she wondered whether it was accidental that he happened to be cooking creamy bacon pasta this evening, or if it was in some way related to whatever it was that she knew – without having any reason she could put a finger on – that she was waiting for. The menu had been notably random in recent weeks, occasionally featuring complicated things she’d never seen before, but then frozen pizza three nights in a row.
And now tonight, suddenly, it was her favourite.
Waiting.
They ate at the kitchen table. Her father asked about her day, and listened, seeming more ‘there’ than for the last day or two. He didn’t eat much, though.
Afterwards Hannah carried her plate to the dishwasher and went to the living room to wait some more. Finally her father came through holding a cup of coffee. He perched on the edge of the sofa. ‘I need to say something,’ he said.
For a dire moment, Hannah was convinced he was going to tell her that Mom was never coming back from London, or that Hannah had to leave too, or he’d decided they needed to move to another town or something. She stared at him, barely able to breathe, but saw that his eyes looked soft, and so she thought probably – hopefully – it wasn’t something as bad as that.
‘What?’ she asked.
He pursed his lips and stared down at the carpet. He looked tired. Some of his bristles were grey. Had they been that way before Mom left? Hannah wasn’t sure. He’d never forgotten to shave when Mom was around.
‘I’m not handling this as well as I’d like,’ he said. ‘Your mom being … not here, I mean. I’m trying to do what needs to be done. And it’s working, right? We’re doing OK?’
Hannah nodded dutifully. Most of the time it sort of was OK, but even if it hadn’t been, she understood he hadn’t asked the question in order for her to answer it. Grown-ups did that a lot, saying something they believed to be a fact but putting a question mark at the end. It was meant to make you take the fact more seriously, or something. You learned that you weren’t expected to say anything in reply, just as you learned that if you were a girl you didn’t always want to mention your video-game scores to boys, especially if yours were higher.
‘But …’ He stopped. He didn’t seem to know what he wanted to say next.
‘You’re sad,’ she said.
He laughed, surprised. ‘Well, yeah. You are too, I know. It’s, uh, it’s a strange time.’
‘I’m sad,’ she agreed. ‘But not like you are.’
‘What … do you mean?’
‘You’re badly sad.’
He stared at her, nodding, and she was intensely scared to see that his eyes were full. She had never, ever seen her dad cry. She didn’t want to see it now. She knew life sucked but if it turned out it was bad enough to make her father cry, it was far worse than she realized. That would be beyond mundane.
‘Did I say something wrong?’
‘No. You said something smart.’ He sniffed briskly, and stopped looking like he was going to cry. ‘I need some time,’ he said. ‘Firstly … well, all this.’ He raised his hands, referring to the house, and what was in it, and what was not in it any more. ‘Plus … work. I’m getting behind. One or the other thing, I could handle. Both at once, not so much. It seems.’
Hannah understood that her father typed for a living, for people who lived down in Los Angeles, helping them make stories. She knew this was a hard job sometimes, partly because – so she had gathered, from overhearing conversations between him and Mom – almost all of the people her dad worked for were assholes and idiots, with the creative acumen of mosquitoes and the moral sensibilities of wolverines. He said things like this very quietly, though, as if concerned they might be able to hear him from over three hundred miles away.
‘OK, look,’ he said. ‘Here’s the thing. I wondered if you’d like to go stay with Granddad for a while.’
Hannah wanted to say ‘yes’ immediately, but dimly understood that she should not. ‘Granddad?’
Her father was watching her carefully. ‘Yes.’
‘Why not Aunt Zo?’
‘Zo-zo’s busy.’ He sighed. ‘Got an exhibition coming up, or a performance, or some … thing. Plus you’ve seen her apartment. She has to stand up when she goes to sleep.’
This was an old family joke and Hannah smiled as always, or tried to. It felt different now. In the past there would never have been any question of her staying with Aunt Zo. Now it had evidently been considered, and rejected. That made Hannah feel rejected too. ‘And I was thinking … of you going for more than a couple of days.’
‘How long?’
‘A week. Maybe two.’
Two whole weeks? ‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘But … what about school?’
‘I talked to Teacher Jen. She said it would be OK.’
Hannah looked hard at her father, and knew he was not telling the truth. Not the whole truth, anyway. He would have talked to her teacher, yes. You couldn’t just yank a kid out of school without clearing it with mission control.
But it struck her now that, though he had not shaved, he’d been wearing smart chinos and a shirt when he dropped her at school that morning – the first time in ages he hadn’t been wearing the raggedy jeans he used to only wear at the weekend. She didn’t think you could bail your kid out of school for two weeks just by saying ‘I’m having a hard time.’ So probably he’d said it was something to do with working for the wolverines instead, which is why he’d been wearing business clothes. Things to do with work were always incredibly important for grown-ups. They were respected without question. Far more, it sometimes seemed, than things to do with children.
‘Have you asked Granddad?’
‘Yes. I spoke to him last night. Well, emailed. There’s no phone signal there.’
‘Where is he now? Where on earth?’
Her father smiled, and this time it looked genuine. It made Hannah realize what a long time it had been since she’d seen that kind of smile on his face.
‘Washington State,’ he said, as if this meant the far side of the moon. ‘God knows why. But where he’s staying sounds pretty cool. I think you’ll like it. And he says he’s really looking forward to seeing you.’
From the moment Dad first mentioned the idea, Hannah had wanted to go. She loved her dad’s dad, and the prospect of getting out of Santa Cruz for a while, doing something – anything – other than plodding through her mundane existence, felt desperately attractive. She’d held back from leaping at it because she knew she shouldn’t seem as if she wanted to get away from her father. That also meant she had to say what she said next. ‘But I’ll miss you.’
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized how true they were. How badly true.
Her dad’s lips clamped together, the way they sometimes did when he was mad. His eyes didn’t look mad, though. Not at all.
‘I’ll miss you too,’ he said. ‘But we can Skype, and email, and it’s not so long. And when you get back, things will be better here. I promise.’
‘OK,’ Hannah said. ‘Can I watch some Netflix now?’
‘Sure,’ he said, wrong-footed.
‘Yay.’
She jumped up and ran to the den and switched on the big TV. As she was waiting for her show to load she glanced back into the living room and saw that her father was still sitting on the edge of the sofa, shoulders bowed and head lowered. She could not see his face or eyes.
His