I'd Give Anything(71)

Whatever else he is, she thought, he is this, too.

And she tried to believe it.



Avery hadn’t seen her father in almost two months. After Christmas, she’d felt more and more uncomfortable around him, until she could barely stand to be in the same room with him for more than a few minutes. In late January, he’d asked her if she thought some time away from him might be good for her, and she’d told him yes. Now, as he walked into the dining room and sat down across the table from her, she noticed he was thinner. Not in a wasting-away way. He looked healthy, younger. Her mother had told her that he’d gotten a new job at a company that manufactured and sold medical technology, including robots that could perform exquisitely delicate surgical procedures. At another time, Avery would have been eager to talk to her dad about the robots, but now, with things as they were, she had Googled them instead.

Her mother offered her father coffee, and he said no, so Avery’s mother sat down next to her father and clasped her hands on the tabletop. Avery noticed that neither of them wore their wedding ring anymore. Avery’s own hands were in her lap, holding on to the hem of her oversize sweatshirt. She focused on steadying her breath and on not jiggling her legs, and she tried to channel Zinny standing on the lip of the quarry.

Just do this, she instructed herself silently, just jump.

“I met Cressida,” she said.

Her mother sighed. “Oh, honey.”

Her father began turning pink, the flush starting in his neck, the way it did, and traveling upward.

“I—I’m sorry,” he said. “I hoped you wouldn’t have to run into her.”

“I didn’t,” said Avery. “I got in touch with her. I asked if we could meet. And talk.”

Her father slumped, as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. “Oh” was all he said.

“You did that?” said her mother. Avery had expected her mother to react with worry, because that’s so often how she reacted to anything that might be difficult for Avery. But instead she sounded proud.

“There have been a lot of really ugly rumors going around about her,” said Avery. “At first, I liked hearing those rumors because if people believed them, they wouldn’t believe bad things about Dad. But rumors aren’t the same as the truth, no matter how many people believe them.”

“No, they’re not the same,” said her mother.

“So I thought it was only fair to hear her side of the story, Cressida’s side.”

“I see,” said her father, in a tired voice.

“That took courage,” said her mother.

“And now that I’ve heard it, I need to ask you if it’s true, Dad.”

Her father tensed.

“You shouldn’t have to bother with all this,” he said. “You’re too young. Just please go to school, have fun and live your life, and let us handle it.”

“I’m sixteen, now,” said Avery. “I’m not a little kid. This involves me. It’s part of my life, too. And I need to know the truth.”

Her father stared stonily down at the table.

“We need to listen to her, Harris, to whatever she has to say.” She nodded at Avery. “Go ahead, baby.”

Avery took a long, slow breath and then nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

She said “you,” addressing her father directly, the way she’d planned. She took her time, recalling Cressida’s exact language, beginning at the beginning with Cressida getting the internship. She told them how Cressida had said that things got weird slowly, how she hadn’t wanted to believe what was happening. Avery told her father that Cressida said he’d email her at all hours and bring her little gifts and would tell her that he felt a deep connection with her and seemed to be thinking about her all the time. As she spoke, her father sat completely still, staring at the table. She described the wild rumors about Cressida’s dad and the blackmail plot. Her mom put her hand over her mouth and said, “Oh God.”

Once Avery got to the part where her dad and Cressida had gone to the vegetarian restaurant, she faltered and almost allowed herself to edit what Cressida had told her. But she knew that if she didn’t follow through with her plan to tell the entire story, she would regret it. A truth commission wasn’t one if you smoothed the truths over and made them prettier than they were. So she pushed through her embarrassment. She sat at that table across from her father and recounted the story of how he had professed his love for Cressida and of how he—and his proposition that they meet once or twice a week—had humiliated her. Before she’d quite finished, her father pushed his chair away from the table.

“I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation to be having,” he said.

“Dad, don’t leave,” said Avery.

“Harris,” said her mother, in a warning voice.

Her father left his chair where it was, a few feet from the table, but he stayed in it. When he finally met Avery’s eyes, she saw that he’d lost his healthy glow and his new youthfulness. One conversation—Avery’s words, her insistence on telling—had taken it away. The sight of him old and weary hurt her heart.

“What do you want me to say?” he said.

“I want to know if Cressida’s story is true,” said Avery.