“Houston? Why Houston?”

“I live in Texas now. Have for a year and a half.”

That’s probably something a daughter should know about her father. At least he still has the same cell phone number.

“Oh. Yeah, I forgot.” I grip the back of my neck. “Can you just buy a one-way ticket for now? I’m not sure how long I want to stay. Maybe a few weeks.”

“Yeah, I’ll buy it now. Just find a United agent at the airport in the morning and they’ll print your boarding pass. I’ll meet you at baggage claim when you land.”

“Thanks.” I end the call before he can say anything else. When I turn around, Gary throws a thumb in the direction of the front door.

“I can give you a ride to the airport,” he says. “It’ll cost ya, though.” He grins, and the way his lips curl up makes my stomach churn. When Gary Shelby offers to do a favor for a woman, it isn’t in exchange for money.

And if I’m going to be exchanging favors with someone for a ride to the airport, I’d rather it be Dakota than Gary Shelby.

I’m used to Dakota. As much as I despise him, he’s been dependable.

I pick up the phone again and dial Dakota’s number. My father said I need to be at the airport in five hours, but if I wait until Dakota is asleep, he may not answer the phone. I want to get there while I still have the opportunity.

I’m relieved when Dakota answers the call. He sounds half-asleep when he says, “Yeah?”

“Hey. I need a favor.”

There’s a moment of silence before Dakota says, “Really, Beyah? It’s the middle of the night.”

He doesn’t even ask what I need, or if everything is okay. He’s immediately annoyed with me. I should have put an end to whatever this is between us as soon as it started.

I clear my throat. “I need a ride to the airport.”

I can hear Dakota sigh like I’m a nuisance to him. I know I’m not. I may not be more than a transaction to him, but it’s a transaction he can’t seem to get enough of.

I hear the creak of his bed like he’s sitting up. “I don’t have any money.”

“I’m not—I’m not calling you for that. I need a ride to the airport. Please.”

Dakota groans, and then says, “Give me half an hour.” He hangs up. So do I.

I walk past Gary and make sure to slam his screen door as I leave his house.

Over the years, I’ve learned not to trust men. Most of the ones I’ve interacted with are like Gary Shelby. Buzz is okay, but I can’t ignore that he created Dakota. And Dakota is just a better looking, younger Gary Shelby.

I hear people talk about good men, but I’m starting to think that’s a myth. I thought Dakota was one of the good ones. Most of them just appear to be Dakotas on the outside, but beneath all those layers of epidermis and subcutaneous tissue, there’s a sickness running through their veins.

When I’m back inside my own house, I look around my bedroom, wondering if there’s anything I even want to take with me. I don’t have much that’s worth packing, so I grab a few changes of clothes, my hairbrush and my toothbrush. I stuff my clothes in plastic sacks before putting them in my backpack so they don’t get wet in case I get stuck in the rain.

Before I head out the front door to wait on Dakota, I take the painting of Mother Teresa off the wall. I try to shove it in my backpack, but it won’t fit. I grab another plastic sack and put the painting in it, then carry it with me out of the house.

TWO

One dead mother, one layover in Orlando and several hours of weather delays later, I’m here.

In Texas.

As soon as I step off the plane and into the jet bridge, I can feel the late afternoon heat melting and sizzling my skin like I’m made of butter.

I walk lifeless, hopeless, following signs for baggage claim to meet the father I’m half made of, yet somehow wholly unaccustomed to.

I have no negative experiences of him in my memories. In fact, the times I did spend with my father in the summer are some of my only good childhood memories.

My negative feelings toward him come from all the experiences I didn’t have with him. The older I get, the clearer it becomes to me what little effort he’s made to be a part of my life. I sometimes wonder how different I would be had I spent more time with him than Janean.

Would I have still turned out to be the same untrusting, skeptical human I’ve become had I experienced more good times than bad?

Maybe so. Or maybe not. Sometimes I believe personalities are shaped more by damage than kindness.

Kindness doesn’t sink as deep into your skin as the damage does. The damage stains your soul so bad, you can’t scrub it off. It stays there forever, and I feel like people can see all my damage just by looking at me.

Things might have been different for me if damage and kindness had held equal weight in my past, but sadly, they don’t. I could count the kindness shown to me on both hands. I couldn’t count the damage done to me even if I used the hands of every person in this airport.

It’s taken me a while to become immune to the damage. To build up that wall that protects me and my heart from people like my mother. From guys like Dakota.

I am made of steel now. Come at me, world. You can’t damage the impermeable.

When I turn the corner and see my father through the glass that separates the secured side of the airport from the unsecured, I pause. I look at his legs.

Both of them.

I graduated from high school just two weeks ago, and while I certainly didn’t expect him to show up to my graduation, I kind of held out a small sliver of hope that he would. But a week before I graduated, he left me a message at work and told me he broke his leg and couldn’t make the flight out to Kentucky.

Neither of his legs look broken from here.

I’m immediately grateful that I am impermeable because this lie is probably something that would have otherwise damaged me.

He’s next to baggage claim with no crutches in sight. He’s pacing back and forth without a limp or even a hitch in his step. I’m no doctor, but I would think a broken leg takes more than a few weeks to heal. And even if it did heal in that short amount of time, surely there would be residual physical limitations.

I already regret coming here and he hasn’t even laid eyes on me yet.

Everything has happened so fast in the last twenty-four hours, I haven’t had a chance for it all to catch up to me. My mother is dead, I’ll never step foot in Kentucky again, and I have to spend the next several weeks with a man I’ve spent less than two hundred days with since I was born.

But I’ll cope.

It’s what I do.

I walk through the exit and into the baggage claim area just as my father looks up. He stops pacing, but his hands are shoved inside the pockets of his jeans and they stay there for a moment. There’s a nervousness to him and I kind of like that. I want him to be intimidated by his lack of involvement in my life.

I want the upper hand this summer. I can’t imagine living with a man who thinks he’ll be able to make up for lost time by over-parenting me. I’d actually prefer it if we just coexisted in his home and didn’t speak until it was time for me to leave for college in August.

We walk toward each other. He took the first step so I make sure and take the last. We don’t hug because I’m holding my backpack, my purse, and the plastic sack that contains Mother Teresa. I’m not a hugger. All that touching and squeezing and smiling is not on my reunion agenda.