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Kate is thirteen and she feels on top of the world. She's set to go into high school out of junior high next year, and there's nothing she wants more in the world than to be a journalist. Her mother, as patiently as she can, tries to steer Kate out of this.
But Daniel isn't in Kate's life, ever. She sees him maybe twice a year. He shows up with presents. She hasn't figured it out yet, why her mom doesn't like him. Why Alice is strict and why Daniel gets to let her have whatever she wants.
Kate barely understands that her father has just gone through another divorce and that the Aimee he talks about is her half-sister. Kate could understand what it means when Alice asks him if he's clean, if she had context. But she doesn't.
And Kate's dad is famous. He's a big name journalist and she sees people reading his articles. So if Kate wants to be big like him, she just has to write articles like him. And his big thing is interviewing people, so Kate starts interviewing people. Like her teacher, Ms. Hayes. And the veteran who lives next door. She tries to interview her mother, who turns her down, not unkindly but firmly.
Kate is thirteen and life is going great. She's going to be a high schooler, and she's already in advanced classes. Her counselor says she's on track to go to a good school. Maybe not an Ivy, but something that'll look good to people. Kate's dream is UC Berkeley, because that's the one people always talk about.
So when her mother ends up in the hospital, no one expects it. Kate least of all.
But Kate sits in the uncomfortable chair next to her mother's hospital bed, holding her frail hand. The doctor had politely suggested that Kate should leave the room when he delivered his diagnosis. But Alice had refused, telling him under no uncertain terms that Kate could handle it and didn't want to have it explained to her in child's words.
This is where Kate learns what Lymphoma means. And autoimmune, and long term hospitalization. Not that she didn't know the words separately. But now she learns what they mean all together when they're said about her mother.
“Someone will have to take care of Kate, we're afraid,” Dr. Cooper says. “Do you have parents, Ms. Molloy?”
“It's Ms. White,” Alice corrects. “Molloy was my ex-husband. We're formalizing the name change. And, no, my father passed years ago and my mother passed last year.” Her hand squeezes Kate's tightly. Kate squeezes it back in comfort.
“Well, I hate to ask, but what about your ex husband? Is he Kate's father?”
Alice looks over to Kate, concerned. “I–”
“Ms. White, someone needs to look after Kate while you're in the hospital. She's too young to function by herself.”
Kate huffs. “No, I'm not.”
Dr. Cooper chuckles awkwardly. “Legally, at least. You should call him, if it's a possibility. We want Kate to be with the closest family member possible. If there's no one, we can explore other options…” even Kate recognizes that as a threat, and turns to her mother. Panic swells in her. She knows what foster care is and knows from books that it's bad.
“I'll call him,” Alice says. “Otherwise, I'll see if my sister has the room.”
There's nothing more exciting to Kate than the idea of having her dad take care of her. It's completely neutralized by the fact her mother's in the hospital and she has to spend three days taking care of herself at home, but she still gets bouncy when the taxi containing her father pulls up outside.
Daniel gets out, paying the driver and hauling his bags out. Kate opens the door and runs out, hugging him. He chuckles and hugs her back. “Hey, Katie.” He pats her back and lets her take his smaller duffel bag. She hauls it down the walk. He follows her, backpack over his shoulder and larger bag in hand. She opens the door and he sets everything down in the foyer.
He knows the house, given that Alice had gotten it in the divorce. He already knows where the guest room he's going to sleep in is. Alice had explained it over the phone, that her room was her room.
“How's your mom doing?” He asks Kate.
Kate startles. She's been purposefully Not Thinking about her mom since Dr. Cooper said that she had to stay in the hospital. She can't wait because she has no way to get to the hospital each day, and if she can't visit then she won't let herself worry. So she's read back through her entire library of books and started on Alice's shelves.
“Do the doctors know much?” Daniel continues, oblivious to how his daughter has been coping.
“Dr. Cooper says she's probably gonna live.” Kate fills a glass with water and hands it to her dad. Now that she's the woman of the house and also the only person in the house, she needs to be a good host. “But not if they don't keep her at the hospital between treatments.”
“That's good.” Daniel takes a sip of water. “When does school start for you?”
It's July, so the looming presence of eighth grade has been haunting Kate. Eighth grade means that Kate moves from the small junior high school to the big high school. Eighth grade means that school starts getting serious. There won't be any more teachers that let Kate read in class, according to her math teacher. “August.”
“Alright.” Daniel shoulders his bags and takes them into the guest room, setting them on the little couch. Kate follows at his heels. Her polka dot patterned socks slide against the hardwood floor. “Do you know if I’m still going to be here for that?”
Kate sits on the edge of the bed and shrugs. “No one’s telling me how long it’ll take. The books said that usually treatment is outpatient, but apparently mom has some pre-existing autoimmune conditions that mean that taking her out of the hospital is a risk and could make her get worse or die. So. It could be whatever. Do you have more interviews to do?”
