“So I was the problem you removed?” I asked.
“No.”
“That’s what you did.”
Dad nodded.
“Yes.”
“People didn’t make comments about Lily.”
Lily suddenly stood.
“Did you tell me Emma didn’t want to come?”
Dad closed his eyes.
“Lily…”
“Did you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you?”
She looked at me.
“When I was little, I’d ask why you weren’t coming. He’d say you hated those events.”
I stared at her.
“You believed him?”
“I was nine, Emma.”
That shut me up.
“You believed him?”
Lily rubbed her palms against her skirt.
“And then you started saying you didn’t care.”
“I got tired of caring.”
“I know that now.” She looked down. “Do you remember how I used to bring you dessert?”
Of course I did.
“I got tired of caring.”
Slices of cake wrapped in napkins.
Cookies in little plastic bags.
Once an entire chocolate mousse cup that had leaked inside Lily’s purse.
I had hated those gifts.
They felt like crumbs from rooms where I wasn’t welcome.
I had hated those gifts.
“I thought you pitied me.”
Lily stared.
“What?”
“The desserts.”
“No, Emma, no…”
She looked genuinely horrified.
“Dad said you didn’t like the parties. I thought you still liked dessert.”
She looked genuinely horrified.
I remembered the chocolate mousse leaking through the bottom of Lily’s purse.
That ridiculous mousse cup.
Lily smiled for half a second, then looked at Dad again.
“You know what else you used to say?”
Dad waited.
“You know what else you used to say?”
“‘My beautiful girl.’ Every time you introduced me.”
His face crumpled.
“I meant it.”
“I know, Dad.” Lily folded her arms. “But after a while, ‘beautiful’ stopped sounding like a compliment.”
“I meant it.”
Dad looked at her.
“It started sounding like the reason I got to go and Emma didn’t.”
No one spoke.
I looked down at my banquet badge again.
The hotel logo.
My name.
Guest of Johnny.
“It started sounding like the reason I got to go and Emma didn’t.”
Then another memory surfaced.
Mom’s blue dress.
Dad standing at the door.
His eyes moving over me.
Plans changed.
His eyes moving over me.
My stomach turned.
I held up the badge.
“This was that night, wasn’t it?”
Dad nodded.
“The blue dress.”
“Yes.”
“The dress Mom wore to your anniversary dinner.”
“Yes.”
“The blue dress.”
I walked closer.
“You already had my badge.”
“Yes.”
“You already knew Mom had told you what to do.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“Yes.”
“Then why did you take Lily?”
“You already knew Mom had told you what to do.”
Dad took a long time before answering.
“Because you came down those stairs looking so much like your mother that for one second I could hear her telling me to stand beside you.”
“I could hear her telling me to stand beside you.”
His voice cracked, but he kept going.
“And I realized I finally had another chance.”
I waited.
He looked at the floor.
“And I panicked.”
“I realized I finally had another chance.”
At least now I understood what he’d chosen.
Not forgiveness.
Nothing close to it.
Just clarity.
For years, I’d pictured my father seeing my skin and deciding I wasn’t pretty enough to bring into the world.
I understood what he’d chosen.
The truth was that he’d seen exactly what he needed to do.
And he had chosen fear instead.
Again.
And again.
And again.
He had chosen fear.
***
I placed the badge in his hand.
“You were so afraid somebody else might make me feel ugly that you became the one who did.”
Dad stared at the badge in his palm.
“I loved you,” he said. “And I behaved like I was ashamed of you.”
“I loved you.”
I didn’t answer.
“You didn’t misunderstand what I did, Emma. I just let you misunderstand why.”
That mattered.
“Why keep all this?” I asked.
“I just let you misunderstand why.”
“At first, because I hated myself every time I came home without you.” He looked into the box. “Later, throwing it away felt too much like pretending it never happened.”
He didn’t ask me to forgive him.
“I hated myself every time I came home without you.”
That helped more than I expected.
When we returned to my house, Dad stopped on the porch while Lily went inside.
He looked past me at the birthday decorations.
“Do you want me to come back in?”
That helped more than I expected.
Several years earlier, he’d decided I was the one who stayed home.
This time, the door belonged to me.
“For cake,” I said.
“Okay.”
Later, somebody shouted, “Birthday picture!”
This time, the door belonged to me.
Dad stayed near the wall.
I looked at him.
“Dad? If you’re going to be in it, come stand in it.”
He hesitated. Then he moved beside me, started to put his arm around my shoulders, then stopped.
“Is this okay?”
Dad stayed near the wall.
I nodded.
The camera flashed.
When we checked the picture, Lily was laughing, Dad’s eyes were closed, frosting marked my sleeve, and every pale patch on my face showed clearly.
The camera flashed.
Dad squinted at it.
“Take another one.”
I looked again.
“No.”
I handed the phone back.
“Keep this one.”
“Take another one.”
