Pirate Smile

When I showed up at Holly’s apartment on Saturday afternoon, she wasn’t there. I thought she’d fled town, like some fugitive. Of course I realized how fucking stupid that thought was so I waited, taking a seat on the stone steps and lighting up a cigarette.
I told the guys I was going to stick around the city for a week or two—that I was stressed out and needed to clear my head. It wasn’t entirely a lie.
I knew I was taking an enormous leap by staying. I hadn’t been around anyone younger than ten since I was ten. Someone like me wasn’t a shoe-in for a father, but I didn’t even know what I was hoping to get out of this.

Holly appeared first. When our eyes met, she practically left marks on the sidewalk as she screeched to a halt. I could feel her hesitation across the twenty feet that separated us. I smiled sheepishly, shaking hair away from my eyes. What else could I possibly do at that moment?
“Delilah.” She held onto the little girl’s hand tightly as they walked up to me. I felt everything inside of me melt down and slosh around in my stomach. “This is my friend, Jared. Can you say ‘hi’?”
We were being obnoxiously polite to one another, considering the circumstances, but I knew Holly wasn’t about to go at it in front of the kid.
Delilah took a step against Holly’s legs and stared up at me. I felt like a giant. Holly put her hands on Delilah’s shoulders and adjusted her in between the two of us. I felt myself blanch, my stomach flipping.
“Jared,” She smiled earnestly. “This is Delilah.”

I was meeting my kid.

“Uh, hi there.” I wasn’t sure whether or not I should shake her hand. Was a father supposed to shake his daughter’s hand?
Delilah’s eyes only grew wider.
“Are you coming to visit us?” Holly asked carefully as she guided Delilah, who suddenly seemed to have sprouted roots, up the stairs. She looked over her shoulder at me.
“I, uh, I’m going to stick around for a little while.” I rocked back on my heels, shaking off my nausea.
“You are?” Holly stopped walking and turned to face me completely.
“Is that alright?” I watched her hesitantly. Frowning, I fiddled with the hem of my shirt.
“Uh, sure—of course it is.” We certainly were in unchartered territory.
“Can I come up?”

…

We made it through their front door this time. I looked around, thinking when the last time I’d been there was.
“So uh, how old is she?”
“She’ll be five in October,” Holly answered as she helped Delilah step out of her sneakers. I noticed she didn’t untie them.
“No shit,” I muttered to myself.

Holly shuffled around me awkwardly, tossing things around and clearing up scattered messes. I knew she was just nervous---I wasn’t exactly a tidy person. I stood by the door, staring at the spot above Delilah’s head because I couldn’t look her in the eye.

“Give me one second, alright?” Holly nodded at the kitchen. “Help yourself.”

I fished a beer out of their fridge and stepped out onto the balcony. Holly anxiously popped a video in, trying to get Delilah to take interest in talking lions instead of the strange man in their home.
As I lit up a cigarette, I paced back and forth until Holly quietly slid the door shut behind her.

We sat across from one another in bright plastic chairs, unsure what to say next as we let the silence trap us in a bubble. I kept looking over Holly’s shoulder. After peering up from behind pillows at me for a few minutes, Delilah hid. She saw me looking back at her. My hands folded underneath my chin, but then quickly covered my face. Holly forced a smile that really only looked like she was grimacing.

“She looks…” I started rambling. “She looks like…me.”
I could feel my hands start to shake and I knew it would take over my entire body. Blinking quickly, Holly fiddled with the tips of her hair.
“I don’t understand.”
“I wasn’t sure how to tell you.” She moved on to toying with her rings, one of which I’d given her, and pieced together her story. “It’s not an excuse, I know…”
Taking a pause, she exhaled and rubbed her eyes. “The band was taking off and I didn’t want this to be some huge burden on you.”
“I had a right to know, Hol.” My body temperature felt as though it’d gone up thirty degrees.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, locking eyes with mine. “What would you have done though, quit the band? Shotgun wedding?”
“Jesus Christ, Holly—who do you think you’re talking to? I’m not some random guy you met at a bar—” I tugged frantically at my hair, feeling the reality of the situation sink in.
“You would have been though, you know?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I was inhaling so hard on that damn cigarette I thought I’d choke on it.
“I only got to see you when you came around on tour—that’s not enough!” She attempted to keep her voice somewhat level. “That’s not enough for her. If you couldn’t be with her all of the time I thought it’d be better if you weren’t with her at all.”
I smacked the small, plastic table so hard that it teetered before tipping over. Whatever had been sitting on top of it crashed to the ground. Holly didn’t flinch.
“Is that why?” I shouted at her, shoving the chair away. “You knew that day, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Exhaling, I leaned against the railing and looked out over the city. Holly stood beside me, our elbows touching.
“It would not have been that way and you know it.”
“I was scared, Jared.”