Daniel grumbles something indistinct, unpacking clothing and setting them in the dresser. “None scheduled.”
“Can I come along? If you get any, I mean.”
“Why?”
“I wanna be a journalist like you.”
Daniel’s hands pause while refolding a shirt. “Oh. That’s… thank you. Yeah, I’ll take you if I find one that’s suitable for kids.”
“I’m barely a kid,” Kate says. “I’m thirteen. I can handle things. I could have handled this, but they insisted that I needed a parent. And I can’t drive. Can you teach me how to drive?”
“You’re too young.”
Kate pouts for a second, but then Daniel mentions going to see Alice. And that’s when she really lights up.
Daniel drives a little less than safely on the roads of suburbia, but he lets Kate fiddle with the radio and choose what plays. She asks him about his interviews, and even though she’s smart enough to know he’s telling her the kid safe versions, she lets him. She’ll talk about her books and explain that she knows what he’s talking about later.
“Why doesn’t Mom like you?” she asks as they near the hospital.
“Why don’t we talk about that at home?” Kate notices him calling her house home. She doesn’t comment on it. Maybe he’ll come back. Maybe he’ll realize she and Alice are better than his job. He can interview people here too, right?
They meet Dr. Cooper in the hallway. Kate explains, excited, that this is her dad who’s going to take care of her when Alice is in the hospital. Dr. Cooper looks doubtfully between the two of them. Kate recognizes that look. It’s the look she gets every time she says her dad is white. The doubtful really?
She knows what Dr. Cooper was thinking, because it’s what everyone thinks or says when Kate mentions her dad isn’t in the picture. Some deadbeat Black dad is their stereotype, and they hate when she says her dad is white and famous. And her mom is a good mom. So Kate tilts her head and smiles up at him. She acts like a stupid young girl who doesn’t know that the reason Dr. Cooper is looking so taken aback at her father is the tone of his skin.
“Can I see my mom?”
Dr. Cooper leads them down a hallway, listing off rules Kate needs to follow because of her mom having autoimmune problems. She remembers each and every one of them. She’s good with rules. So they stop at the door and she turns and looks at her dad.
“Are you coming in?” she asks.
“Better not.” Daniel sits on a little chair in the hallway, and Kate enters her mother’s room. She beams when she sees her, and Alice grins back. And Daniel sits in the hallway, a laptop in his hands, trying to find nearby work.
And the thing is, it’s good. Daniel takes care of Kate. He drives her to the library and to her friends’ houses. He takes her to the pool. He does work, but he sticks with milder journalism, no interviews yet. Even back to school shopping is a breeze, and he spends a little extra money so she can look her best. She teaches him how to work with her hair, and even though his work is ugly and hurts, it gets better piece by piece.
Kate couldn’t be happier that her dad is there. Even with her mother in the hospital. And Alice is getting better, day by day.
Kate has a good life. Even her first day of high school is good! And then the next day is also good! She rides on a high all week, making friends and reading books and her dad picking her up from school every day to show her what he’s learning to cook.
And then it’s a Tuesday, and she waits outside the school for the familiar car. And it doesn’t show up. She sits on a bench and opens Dracula. She reads, not because she wants to. She wants to be reading at home, in her bed. Somewhere comfortable. Somewhere she can actually think about the book. But her dad isn’t here, so she reads to distract herself until the sun starts dipping around the horizon.
She hears the car before she sees it. Everyone’s gone and the school grounds are empty. She saw Ms. Racine walking out, and Ms. Racine offered her a ride, but Kate turned it down. She doesn’t want to be a kid taking handouts from teachers. Her dad said he'd be there.
And then the car pulls up in front of her, and Kate is scrambling into the front seat and dropping her backpack at her feet. “Why were you late?” she demands.
“Kid, I’m sorry.” Daniel runs a guilty hand down his face. “I got a good lead and got caught up. I’m not used to having a kid. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
He gets her McDonald’s as an apology, and Kate almost believes him.
And then it happens again.
“I think I’ll start walking home,” Kate says over more apology fries while she gets to stay up past her bedtime to watch TV. “It’s better for me anyways.”
“Are you sure?” Daniel asks.
“Yeah.” Kate pokes at her big mac with a fry. Ms. Racine saw her twice. It was embarrassing. She doesn’t need to be the forgotten girl. “Can you give me the spare key?”
“I’ll be here to let you in.”
“Just in case.”
Daniel gives Kate the spare key. She keeps it under her blouse on a necklace chain with her mother’s old wedding ring. It’s an ugly necklace, but a comfort to her. She doesn’t have to use it. At least, not much. Sometimes she comes in and Daniel is asleep at his computer, or listening to tapes over and over, or, on one occasion, not there.
