his robotic arm, and while all the officials and teachers and students had been applauding my victory, I’d just stared at the crowd, wishing she was there. She’d been a biology major in college and had taught at Princeton like my dad, and I knew how proud she would have been, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted her there. Somehow I’d gotten through the reception and all the photos, but as soon as I’d gotten home I’d dropped the trophy on the couch, run to my room, and started screaming into a pillow. I’d yelled and yelled and yelled until I’d started to feel stupid for yelling. Until I’d realized she would have been there if she could have been. And then I’d just felt stupid and sorry.
“I don’t think I’ve truly accepted that I’m never going to see your mom again,” my dad said, tears shining in his eyes. Darcy sniffled. Her eyes were full, too. Maybe she did think about our mother. Maybe she did miss her. “And you two girls have so much of her in you…I see her every time I look at you. And it makes me so proud, but at the same time, it makes me so sad. I’ve just never known how to deal with it. I’ve never known how to be the person you need me to be.”
He swallowed hard, containing the tears. Darcy grabbed a napkin out of the dispenser and covered her eyes briefly.
“I get it, Dad,” I said, my voice a croak. “I really get it. I just…I think she’d want us to do better. I think she’d want us to try harder to be…”
“A good family,” Darcy finished, sniffling again. “She’d want us to be a family.”
Dad nodded and looked away. “Do you think we could do that?” he asked after a moment. “Do you think we could try? For her?”
“I think we could,” I said, my heart slamming against my rib cage.
Darcy nodded, still trying not to cry.
“Good,” my father said. He took a deep breath, sitting up straight as he took it in, then blew it out and leaned his arms into the table. “Thank you,” he said. “For hearing me out.”
“Thank you,” Darcy said softly, her voice watery.
There was still a ton of crap between us. All the yelling, all the confusion and anger. But right then, at that moment, my dad looked, sounded, felt like the old him. Like the dad I’d known before the word cancer had entered our lives. I’d loved that dad.
So I forced a smile. “Any time.”
I looked over at Darcy, expecting her to jump at the chance to ask Dad about the party, but she was staring down at the table, her bottom lip trembling as she toyed with her quaking fingers in her lap. She looked broken, like if I touched her the wrong way she would crumble. I swallowed hard. I felt so guilty, all of a sudden, for thinking she didn’t care that Mom was gone. Maybe she just dealt with it differently than I did. Maybe all the parties, the shopping, the cheerleading and hostessing—maybe it was her way of distracting herself. Because wasn’t that all I was doing, studying my ass off all the time, running whenever I had too much time to think?
“Dad?” I said suddenly. “There’s this party tonight, and Darcy and I were wondering if we could go.”
Darcy lifted her chin and looked at me as if she’d never seen me before.
“A party?” he said hesitantly. “I don’t know if—”
A plate of pancakes dropped onto our table with a clatter. “You guys are coming to the party?”
Krista stood next to our table in a blue gingham minidress that made her legs look like toothpicks, her hair back in a high ponytail, and an expectant grin on her face. She placed Darcy’s food in front of her, then mine. I glanced past her and saw that our original waitress was busy making a new pot of coffee.
“This is so great! Tristan didn’t think you were going to come!” Krista said, clasping her hands as she grinned down at me.