“Does she ever ask…about me?”
“Yes.” It came out as a whisper. My head dropped into my hands like my neck had turned into spaghetti. “I, uh, I never know what to say to her.”

For a while neither of us said anything. We needed to cool off, as we were both what my mother would call “hotheads”. Holly glanced back through the sliding door and I realized what a scene I just made.

“I don’t fucking believe this,” I muttered bitterly. “This is why you didn’t want me to come back. Fuck, Holly. What’s the matter with you? You made my decision for me? Am I wrong, or doesn’t it take two people to make...that…”
“You’re right,” she admitted, cradling her head in her hands. “But can you at least try to understand? I was nineteen. I didn’t want a baby, and I didn’t want you to do the right thing. We would have ended up hating one another forever.”
I couldn’t imagine this scenario. I’d wanted to marry Holly before I even understood what that meant.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Holly moved away from me as if she could feel the anger radiating from me like a fever.
“I, uh…I don’t know.”
“What does this mean then?” I looked over her shoulder into the apartment. I wasn’t enough of an asshole to abandon the two of them now.
“I guess it’s your decision.” Her features turned to stone. She had always been stoic. “All I think about is that little girl in there. Please understand that, alright? So if you want no part in this, just leave—she won’t remember this, she won’t remember you—but if you think you want to try out you better make sure it fits.”

After she spook she stood up, gently kissed my cheek and went back inside. I watched her take a seat beside Delilah, the two of them snuggling under a blanket. She was giving me my space.
I sat on the balcony for a couple of hours, trying to imagine what my life would be like with a daughter. I could teach her to do stuff, I figured, but what if she didn’t want to learn anything from me? What did she think of me, the absent dad?

“Do you want something to eat?”
I looked up, taking in the sight of her. We were together again, I’d forgotten all about that.
“I’m alright,” I cleared my throat. “Thanks though.”
“OK…” Holly lingered at the door. She looked down, studying her feet. “Why’d you come back?”
“Huh?” I flicked my cigarette over the railing.
“Why are you here?”

Chewing the inside of my cheek, I thought of the numerous reasons I didn’t return to Nashville.
“I love you.” It was the truth.
“Jared—”
“What you did—I hate you for it right now, but you…I don’t know.”
“That’s fine,” she shook her head and smiled faintly.
“Holly,” I sighed. I stood up, wanting nothing more than to hold her and kiss her and feel her skin against my fingertips. I’d been lying to myself for the past three and a half years.
She stopped in the doorway and looked back at me.
“Is there like, a manual for this kind of thing or what?”
Holly, looking extremely tired, smiled. She sidled onto the balcony next to me.
“Yes.” She stole a sip from my beer and rubbed her eyes. “But they’re all a load of shit.”
“That’s fucking fantastic.”
Drumming a soft beat with her fingers, Holly thought for a little bit. I was trying to think of how I was going to keep this a secret until I was ready to tell everybody.
“She’s shy,” Holly offered.
“I noticed.”
“She’s small too.” A sigh left her lips and she frowned. “She just has such a hard time with the other kids…”
“So what, she gets picked on?” I thought of Delilah, nestled into the pillows on the couch, and felt a protective reflex kick in.
“This was her first year of preschool—I think I cried every night.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.” I really had no idea what to say.
“I just worry about her.” Holly clasped her hands together and sat down in a chair.
“Yeah?”
“I worry about you too.”
“I think everyone does,” I rolled my eyes.
“How are you?” I sat down beside her, reclining until I felt the chair teeter.
“Right now?”
“This exact second.”
“I don’t know if there is an adjective for how I feel right now.”
“That we can agree on.”