They sit across from each other at a too long dinner table and eat in silence. Daniel can’t cook as well as her mother. Kate doesn’t complain.
“Why doesn’t Mom like you?” she finally asks.
“You’re a smart kid. Why do you think your mom doesn’t like me?”
Kate shrugs. “Because you like work more than people.”
Daniel’s mouth is a thin line. “Yeah. That’s the big thing.”
Kate pokes at a gross piece of broccoli. “But you’ve always liked work more than people. Why did she leave you? Divorce doesn’t just happen for no reason. There’s paperwork and lawyers.” Kate knows that there’s nothing people hate more than paperwork or lawyers.
Daniel’s silverware clinks as he sets them down on his plate. “Do you know what drugs are, Katie?”
Kate shoots him a withering glare. “I’m not stupid, Dad.”
“So you know what addiction is.”
“I’m not a baby. What were you addicted to?” Kate straightens her back to try to seem older and sets her fork down too. “Is that why she left?”
“I promised your mother I wouldn’t tell you too much about my addiction. Yes, that’s why she divorced me. She didn’t want you growing up with that.” Kate is aware that, still, technically, she did. “But I’m clean now, I’m doing well. I’m not addicted anymore.”
“Were you addicted when you met Aimee’s mom?”
Daniel glances away in guilt. “I was.”
“Did she know?”
“No.”
“Is that why she left you and now you can’t really talk to Aimee?”
“You ask a lot of questions, kid. You really take after me. I don’t know how Alice stands it.” That makes Kate’s chest ache. She doesn’t know why. She’s only thirteen and she doesn’t really know much of anything. “I’m sorry, Katie,” he continues, “I’ve been a bad father.”
“It’s alright. I have a good mother.”
“Yeah. You do.”
There’s a horrible beat where all Kate can do is chew on too-cooked broccoli and stare at her father. He looks tired. There’s grey in his hair, no matter that he’s not that old yet. He always has dark circles under his eyes. He looks so human. Kate doesn’t like it. He’s her father. He’s supposed to be invulnerable and immune. Larger than life. Instead she feels like this is just a book character.
She tosses him a bone. “Can you braid my hair tonight? Picture day is tomorrow, and I want to look good.”
“I’m terrible with your hair.”
“You chose to have a kid with a Black woman.”
The look Daniel gives her lets Kate know it wasn’t a choice. She doesn’t know how she feels about that either.
Later that night, she picks out the braids he leaves in her hair in the silence of her room. Tears stream silently down her face. She knows that something’s broken in her. She just doesn’t know what. She can hear typing in the other room. Always typing. When she lays down to sleep, she stares at the ceiling and thinks about her mom in her hospital bed.
Both her and Daniel seem aware of the change. He drives her to school, and she walks home. She always comes with arms full of books from the school library. Sometimes he has comments on them, on what’s good. More often, he doesn’t. He still does her hair, but she doesn’t keep it in if it’s bad. She starts staying up late, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, doing her own hair.
Daniel finds out that a large percentage of the Japanese Americans in their town were in internment camps. He explains what this means to Kate over the dinner table, and she reminds him that she knows big words.
“I’ve read books about it. So, are you going to ask Ms. Yamamoto about it?”
“Yeah, that was the plan.”
“What if she has a trauma response?”
“A good journalist knows how to prevent that, or how to help. You want to lay off a subject when they’re reacting poorly. You can come back to that part when they’re feeling better. It’s about making sure they’re comfortable and that you get a version of the story that isn’t tinted by their own trauma. Also, they can attack you.”
“Have you ever been attacked?” Kate asks, leaning forwards.
Daniel pulls down the side of his collar, bending his neck to show a mass of scar tissue on the side of his neck. “I don’t really remember what happened–”
“Because of the drugs?”
“Yeah, kid, because of the drugs. But I remember the guy I was interviewing attacking me. Ended up with this.” His fingers run gently over the scar, where the skin is puckered and uneven. “There are risks to any job. You need to be careful. I was stupid.”
“But you’re not stupid anymore?”
Daniel looks at her. Kate notes the pull of his mouth, the uncertainty in his eyes. The fact that Daniel is still stupid is clear on his face. She hopes, during that small second, that he won’t lie to her. That he’ll be earnest. But instead he says, “I know how to be safe.”
He doesn’t offer to take her with him to any interviews. And she doesn’t ask.
She doesn’t ask for much. Rides places, mainly. So she can see her mom or to the library so she doesn’t need to carry her books with her on the walk home. She reminds him to go grocery shopping when there’s nothing from her to eat, or reminds him when he needs to make dinner.
All the while, Daniel buries himself in writing an article. Kate watches the process, watches as he takes up their couch. She curls into the armchair with her own books. She and her father do the same things across from one another. She moves through library books, annotates any books she owns until the original text is barely readable. Daniel buys her a notebook, and she sets about writing her own stuff.
