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“I was…I was talking to Doctor Madden earlier today,” Dad tells her, eyes fixed on the food in front of him.
Natalie can’t help the way she stiffens at the name. She knows that really, Madden was doing what he could to help—and he was fairly pleasant the one time she spoke to him over the phone right after Mom left, sympathetic and offering help if they needed it—but she always associates people like Doctor Madden with something going wrong with Mom. Or with all of them, because the wellbeing of the entire Goodman family hinged on Mom’s.
“What did he say?” Natalie asks.
Dad’s fork scrapes against the plate. He’s not hungry very much now. Natalie could say the same for herself, but she doesn’t want him to waste away. The acceptable window of time to have dinner had passed about four hours ago, but she thought having it late was better than not having it at all. It was Natalie who had looked through the fridge for food, who had set everything out on the counter and wondered what to do next, who had cooked something that was probably edible and hopefully not radioactive (who had burned it, actually, but food was food).
“He asked how we were doing,” Dad says after a long moment.
Natalie scoffs. “Oh, he cares.”
That’s probably a little unfair. Madden can’t be blamed for everything that happened over the past several months. But it’s either direct her anger at Mom’s doctor, or at something else. And she’d rather not think about that.
Dad winces. “He knows that a change like—like this is hard for almost anyone, Nat,” he says. He pretends his stumble never happened. Natalie breathes out through her nose and picks at her own food. Just say it, Dad. Stop dancing around it.
She flips over the blackened mass on her plate and says nothing. Dad deflates a little.
“I told him that I thought the sessions were going well,” he continues. “Doctor Anderson is giving me some tips, to help with things. But it was making me wonder if you—”
Natalie sets down her fork a little too harshly on the counter. “No,” she says immediately.
“It’s just, that’s what I thought too, and now that I’ve tried it—”
“No, Dad.” Natalie leans on the counter to keep herself upright. “I’m fine. I don’t need someone—poking around and messing with my brain, okay? I’ll do that on my own.”
Dad stares at her, looking wounded.
“It might work for you. And that’s great,” Natalie amends, and she knows it sounds fake from how flatly she delivers it. She looks him in the eyes so he knows she’s telling the truth. “But it won’t work for me.”
It definitely didn’t work for Mom.
Dad’s shoulders rise, like he heard the unspoken sentiment behind her words. His jaw is tight, the way it is when he’s set on something. His voice wobbles. “If this is about—”
“Everything is,” Natalie snaps.
He flinches. “She needed something different. We weren’t giving her the right things, we weren’t—I wasn’t listening. That doesn’t mean it’ll be the same for you.”
She picks her fork up abruptly and starts moving her food around on her plate again.
“Just promise me you’ll think about it?” Dad asks.
Natalie hums. She wasn’t planning to think about it at all, but if it closes this subject, she’ll agree to it.
Dad nods. He probably knows she’s not actually agreeing, but he pretends she is. He doesn’t feel like more confrontation this late at night. He sighs and says, “Anyway. I wanted to ask you how you were doing.”
“Fine,” Natalie says automatically.
“You don’t have to lie to me, sweetheart,” Dad tells her, looking down at his plate again. “I know.”
Natalie freezes. “You do?”
“I want you to know that it’s okay to let me alone for a while, if that’s what you need.” The fork keeps moving. He hasn’t taken a bite since Natalie set the plate down in front of him. “Go do what you want to do. Take care of yourself. Don’t worry about me.”
Natalie needs a moment to take in his words. She still doesn’t understand them. She swallows. “What?”
“Take care of yourself,” Dad repeats.
Natalie looks up at him, and when she speaks, it comes out angry. She can’t even get the words out the way she wants to. “After all of this—after watching Mom go—after—”
She steps away from the counter, fork crashing down for a second time. Her hands ball into fists.
“I have to do it,” she says. “I have to keep doing it. No one else ever does.”
As if she can’t feel any more embarrassed, her voice breaks. She brings her hands up to press their heels into her eyes, wishing as hard as she can that they’ll stop burning. Dad’s already looking at her funny; she doesn’t want to make it worse by crying. She’s done enough crying lately. And she’s done so well about keeping it in for the past week and a half.
“Natalie,” Dad murmurs.
She doesn’t look up. A hand lands on her shoulder, hesitant and cold enough that it makes her shiver. When she peeks out through her hands, staring at the floor, she sees Dad’s shoes. He’s not close enough to touch her.
She knows whose hand this is. It’s not Dad’s.
It trails down her arm and tries to take her hands away from her eyes, but she doesn’t let it.
Not now, she thinks desperately. Please. Please not now. I can’t do this now.
The hand pauses. She squeezes her eyes shut so she won’t see someone trying to catch her gaze through the gaps in her fingers. She knows he’s there, waiting.
Go.
The hand lifts. “When can you do it, then?” a voice asks aloud.
Natalie goes very still.
Not ever.
She hears a huff. Disappointed, sad, more than a little frustrated. He’s an impatient creature. She’s learned that much over the course of a few days.
“Nat.”
Two voices speak at once. Dad’s—solid, real, concerned—and the other one. Natalie responds to one of them and shrugs everything else off.
“I’m—it’s okay, Dad,” she says. A chill sweeps through the room, but she ignores it. “But I’ll…I’ll tell you. If I need help.”
Silence. Scared on hers, confused on her Dad’s. Frigid and angry on the side she’s pointedly not acknowledging.
Dad sounds reluctant as he says, “…Alright.” He steps forward, and Natalie looks up from her hands to meet his eyes. He nods at her and touches her arm; it makes her feel sick for a second before she’s reminded that this touch is a real one, that it’s from her dad. “You know you can tell me anything.”
That makes a jolt go through her. Can he see—?
“Yeah, Dad.” Natalie shoots him a weak smile. “I know.”
He leaves her alone in the kitchen. Natalie puts all of her focus into picking up their plates and scraping the food off into the trashcan.
“What’s that supposed to be?” someone asks.
Natalie doesn’t react.
After several uncomfortable minutes, the room gets a little warmer again. That’s how she knows he’s gone.