Outside the Lines (16 page)

He could see the debate raging in her mind.
Believe him, don’t believe him.
She stared at him for what felt like a full minute before speaking. “You shouldn’t drink, then.” Her voice was solemn.

“You’re right.” He nodded vigorously. “You’re absolutely right. I won’t. I promise.” He thought about the flask he had inside his jacket pocket. He’d been sipping at it as he drove and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to down the entire contents.

He threw his gaze around the dining room. He was jittery and his eyes were wild—he felt it. The itch to escape ran like thousands of ants beneath his skin. He didn’t want to be doing this. Any of it. Why had he brought Eden with him? She would only slow him down. He tapped his foot on the ground in a staccato rhythm. The table shook.

“Daddy, are you okay?” Eden asked.

He took a deep breath. “I need to use the bathroom, Bug. You’ll be all right if I’m just gone a minute?”

She nodded. Just as he walked away, the server—a portly, grandmotherly type in a too-tight uniform—delivered their food. “Will you keep an eye on her?” David asked, gesturing toward Eden. “I’ll be right back. Just have to use the bathroom.”

“Sure,” the lady said, and sat down with Eden at the table. “It’s not busy. And I need to take a load off a minute anyway.”

“Thanks,” David said, and rushed off to the bathroom. Once he locked himself in the stall, he pulled out the flask, opened it, and let the liquid burn fire down his throat. He swallowed until there was nothing left. He would need to get more. Stepping out to stand in front of the sink, he stared at himself in the mirror. He didn’t recognize the reflection. Gaunt and tired. Broken capillaries around his nose and across his cheeks. He leaned forward, peering intently at his eyes. They were empty. His soul seemed to have vanished. Where had he gone, the man he had fooled himself into thinking he could be? He growled at the mirror, snarling and snapping at the enemy who took him away from his daughter. He wanted to smash his head against the wall to dislodge it. He wanted it to die.

“Are you okay in there, sir?” He heard a woman’s voice through the door. “Your daughter is finished with her breakfast and yours is getting cold.”

It took a moment for him to come back to himself. “I’ll be right there,” he said. He blinked several times and splashed cold water on his face before heading back out to the dining room. Eden rushed over to hug him.

“I was worried about you, Daddy,” she said. “You were gone so long.”

“I was?” he asked. “I’m sorry, baby. My stomach’s not feeling so hot.” He threw a twenty on the table and smiled at the server. “Thanks for watching her. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.”

The woman gave him a strange look. “No inconvenience. I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. You want me to box up your food for you for later?”

He shook his head. “No, thanks. We need to get on the road.”

“Which way you headed?” she asked.

“Portland. Going to visit family.” He put his arm around Eden’s shoulders. “Come on, honey. We need to get going.” He waved at the woman as they walked out the door. He could feel her watching them. Her eyes felt like daggers in his back.

“We have family in Portland?” Eden asked when they got into the car.

“I don’t know!” David snapped. “No!”

Eden went silent and turned her head to face out the window. Her shoulders began to shake.

David sighed as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Don’t cry, Eden. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I really don’t feel good. Don’t you get cranky when you don’t feel good?”

She didn’t answer.

“Eden. Listen to me. That server was giving me a really strange look. Like she thought I was doing something wrong. I needed to get out of there, okay? That’s why I said we have family in Portland. So she’d leave us alone. Do you understand?”

“I want to go home,” his daughter whispered.

“What?”

“I want to go home. I want to see Momma.” She turned to look at him with tears welling in her eyes.

“But we’re having an adventure, honey. Remember?”

“I don’t want to have an adventure!” she cried. “I want to go home. I want to see Mom!” She stamped her foot on the floorboard.

“Too bad!” David roared as he turned onto Interstate 5 heading south. “You can’t have her! She didn’t want you, you know! She never wanted to be a mother!” Even before David said the words, he wished he could take them back.

“That’s not true!” Eden screamed. “I don’t believe you! You’re a liar! You lied about taking your medicine and now you’re lying about this, too! I hate you! I wish you weren’t my dad!” She flung out her arm and hit him on his shoulder.