She returns with essays and her own mock articles.
“Do you read the paper?” Daniel asks one day while he drives her to school.
“No.”
“You’re smart, Katie. I read your paper about Dracula you wrote for fun. And that little article on, what was it? Your mom’s disease?” Kate nods. “I think you should start knowing what’s going on around you. Plus, you might catch your dad’s name in there from time to time.”
And that’s how Kate forms opinions about Pete Wilson and Bill Clinton. Strong opinions.
Kate sits in the chair, reading over the newspaper as her dad plays back tapes and jots down notes. “Can I swear?”
“Go ahead, but don’t tell your mother I let you.”
“I think this three strikes thing is bullshit.”
“Good kid,” Daniel praises her. “Tell me why.” It’s become a call and response with them. Kate likes something or doesn’t like something from the newspaper and Daniel has her explain why. He says that concise summarization is important for journalists. Like a thesis sentence.
“Well, it’s about drugs, right?” Daniel nods. “But drugs make people addicted, so of course they’re going to want more drugs. So they want drug addicts in jail. But, like Mom says, Black people get in more trouble than white people for drugs. So it’s racist. Again.”
“Good. How would you structure an argument about it?”
“Start with addiction being a sickness,” Kate recites, all part of their game. “Talk about how it will make underground drug use worse. Then talk about racism, and its roots in the prison-industrial complex. Make white people sympathetic first.” Kate’s used to that, with her, with her mom.
“How do you know the term prison-industrial complex?”
“It’s in one of your articles. Then I found books at the library. I think I actually like non-fiction.” Kate frowns in disgust. She likes fiction, but she likes learning more. People aren’t supposed to like non-fiction, but here she is, consuming non-fiction books like candy.
She can’t wait to read her father’s books.
“I don’t like Pete Wilson.”
“Yeah, fuck that guy. Don’t tell your mom I said that in front of you. Speaking of, you wanna go visit her tomorrow?”
Kate’s head perks up. She beams. “Can we?”
“Yeah, we’ll go tomorrow.”
Kate smiles to herself and curls up tighter with the paper.
She gets her idea that night. She goes through all the mock articles she’s written, finds what her dad has said is good and what he’s warned against. She sneaks into the office and boots up the desktop computer. And she starts writing an article.
She tells her mom about it the next day. Alice smiles sweetly. “Remember, honey, you’re young. They might not accept your article at the paper. Especially when it’s about a recent law that people think is good.”
“The war on drugs is stupid.”
“I know. You know. But you’re a smart kid. Most kids at your school won’t know. You’re just… smarter.”
“That’s what Dad says too.”
“He’s right,” Alice says, in the sort of voice that indicates that she’s a little surprised. Kate knows at what. At her dad being nice, at her dad acknowledging her, at her dad being right. She doesn’t like that. Daniel is… he’s not great all of the time, but he’s Kate’s dad. And he’s been really good with everything else.
“If I write my article well enough, they will.”
“That’s not always how the world works, baby.” Alice cradles the side of Kate’s face. Her hair is gone, the braids that she had kept so carefully maintained. Self consciously, Kate touches her own hair, the two french braids she’d figured out how to do. “Who’s been doing your hair?”
“I have.”
“You can always teach your dad, you know?”
“I tried. He’s just not very good at it.” Kate shrugs. “It’s fine. I need to know how to do my own hair anyways.” Her fingers run over the twisted strands.
“Don’t grow up too fast,” Alice warns her.
Kate looks at her, and she hopes it doesn’t betray too much. She’s realizing she’s a lot like her dad, and his face always betrays too much. She doesn’t want her mom to know she’s already grown up too fast. “I won’t,” she lies.
Clearly, her mother doesn’t believe her. But she lets it go.
And Kate walks through school the day she turns in her article with her head held high. There’s no way it’ll get turned down. She’s got Daniel Molloy teaching her. She’s got the Molloy name, and everyone’s read Molloy articles. She gets to have another Molloy article. It’s well thought out, well defended, and she even sacrificed some of her passion to have it be more presentable.
She’s used to it.
So when she walks into the newspaper office, she doesn’t expect the boy behind the desk to hand her the carefully printed article with REJECTED written across the top in red pen without even looking at her. She takes it and looks down at it. “Why?”
The boy, who has curly hair and a look on his face like he really hates that integration ever happened, frowns. “We don’t publish things about politics.”
“Yes, you do.” Kate’s read them. Milquetoast (isn’t that a fun word) politics, but politics nonetheless. And the school paper accepts opinion pieces from non staff members. She was careful. She checked.
“Well, we can’t accept fringe stuff like that.” He waves his head dismissively. “Plus, we’d get in trouble if we published it. We can’t go around saying drugs are good, actually. I think it’s illegal.”
