Cold Springs(2)

This school I'm starting— It is the future, man. Get your family out of that poison city.

“Katherine,” Chadwick said, “I want to help you.”

“How, Daddy?” Her voice was tight with anger. “How do you want to do that?”

Chadwick caught his own face in Katherine's mirror. He looked haggard and nervous, a hungry transient pulled from some underpass and stuffed into a tux shirt.

He sat next to her on the bed, put his hand next to hers. He didn't touch her. He hadn't given his daughter a hug or a kiss in . . . weeks, anyway. He didn't remember. The distance you have to develop between a father and a daughter as she grew into a woman—he understood it, but it killed him sometimes.

“I want you to go to Texas,” Chadwick said. “The boarding school.”

“You want to get rid of me.”

“This isn't working for you, Katherine. School, home, nothing.”

“You're giving me a choice? If you're giving me a choice, I say no.”

“I want you to agree. It would be easier.”

“Mom won't go for it otherwise,” she translated.

Chadwick's face burned. He hated that he and Norma couldn't speak with one voice, that they played these games, maneuvering for Katherine's cooperation the way a divorced couple would.

Katherine kept rubbing the necklace against her lips. It seemed like yesterday he'd given it to her—her thirteenth birthday.

“You can't baby-sit tonight,” he decided. “We'll tell the Zedmans we can't go.”

“Daddy, I'm fine. It's just Mallory. I've watched her a million times. Go to the auction.”

Chadwick hesitated, knowing that he had no choice. He'd been gone from work the entire week. He couldn't very well miss the auction, too. “Give me your car keys.”

“Come on, Daddy.”

He held out his hand.

Katherine fished her Toyota key out of her pocket, dropped it into his palm.

“Where's your key chain?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your Disneyland key chain.”

“I got tired of it,” she said. “Gave it away.”

“Last week you gave away your jacket. A hundred-dollar jacket.”

“Daddy, I hated that jacket.”

“You aren't a charity, Katherine. Don't give away your things.”

She looked at him the way she used to when she was small—as if she wanted to touch her fingertips to his chin, his nose, his eyebrows, memorize his face. Chadwick felt like he was melting inside.

Down in the stairwell, the doorbell rang. John Zedman called up, “Candygram.”

“This isn't over, Katherine,” Chadwick said. “I want to talk about this when I get home.”

She brushed a tear off her cheek.

“Katherine. Understood?”

“Yeah, Daddy. Understood.”

She made the last word small and hot, instantly igniting Chadwick's guilt. He wanted to explain. He wanted to tell her he really had tried to make things work out. He really did love her.

“Chadwick?” Norma said behind him, her tone a warning. “The Zedmans are here.”

Little Mallory made her usual entrance—a blur of blond hair and oversized T-shirt making a flying leap onto Katherine's bed.

“Kaferine!”

And Katherine transformed into that other girl—the one who could attract younger kids like an ice cream wagon song; the natural baby-sitter who always smiled and was oh so responsible and made other parents tell Chadwick with a touch of envy, “You are so lucky!” Chadwick saw that side of Katherine less and less.

She tousled Mallory's hair. “Hey, Peewee. Ready to have some fun?”

“Yesss!”

“I got Candyland. I got Equestrian Barbie. We are set to party.”

Mallory gave her a high five.

Ann and John stood in the living room, cologne and perfume a gentle aura around them.

“Well,” John said, registering at once that Chadwick wasn't even half ready to go. “Grizzly Adams, back from the wild.”

“The carnivores say hello,” Chadwick told him. “They want you to write home more often.”

“Ouch,” John said, his smile a little too brilliant. “I'll get you for that.”

Ann wouldn't make eye contact with him. She gave Norma a hug—Norma having dressed in record time, looking dangerous in a red and yellow silk dress, like a size-four nuclear explosion.

Chadwick excused himself to finish getting ready. He listened to Norma and Ann talk about the school auction, John flipping through Chadwick's music collection, shouting innocuous questions to him about Yo-Yo Ma and Brahms, Mallory setting off all the clocks on the mantel—her ritual reintroduction to the house.

When Chadwick came out again, Katherine sat cross-legged by the fireplace—his beautiful girl, all grown up, drowning in flannel grunge and uncombed hair. Mallory sat on her lap, winding the hands of an old clock, trying to get it to chime.

Chadwick locked eyes with his daughter. He felt a tug in his chest, warning him not to go.

“Don't worry, Dad,” she said. “We'll be fine.”

Those words would be burned into Chadwick's forehead. They would live there, laser-hot, for the rest of his life.