David pushed harder on the gas pedal and gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles went white. “Knock it off,” he growled. “Knock it off,
now
.”

“No!” Eden screamed. She began to pound on the window. “Help! I need help! Somebody help me!”

“Eden! Stop it! Stop it right now!” David swerved into the far left lane. When the speedometer hit eighty, the console began to rattle. “You’re going to make me get in an accident, honey.” He tried to make his voice remain calm.

She didn’t answer again but continued to let loose huge sobs that sent shudders through her entire body with every intake of breath. He drove faster, hating that he was doing this to her. He shouldn’t have brought her. He should have taken all those pills instead of dumping them out and been done with it. Then the only person he would have hurt would’ve been himself.

They had been back on the road about half an hour when the flash of red and blue lights caught David’s eye in the rearview mirror. He was still speeding. The patrol car gained on him quickly and he heard the megaphone instructing him to pull over to the shoulder. He complied, taking deep breaths to try to calm his adrenaline. “Please stop crying, Bug,” he implored his daughter. “I’m going to try to talk my way out of this. Let me do the talking, please.” She didn’t acknowledge him but did take a couple of deep breaths in what he hoped was an effort to slow her tears.

David rolled down his window and smiled at the policeman, a grim-looking man with a thin, black mustache. “What can I help you with, Officer?”

“Please step out of the car, sir.”

“Was I going too fast? It’s my little girl, here. She’s always telling me to make it go faster.”

“Sir, I’m not going to ask you again to get out of the car.”

“Aren’t you even going to ask for my license and registration?”

The policeman put his hand on the door handle and pulled. “I won’t ask again. Let’s not make a scene in front of your child.”

“I don’t understand—” David began to say, but the officer yanked the door open and grabbed him by the arm before he could finish his sentence. “Hey!”

“Daddy!” Eden cried. “Don’t hurt him! He didn’t mean to do anything wrong. He didn’t mean it!”

“It’s okay, sweetie,” David said as the officer guided him to the back of the car. “I’m right here. Everything’s going to be okay.” He glared at the officer. “You’re scaring my little girl.”

“According to her, you’re the one who’s scaring her, sir.” The officer pulled out David’s wallet and reviewed his license.

“That’s ridiculous. Eden’s just having a tough time being away from her mother for the first time. She’s homesick.”

“Did the child’s mother know you were taking her daughter?”

“She’s not just ‘her’ daughter,” David spat. “She’s mine, too. My sperm, my daughter.”

The policeman was not impressed. “You didn’t answer the question, sir. Did the mother know you were taking your child away?”

“Of course she did! This is unbelievable. I knew they’d come for me. I knew they’d find me and take her from me. Don’t you see?” David pled.
Do anything ,
his brain told him.
Say anything. You have to get away.
“Don’t you see they’re after me? I had to protect Eden. She’s my daughter. I needed to keep her safe!”

The officer leaned in and sniffed near David’s face. “Have you been drinking, sir?”

“It’s barely light out! Of course not!”

“I’m going to have to ask you to accompany me to the squad car, Mr. West.”

David took a step away. “I will not. My daughter is in the car. I can’t leave her alone.”

“You left her alone in the restaurant. Didn’t you, Mr. West? She was so afraid she told the waitress her mother’s phone number. Your wife is frantic. Now, let’s get you into the car so Eden doesn’t have to be exposed to anything else that’s going to hurt her.”

David was speechless. She’d turned on him. He thought Eden was his shining star, but she was just like all the rest. Lydia. The doctors. The ones who betrayed him. He stared at his daughter through the rear window. She was turned in her seat, watching him with wide eyes. He looked back to the officer. “What about my paintings? They’re in the back of the car.”

“Don’t worry about that right now. Let’s worry about getting Eden back home to her mother.” Just then, the officer made the mistake of glancing away from David for a moment as another squad car pulled up. David took the opportunity to swing his arm around and strike the man square in the jaw. The other officer jumped out of the car and ran toward them. David raced around to grab his paintings from the back of the car.