“No, it isn’t. Plus, it’s not about how drugs are good. Drugs aren’t good.”
The boy looks up at her and squints. “Then what’s it about?”
“The prison-industrial complex and how the war on drugs impacts minorities and undesirables more than the people who are actually committing worse crimes.”
“Yeah, okay. You’re, like, a freshman, and I don’t think you understand what any of the words you just said mean.”
“Do you?” Kate shoots back.
“You’re a bitch.”
Kate straightens her back and holds her head up. “And you’re a massive fucking asshole.”
She doesn’t get suspended, but she does get detention. Her only comfort is that so does the massive fucking asshole himself. And he has a different lunch period, so she doesn’t even have to see him. She goes home with a mix of emotions. Hurt, embarrassment, pride, all combining into a weird mess.
“How did you get detention?” Daniel asks when she enters the house.
“I called someone a massive fucking asshole.”
“Did he deserve it?”
Kate holds up the article. “He refused to publish my article because he’s a racist.”
Daniel holds out a hand and Kate sets the article in it. He picks up his own red pen. Like habit, he lays it out in front of him flat. She knows what he’s doing before he does it. “Okay, you should have switched around the word order here.”
“We don’t have to proofread this one,” she says, “it already got rejected.”
“You won’t get better if you don’t know where you’re failing.” He crosses something out and jots something next to it. Kate tries to head towards her room. “No, stay in here. We’ll talk about what you did wrong. Maybe next time they’ll have to accept you.”
Kate looks at her father and for a second she barely recognizes him. He’s just a white man sitting in her living room, failing to understand that no matter how good she is, she doesn’t get things like him. She wants to believe the article was good, that the massive fucking asshole was just a massive fucking asshole. She doesn’t want to blame herself, because she knows it isn’t her fault. The article is better than half the drivel the school newspaper publishes, anyways.
“You need to flesh out your counter argument more. Right now you seem too dismissive of other people’s beliefs. Show that you know where they’re coming from and be gentle. This is like using a pickaxe.”
Kate sits in the armchair, and she endures. She listens as Daniel picks apart the essay. Poor sentence structure, not enough easing in, too strong on some points, too weak on others. Not enough citations. “Here, you needed to clarify what you meant. Here, you needed to either not use someone else’s words or use more of them. Here, you needed to omit your own bias and write it more objectively. Here, your sentence is just grammatically incorrect.”
Kate nods. She nods, and nods, and nods. “Yes, Dad.” “Sure, Dad. “Got it, Dad.”
When he hands her back the articles, the margins are covered with red pen. Some of the words are completely unreadable. Kate smooths her hand over it, light brown over milk white. The pen matches a papercut over her knuckle. Her stomach aches like the acid is leaching out into her other organs. The paper wrinkles under her grasp.
“Thank you,” she says, well aware she is apologizing for something that feels like disemboweling her child. She’s being dramatic, but she’s thirteen. She’s never had a child. Never will. This is the closest she gets.
“Yeah, yeah. You wanna drive up to the hospital tomorrow?”
“Sure.” Kate stands and heads to her room. The article ends up a crumpled wad in her trash can and she ends up a crumpled wad on her bed. She sobs to herself. She wants to stay quiet, but she doesn't stifle herself. She wants, in some way, for Daniel to hear.
The floors of the house creak, and she hears his footsteps come down the hallway. Kate makes no effort to disguise her crying.
The footsteps pause by her door. The light beaming under the crack is broken by the shadow of two legs. Kate sobs harder. Her mother would come in, wrap an arm around her, and comfort her. Kate isn’t expecting any of that. She just wants an acknowledgement, a kid, or a Katie.
The shadows move, and the footsteps continue down the hallway. The hall light flicks off. The door to Daniel’s room closes. Kate clutches her legs close, sobs wracking her small frame. Something hardens in her. She wipes the tears off her face and stands up. She stares at herself in the mirror.
She is not going to cry over shit like this. She is Kate Molloy, Alice White’s daughter, and she doesn’t cry over stupid shit like racists and her dad being a less than superior dad. Her mother was right. Kate deserves better.
But her mother has lymphoma and Daniel is what she gets. So she’ll shoulder it.
She tells her mother about it the next day. Alice is appropriately sympathetic to Kate’s plight. “Can you ask your dad to come in here, baby?” she asks, hand brushing over the top of Kate’s hair. Kate leaves the room.
“Mom wants to talk to you.”
“Yeah, okay.” Daniel grabs his bag and follows Kate into Alice’s hospital room. Kate stands, watching him stand at the foot of his bed.
“Kate, hon, wait outside,” Alice says gently.
