All We Ever Wanted(15)

That was seven years ago, and since then, I hadn’t been able to keep up with all the places Lyla said her mother had been living (Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Antonio, and back in Rio, to name a few) or the number of times she’d passed through town, graced us with her intoxicated presence, made Lyla a few empty promises, then disappeared again. With the help of a school guidance counselor I talked to following one of Beatriz’s more egregious interruptions, I’d vowed to stop denigrating her in front of Lyla, and I had kept my word up until now. This was too important. Besides, I told myself, alcoholism isn’t a character flaw—it’s a disease.

   “It’s safe to say that your mom’s an alcoholic,” I began.

Lyla made a clicking sound and rolled her eyes. “Um, yeah. I know that, Dad.”

I nodded, choosing my words carefully. “Okay. Well, then, do you also know that alcoholism runs in families?”

“Dad, please! I’m not an alcoholic,” she whined. “I don’t drink like that. And besides, Mom is way better now. She’s been going to meetings.”

“Well, she’s still an alcoholic,” I said. “That doesn’t go away with meetings. And it will always be in your genes. It will always be a danger for you.”

“I don’t drink too much.”

“Well, the ‘too much’ happens gradually, Lyla. It’s a slippery slope. It was for your mother.”

“I know all of this, Dad—”

I cut her off. “Let me finish….Beyond that, we have more practical concerns…meaning all the bad decisions people make when they’ve been drinking. Take last night, for example….Do you even remember what happened?”

She shrugged and said yes, then added, “Sort of.”

“Sort of? So that means there are things you don’t remember?”

She shrugged again. “I guess.”

“Were you…with…a boy?”

“Da-ad,” she said, looking appalled.

“Answer me, Lyla.”

   “There were boys there,” she replied. “If that’s what you mean.”

“No. That’s not what I mean. You know what I mean….Did you have sex?” I forced myself to ask. “Could you be pregnant?”

“Dad!” she shouted, putting her hands over face. “Stop! No!”

“So no, you couldn’t be pregnant because you didn’t have sex? Or no, you couldn’t be pregnant because you used birth control?”

She stood up and shouted, “Oh my God, Dad. Just go ahead and ground me! I’m not having this conversation with you!”

“Sit down, Lyla,” I said as sternly as I could without actually yelling. “And don’t you dare talk to me like that.”

She bit her lip and sank back into the sofa.

“Did you have sex last night?” I asked.

“No, Dad,” she said. “I didn’t.”

“How can you be sure if you don’t remember?”

“Dad. I’m sure. Okay? Just stop.”

I took a deep breath, then cut to the chase. “Okay, then. Who is Finch?” I asked.

She stared down at her fingernails, her lower lip quivering. “I know what you did, Dad. I know you talked to Grace on my phone. She sent me screenshots. I read the whole thing. Just admit it.”

I confessed with a nod, bracing myself for a self-righteous tirade about her right to privacy. But she somehow exercised a modicum of restraint.

“Who is he?” I said.

“He’s a senior,” she said.

“Does he go to your school?”

She nodded.

“Well, then,” I said. “I’m going to be letting the Windsor administration know about this.”

“Oh my God, Dad,” she gasped, jumping up, her eyes wide and frantic. “Don’t do that. Please!”

   “I have to—”

“You can’t! Please…I won’t drink ever again! And I’ll forgive you for snooping through my phone! And you can ground me, whatever….Just please, please don’t turn him in.” She was now shouting, leaning over the coffee table, her hands in prayer position.

I was accustomed to her melodrama (she was, after all, a teenaged girl) and knew I’d get pushback. But something about her reaction seemed irrationally over the top. I ran through the mental calculations, wondering whether there was more to the story than I knew. I asked if she was telling me everything; she promised that she was. “It’s just not that big of a deal,” she added.

“It is a big deal. It’s a huge deal,” I said, as calmly as I could. “And something needs to be done about…”

She shook her head, now in tears. Real tears—I could always tell when she was fake crying. “No. It doesn’t, Dad. It really doesn’t….Can’t we just drop it?”

“No, Lyla. We can’t just drop it.”

“Why, Dad? Why not? God! I just want this to go away. Please. Can’t we just let it go away and not make it a bigger deal than it needs to be?” she begged.

I looked into her eyes, wanting to stop her tears, give in. After all, I told myself, she had enough challenges in her life. They weren’t insurmountable, of course, nor were they holding her back in any major way. But they were there, and they were real. For one, she was a carpenter’s daughter at a rich-ass school filled with entitled kids. For another, her mother sucked. So of course I was tempted to take the path of least resistance and give her what she wanted now. But was that best for Lyla in the long run? Didn’t I owe my daughter more? Didn’t I need to show her how important it was to stand up for herself and for what’s right? And besides, even if I caved, would anything really “go away”? Or would the problem just resurface, sometime later when we least expected it, the way her mother always did?