“Daddy, I’m sorry,” Eden said when he leaned inside. She was crying again. Her eyes were red and her nose was runny. “I didn’t know what to do. I was scared and I just wanted to go home!”

He didn’t answer her. Just as he was putting his hands on one of the larger canvases, he felt the gun at the back of his neck. “Back out of the car, now!” It was a female officer, he realized. He wondered if he could hit a woman. But before he could think about it too long, he felt the strong yank of a man’s grip pulling him out of the car and throwing him facedown on the ground. The male officer had straddled his back and was putting handcuffs on him.

“You’re under arrest for driving while intoxicated and assaulting an officer,” he said through gritted teeth. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” He finished telling David his rights as he jerked him upright and led him toward the squad car. The female officer helped Eden get out of the car.

David heard her soothe his daughter. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Eden kept her eyes locked on David as he climbed inside the patrol car. She clutched her backpack to her chest. “I’m sorry, Daddy!” she cried before the male officer shut the door to take David away. “Daddy!
Please!
”

David didn’t say a word. He stared hard at his child, watching her sob and shake on the side of the road, wondering if, after this, he’d ever want to see her again.

Eight hours after Jack and I left my father’s old apartment building, Georgia showed up at my door with a bottle of Pinot Grigio and Thai takeout. When she’d called after she was done with work and asked if I’d meet her for drinks at the Dahlia Lounge downtown, I told her I wasn’t up to socializing.

“I’ll be there in an hour,” she said. I didn’t argue, knowing she’d come whether or not I wanted her there. Georgia was good like that.

I lit a few vanilla-scented candles in the living room and we curled up on my couch with our pad thai and filled wineglasses well within reach. “Wow,” Georgia commented. “I get candles? You trying to seduce me?”

“Hardly.” I gave her a tired smile and took a sip of wine. “How was your day?”

“You don’t want to know. I, however, am dying to hear what happened with the homeless-shelter guy. I’m thinking nothing good, considering we’re in our sweatpants on your couch?”

“Jack was great, actually. We laughed and talked and even flirted a little. I like him. He seems genuine and sweet.”

“The height thing didn’t bother you?”

“I didn’t really notice it as much as I thought I would,” I said. “He’s confident, too, which I like. But not in a short-man’s-disease kind of way.”

“No Napoleon complex, then. That’s good.”

“None that I could see.” I went on to describe the encounter with Wanda and my response at finding my father’s belongings in the basement.

“So you started crying in front of him
again
? What is this, three times now?”

“I know.” I sighed. “He probably thinks I’m certifiable. But he was very calm and comforting.”

“What did you call it again? The painting?”

“
The Garden of Eden.
Planting that garden was sort of the last happy, meaningful thing my father and I did together, so seeing it like that, knowing he remembered and it was important enough for him to paint after that much time had passed, hit me pretty hard.”

“Wait. Didn’t you tell me that would be the name of your restaurant? The Garden of Eden?” I nodded. “Ah.” She continued. “I like it. And now it makes sense.” Georgia lifted her wineglass and took a hefty sip. “What happened after your meltdown?”

“When I drove Jack back to the shelter, I explained to him why I freaked out and then I came home. I’ve been puttering around the house all day trying to figure out if I should keep doing this.”

Georgia set her glass down on the coffee table. “Looking for your dad, you mean?”

I nodded again as I picked up a spring roll from one of the white to-go cartons and took a bite. Jasper whimpered and set his chin on my thigh. I tossed the remaining half of the roll in the air and he caught it. Spoiled mutt.

“I think you should,” Georgia said. “It’s important for you to get some closure around him.”

“I thought I
had
closure. I had him written off as someone whom I’d never see again. It was hard after he left, but I sort of got used to it. He’d cross my mind and I’d feel this intense longing in my chest, but I forced it down, you know? I tried to pretend it wasn’t there. And then my mom got sick and I just couldn’t imagine a world where I didn’t have either of them. I felt so guilty for not responding to him when he reached out to me, I felt like I had to find him.”