Kate’s trainers squeak on the linoleum as she leaves. She closes the door almost all the way. Still, there’s less than an inch of a crack between it and the doorframe. Enough to hear what her parents say. She sits on the uncomfortable chair in the hallway, looking at a rack of flyers for illnesses she doesn’t think she’ll ever have to care about. Dementia, Alzhiemers, Parkinson’s, et cetera.
“What were you thinking?” Alice’s voice drifts out the door.
“Alice, do you have a timeline on your recovery?” Daniel says, ignoring her question.
“Don’t make this about your own shit. She got rejected by the school paper. You didn’t have to rip her paper to shreds.”
“It’s routine. She needs an editor.”
“Dan.” Alice’s voice is sharp. Tinged by the weariness of illness, but harsher than Kate has ever heard it. “She’s a child.”
“Yeah, okay. Do the doctors know when you’ll be back?”
“Don’t yeah, okay me. You hurt your daughter, yeah, okay. You hurt me, yeah, okay. You cheated on me, yeah, okay. I’m pregnant, yeah, okay.”
“Jesus, still about that?”
“Yeah! Actually! Why aren’t you thinking about your daughter? She was so excited to have her dad, the famous Daniel Molloy, looking after her. Why is she doing her own hair?”
“That was her choice.” Alice starts saying something, and Daniel cuts her off, “oh, don’t do that oh so white shit again. I did her damn hair till she started saying she wanted to do it again. You don’t know everything. You don’t see it all.”
“Yeah, that’s the damn problem, Dan! I’m sick in the hospital, I want to make sure my daughter is having a decent fucking life without me.”
“I’m not stopping her from having a decent life, Alice!”
“Sure fucking seems like it.”
Kate brings her shoes up on the chair, clutching her legs to her chest. She rests her chin in the divot between her knees. In the room, Daniel says, “Listen, I’ve gotta get out of here. How long?”
“Jesus. Poor fucking Danny boy–”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Ex-wife’s taking too long to heal from fucking cancer, he has to spend time with his fucking daughter, boo-hoo, can’t go gallavanting off and writing some other book that he’ll leave a half hearted dedication on. To my daughter, Katie! Or will this one be for Aimee?”
“Don’t you–”
“Two divorces? In the span of five years? You’re setting a world record.”
“I’ve got to keep my job. I need to be writing articles. I’m an interviewer, Alice, I can’t be doing that in Californian suburbia.”
“Work, work, work, work, work,” Alice mocks. “Always your damn work. Got to finish a chapter, got to finish an article, got to finish an interview. Work, work, work. Came before me. Don’t know why I had half a fucking thought your daughter might come before it.”
“This isn’t about Katie.”
“Nah, this is about Kate. We’re over. I don’t want you here. I’d rather you were off in some foreign country interviewing whoever is dangerous enough to give you your adrenaline fix. It’s not about me. It’s about your daughter, who’s wearing my key around her damn neck. What, you didn’t pick her up from school? How many times? And how many times because of your work?”
The silence tells Alice everything.
“Jesus, Dan.”
“It’s not as bad as you’re acting.”
“I don’t want my daughter being a latchkey kid. Little Black girl, already got a deadbeat dad. I don’t make a ton, but I’ve kept her the best I could. I’m not having you breaking her down.”
“It’s not about her, Alice.”
“And that’s the fucking problem, right?”
Kate buries her face in her knees and cries as silently as she can. Daniel and Alice continue to fight. Then the door swings open and slams closed. “Fuck you!” carries out of the room, and Daniel stands in front of Kate.
Kate blinks tears out of her face and pretends she wasn’t just crying. She knows it’s obvious she was. “We’re going home.”
“Can I say goodbye to Mom?”
“You’ll see her soon enough.”
It isn’t until they’re halfway home that he gives her a gentler look. She stares out the window, not looking at him on purpose. The fight spins in her head, a repeating link of words. This isn’t about Katie. It’s not about her.
“I’m sorry, kid.”
“Okay,” she responds. She doesn’t look towards the driver’s seat. She misses how Daniel looks towards her with genuine concern. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything for her anyways. She feels distant, like the cupholders are a gorge between them.
“How much did you hear?”
This isn’t about Katie. It’s not about her.
Work, work, work, work, work.
Has to spend too much time with his fucking daughter, boo-hoo.
Yeah, okay.
I’ve got to get out of here.
This isn’t about Katie. It’s not about her.
She doesn’t answer him. She gets home and holes up in her room. She starts walking to school. She starts spending time at clubs. She makes friends and spends nights at their houses. She usually barely asks. She tells him. Cohabitation becomes the norm, not parenting a child. Kate is only thirteen, but she refuses to be a child to Daniel.
If anything, she’s far more mature than him. And it’s the nineties, and she’s not saying this to anyone, so no one is there to explain the flaws in her line of thinking.
So Kate becomes the woman of the house and also the man of the house.
