Afterparty(90)

My dad just looks at me.

I say, “Say something.”

I am thinking that this will be the last sentence before I completely expunge any notion he might have of my Emma the Good–ness, and how wonderful I am, and his belief that if he’s a good enough father, he can somehow prevent me from turning into her.

So I just say it: “I’m her. You might as well have stayed in Montreal and let everyone throw things at me, because I deserve it.”

From his end of the couch, my dad says, “You know that we left Montreal because of me. Not you, Ems. And no one wants to throw anything at you.”

“Have you been to Lac des Sables? Where I never have to go again.”

My dad is leaning toward me now, but not actually touching me, as if I might be a stick of some volatile explosive. Which I might be.

He says, “Ems, this is a difficult moment. I understand that. Siobhan is in the hospital. You have something going on with this boy. I’m not sure where Canada comes into this, but I’m going to sit with you until we sort it out.”

“Do. Not. Go. Psychiatric. On. Me.”

“Ems! Look at me. Look up. This is what parental looks like.”

By now I’m shouting at him and I can’t stop. “Don’t you get it? I’m her! No matter what you did and how far from home you stashed me, I’m a total f*ckup. Look at me! I look exactly like her! I just go around doing whatever I feel like doing and I don’t even feel guilty enough about it to stop.”

My dad, who is by this point three inches away from me and white, pretending that he’s still calm, says, “Don’t you ever, for one moment, blame a single decision you’ve made on who your mother was.” He shakes his head. “And I think you might be exaggerating. Just a little.”

“No I’m not! You know I’m not or you wouldn’t have kept me locked up here!”

“Ems, if I’ve been inflexible, we can discuss it. But it’s because the world is a dangerous place. Here especially. No other reason. Not because I don’t think you’re wonderful.”

“I’m not that wonderful.”

Compass: You are a master of understatement.

My dad says, “You’re wrong.” He sounds so sure and uncomprehending. “Teenagers have lapses in judgment. It’s expected. I don’t know what you possibly could have done that makes you feel this way about yourself, but I know you, and it’s not going to change what I think of you. I love you.”

I scream, “Even if I killed Siobhan?”

“Even if you did what?”

This is when Dylan comes out of the bedroom, when my dad stands up and says, “You need to go home.”

Dylan, who is backing toward the door, stops and says in extremely bad French, “Sir. Dr. Lazar. She didn’t. You need to hear this. She thinks that she did, but she didn’t.”

My dad says, “Of course she didn’t.”

On his way out the door, Dylan calls back, “And she’s not anything like her mother!”

My father follows Dylan out the door.

? ? ?

When my dad comes back, he is teary and ever so slightly furious.

I say, “Before you even say anything—”

He says, “Tell me what happened Saturday night.”

Deep breath.

Then I tell him.

I tell him everything in gory detail. The window, the taxi, Dylan leaving Latimer, Paulina’s suite, the all-girl limo that I wasn’t in, the rooftop and the rain. And every time I say another true sentence, I feel as if I’m punching him in the face.

He is pacing in front of the couch. He says, “We can deal with this.” It sounds as if he’s brainstorming, not as if he actually believes it. “You were frightened and you took off. We’ll talk to the police. We’ll talk to Siobhan’s mother. We can deal with this.”

I say, “She’s going to die, isn’t she?”

“What happened on that roof is not your fault. Entendu?”

“Yes it was! What was I even doing there?”

“That we have to talk about. Parties, taxis, drinking, drugs.” He is ticking it off on his fingers. “What am I leaving out? But this we have to handle first.”

“Boyfriend,” I say. “You left that out.”

He frowns. Then he says, “I’m a sucker for anyone who says my baby girl didn’t commit capital murder.”

This is so extremely not funny that I think he might have snapped.

He says, “This is the one you’ve been studying with?”

I nod.

He says, “Ems, the boy was there. He saw what happened. You were drunk and in the middle of it.”

“I wasn’t that drunk.”

“You were drinking and in the middle of it. Either way, that poor girl was trying to push you off the roof. He was a few yards away. He saw. I’m staying with his version.”

“You have no idea—”

“I know you.”

“You don’t even. Weren’t you listening? I’ve been doing things all year. Pacts with Siobhan and all kinds of things.”

“You rode a horse down Mulholland,” he says. “It’s not the worst thing anybody ever did.”

I don’t even want to know how he knows that. “All I’ve done since we landed in this state is lie to you. That first day, at that beach club, I kissed some guy I didn’t even know.”