Chapter 3: The Thing He Said in the Dark
I heard his footsteps in the hallway.
They stopped outside my door.
A knock.
Two soft ones.
"Nia."
I didn't answer right away.
I was sitting on my bed with my knees pulled up and my backpack still on the floor where I'd dropped it.
My stomach had stopped growling.
That was almost worse.
Like my body had given up asking.
"Nia, I know you're awake."
"Come in," I said.
The door opened.
The hall light cut across the floor.
Dad stood in the frame, still in his work jacket, one hand on the doorframe.
He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.
He sat on the edge of my desk chair.
Not on the bed.
The chair meant he wanted to talk, not comfort.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine."
He looked at me the way he used to when I was small and said I wasn't scared of thunder.
Like he knew, and was deciding whether to push.
"Caleb told me what happened."
"It's not a big deal."
"Nia."
"Dad, I'm serious.
I was late.
She threw the food away.
It's done."
He was quiet for a moment.
His hands were clasped between his knees.
He stared at the floor.
"This isn't the first time she's done something like this," he said.
I didn't say anything.
"I know that," he added.
"I want you to know that I know."
Something tightened in my chest.
Not relief.
Not quite anger.
Something in between that didn't have a name yet.
"Then why does it keep happening?" I asked.
He looked up.
"Because I kept telling myself it wasn't as bad as it looked." He stopped.
"That was wrong.
I was wrong to do that."
I had waited a long time to hear something like that.
Now that it was in the room, I didn't know what to do with it.
"She doesn't want me here," I said.
"She's never wanted me here.
You know that."
"Nia—"
"I'm not saying it to make you feel bad.
I'm saying it because it's true and we both know it's true and pretending it isn't doesn't help anyone."
He didn't argue.
That told me more than anything he could have said.
"Your mother—" he started.
"Don't."
"I need to say this."
"Dad."
"Your mother made me promise something before she d*ed." His voice dropped on the last word, not from grief exactly, but from the weight of carrying it for so long.
"She made me promise that you would always have a home.
That you would always be taken care of.
That no matter what happened after she was gone, you would not be left alone."
The room felt very still.
"She knew she was running out of time," he said.
"She knew I'd be lost without her.
She wasn't wrong about that." He rubbed the back of his neck.
"When I met Vanessa, I thought — I told myself she was good with Caleb and Ava, and that eventually she'd come around with you.
That it just needed time."
"It's been four years, Dad."
"I know."
"Four years is not eventually."
He didn't answer that.
I looked at him sitting there in the half-dark, this man who had loved my mother and lost her and tried to rebuild something from what was left, and I felt two things at the same time.
I understood him.
And I was furious at him.
Both things were completely true.
"What did you say to her?" I asked.
"Tonight.
In the kitchen."
He hesitated.
"I told her that what she did was not acceptable."
"And what did she say?"
He looked at the floor again.
"She said that if I wanted to take your side every time you decided the rules didn't apply to you, she wasn't sure this family could work."
The air went out of the room.
"She said that?" I asked.
"Yes."
I nodded slowly.
The tightness in my chest had moved somewhere lower.
Somewhere harder.
"So she made it a choice," I said.
"Between her and me."
He didn't deny it.
I reached down and unzipped my backpack.
Pulled out my math notebook.
Set it on the bed.
"I have a test tomorrow," I said.
"I should study."
"Nia—"
"I'm okay, Dad.
Really.
I just need to study."
He stood up.
He stood there for a moment like he wanted to say something else, something that would fix it, but there wasn't anything like that available and he knew it.
He walked to the door.
"I'm going to handle this," he said.
"I want you to know that."
He pulled the door shut behind him.
I sat with my notebook open on my lap and stared at the equations on the page and didn't read a single one.
May you like
Handle this.
I had heard that before too.