She’s not happy, but she’s good at convincing herself she is.
Daniel gives her a bike as an early birthday present, granting her all the freedom she needs. The house is where she sleeps, but the rest of her time is spent wherever she pleases. She can even make it to the hospital. She spends Tuesdays and Thursdays with her mother.
Daniel doesn’t stop her. She thinks he likes it, not having to worry about her. He trusts her, so he can spread his stuff out all over the dining room table and work from sun-up to sun-down. Sometimes he leaves for the whole day, trusting Kate to get home and make her own dinner. Or leaving twenty bucks to order food.
Once he leaves her alone overnight to drive up and interview someone just outside Las Vegas. He leaves her with fifty bucks and a request that she doesn’t tell her mom. She stashes the money and eats cereal for dinner. She’s getting rich off his job, which is fun, because she’s not even sure he’s rich off his job. Even with the books.
On her fourteenth birthday, she’s got plans with Andy. She’ll go over to his house and then his mom is going to take them to the mall. Andy’s mom really likes her, which might be because she thinks Kate and Andy are dating. Kate’s willing to tolerate this, because she and Andy have been discussing actors and he likes Leo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise while she likes Winona Ryder and Angela Bassett.
She doubts Daniel is going to stop them. He’s working on the beginning of a book idea. Clearly, he’s been spiteful, because he has to stay here taking care of Kate while he could be out there interviewing, researching, and writing. What he loves. What he’s good at. What isn’t Kate.
So she’s shocked when he stops her from going to Andy’s house.
“I’ve got plans, Dad.”
“It’s your birthday, kid.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m celebrating with Andy and his mom. She’s baked me a cake.” That is absolutely untrue. Kate’s made a point to hide it’s her birthday so they don’t overdo it. But if the thought of labor going to waste gets her to Andy’s house, she’ll use it.
“Did she?”
“Yeah.”
“I called her and informed her that you weren’t going to be able to make it, and she was really surprised it was your birthday.”
“You did what?” Kate stares at her dad. The audacity! Cancelling her plans for her, instead of letting her leave. Does he think this is going to get her on his side? Going to make her smile at whatever birthday activities he has planned? “Dad, you can’t do that!”
“I’m your dad.”
“Barely,” Kate snipes.
“I was thinking you’d like to go to Barnes & Noble and then we could get dinner?” Sounds like an awesome plan, for the Kate who hadn’t been disillusioned. She stays silent. “Katie?”
“I wanted to go with Andy.”
“I know, but it’s your birthday. You’re supposed to stick with your family.”
Kate wants to be mean. She wants to ask what family. She wants to tell Daniel that he’s not her family. But she just stands there. Shocked by the overstepping, to call Andy’s mom so he could get his way. He didn’t even talk to her! Maybe if he had talked to her two days ago she would have cancelled herself!
But it’s not about her. It’s not about Kate. It’s about Katie and about appearing to be a good dad who takes his daughter out for her fourteenth birthday.
Kate locks herself in her room for the entirety of her fourteenth birthday and only comes out when Daniel brings take out inside. They sit and eat in near-silence.
“Do you not like me?”
Kate looks at her father. He looks tired. He looks bored. So bored. Bored of this life, of her, of not being able to get his adrenaline fix. That’s what she’s realized: her dad might be clean, but only of the physical drugs. He hates the boring suburban life that Alice and Kate are stuck in. It’s the stories or the drugs.
“Katie, I– you’re my kid. I love you. I know I’m not enough for you, and that I’m probably not the best dad, but–”
“There’s no probably.”
Daniel looks down at his food. “I don’t want to be one of those divorced dads who never sees their kids when they grow up.”
“Okay.”
“I went to the hospital today, when you were locked in your room.”
“So I could have snuck out and gone to Andy’s?” Kate deadpans.
“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t tell you.” Daniel sets down his cutlery. “Katie, your mom is doing a lot better. She should be home soon, and I’ll be leaving. I’ve got some interviews scheduled on the east coast. A lot of government stuff. I’ll be back for Thanksgiving, probably.”
“Really? Not going home to Georgie and Aimee?”
“I was with Georgie for a lot less time than your mom.”
“So what are you trying to prove? That you’re sorry? That you love me? That you’re running away immediately but you’re trying, and that’s what matters?” Kate’s voice slips more into mocking, batting her eyelashes in a facsimile of innocence. “Fuck that.”
“Language.”
Kate can’t believe him. “Seriously?” He’s sworn in front of her so many times. Actively encourages her swearing too, as long as she can defend why. Well, she can defend this one too: fuck that.
Seriously. Fuck that.
Kate does one of the stupidest actions against her father she’s ever done. She stands up, announces, “I’m going to my room.” She picks up her water glass, passing by her dad’s seat.
“This conversation isn’t done, Katie,” he says, missing her intention by a mile. “I mean, I’m leaving. Don’t you think we should have a conversation before I go?”
Kate doesn’t respond. Instead, she pours her water all over her dad’s meal. It pours over, soaking the food. It runs off the table, onto the rug and onto her father’s lap. He stares at it, mouth open. His face turns up, shocked. Kate sets the water glass down on the table. “Tell me when you’re leaving,” she says. And she walks to her room.
She doesn’t spare a glance behind her, but her normally talkative dad is silent. She takes that as a good sign. And also a bad sign.
She wakes up at noon the next day, one of those Saturdays that doesn’t feel quite real, and walks into the kitchen expecting her father. She knows she’s going to get yelled at. She’s preparing for it as she pours cereal into her bowl. She eats it dry, sitting on the counter. Her legs swing.
And then the door to her parents bedroom creaks open. It’s a different creak than the one to the guest room. Which is odd, because Daniel’s been sleeping in the guest room. She figures he’s been in there, picking into their stuff. Maybe his next book will be about them. The broken families hiding in suburbia. But they weren’t broken when he wasn’t there.
There are shuffling footsteps, and then Kate is looking up to see her mother. Standing in the doorway, still looking ill, still missing hair, but there. Kate’s bowl clatters to the floor. Cereal cracks under her feet as she runs into the arms of her mother.
Alice kisses the top of her head. “Hey, baby.”
Kate doesn’t let go of her mother’s waist as she asks, “when did you get back?”
“Last night. You were already asleep. I had a nurse drive me back, I wanted to surprise you.” Alice pets the top of Kate’s hair. “Happy birthday, darling. I thought I’d take you out for breakfast. Especially now that your cereal is all over the floor.”
Kate pulls away from her mom and looks down at the kitchen floor. It’s a mess. “I’ll clean it up,” she assures her mom.
“Thank you.” Alice pats her cheek. “So, breakfast? You can get dressed and leave that here, it’ll still be there when we get back.”
Kate nods. She makes to head to her bedroom, but pauses by the kitchen door. “Is Dad gonna come?” she asks, not sure what she wants the answer to be.
Alice lets out a sigh. “Oh, honey,” she says, and Kate freezes. She turns, slowly, looking at her mom. Alice’s eyes are wide and apologetic. She gives Kate a heartbroken look.
“He left, didn’t he?” Alice nods. “Okay.” Kate bites her lip. “Okay. I… I’m going to go get dressed.”
“He waited for a little bit. Until this morning. His flight…” Alice stumbles over excuses, ones she doesn’t believe anymore than Kate does. But she knows that Kate used to trust her dad. And she doesn’t want to wreck that. But she can’t, because Daniel’s already done that well enough.
“It’s okay, Mom. I’d be more confused if he did stick around, really.” Kate gives her mother a comforting smile. Her mother’s smile back is pained. Kate gets it. “I’m gonna get ready and then we can head out, alright?”
She doesn’t even realize she’s treating her mom like she had to treat Daniel until she’s changing into her blue and yellow button up. She finishes buttoning it up and smooths down her hair. At least her mom’s back. Older, sicker, weaker, but back. And Daniel’s gone. Left without goodbye.
In approximately a year, Daniel will invite her to a party to celebrate the release of a book. She’ll be just past fifteen, a ninth grader. She’ll have started cutting her hair close to her head so neither she nor Alice has to deal with it. She’ll have started a doomed secret romance with a girl from the neighboring Catholic high school. It’ll be two months before she tries alcohol for the first time.
She’ll show up in a purple button up embroidered with teal. She’ll stand with her dad, keeping good conversation. She’ll be complimented on her maturity. She’ll be told she’s almost the spitting image of her dad while everyone ignores her skin color.
Kate will pretend to be the perfect daughter, even as men laugh about the fact that Daniel isn’t in her life. She won’t smile. That’s the only thing she won’t fake.
A man with blond hair and a beer in hand will come up to her and say, “So, your dad told me you want to be a journalist.”
Kate will smile, and lie, and say, “I have no idea where he got that idea. Sometimes I think he wants me to be like him, you know.” But she won’t be lying when she says, “no, no. I want to be a politician. Actually change some of the messed up stuff in this world, you know?”
Kate will be fifteen. She won’t be on top of the world. She’s discovered depression and poor forms of coping. She’s realized the world is fucking unfair. She’s failed to realize she’s young enough she should be depending on other people. She wants to be a politician, because that’s the only way she can think of to help people when she isn’t a saint. Her mother likes this.
Daniel isn’t in her life that much. Sometimes. She doesn’t particularly like the sometimes, or at least she tries to convince herself she doesn’t. She gets why her mom doesn’t like him, why Alice always checks if he’s clean. She gets that he had another family, and fucked them up too.
And Kate moves slowly forwards.