Dance With the Devil

My blood ran cold, and a more chilling cold than the outside wind or snow could ever hope to compete with. I stood frozen, my eyes staring into those of the man that caused my mother and I so much heartache these past few months. My emotions flew all over the place. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or scream, or go and run and jump into his arms. I felt my breathing get tense and convert into small short breaths. Every inch of me tingled with mixed feelings.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs, nearly a statue like me. He was in a suit, his regular business attire. It was all I saw him in for the last month he was here, due to all the ‘overtime’ work he had to do. Thinking about it sickened me, to know that the man I looked up to so dearly would throw away his marriage, his family, his daughter.

Neither of us spoke. There was nothing for me to say to him. I had a whole script planned out for him, however. In these past months I had planned, dreamed of the day he would come back and tell my mother and I how sorry he was for everything, that he wanted to be part of our family again. All I had ever wanted was to know I belonged to a family that loved me. When I was young I believe that, but I also believed that dragons and witches and fairytales were real. I guess that’s all its been this entire time. A big fairytale.

I saw him focus his eyes behind me on my mother, when they suddenly switched back to me. “Is she up yet?” He spoke with a forced calmness in his voice, like he was trying to be conversational. I shook my head at him, unable to make my vocal cords produce sound. His eyes then stayed locked on mine, his brown eyes, where I got mine from. “I suppose I deserve that; you not talking to me. I can’t say I blame you. I wouldn’t want to talk to me either.”

“What are you doing here?” I tried to show no emotion in my voice. I wanted to sound business; that was all I got from him during that last month. That’s all he deserved from me.

“I uh, left some work papers in the den. I needed them for work.” I felt my heart drop, even though I knew I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. I wanted to imagine that he was here to see us. But no, everything was always about work with him.

“Well, everything you left is in the attic.” I was now angrier than any other emotion. My father comes back for the first time since he left, the first time I've spoken to him since he left, and everything is still all about work. He acts like I'm not even his daughter at all. I reached down at my feet and picked up the empty beer bottles, and headed for the kitchen.

I tossed the bottles into the recyclables, when I heard my father tiptoe his way into the kitchen behind me. “Karlee, I don’t know what you want me to say. I can’t express to you how sorry I am.” I nearly spun around to face him.

“Sorry? Oh you're sorry? Then I guess that just makes everything all better then right? I don’t care how sorry you are. It doesn’t change anything. Do you even know what her and I have been through these past few months? Do you know that for weeks after you left she was drinking every night? Do you know that everything reminds me of you? And every single memory, no matter how small and insignificant, hurts like hell? You ran out on your wife and your daughter. Do you know what it’s like to come home from school, and see your mother hysterically crying on the ground, only for her to tell you that your father left and isn’t coming back? You never even said goodbye to me. At least she got a goodbye. I got nothing. And for what? Some girl you were nailing at work? You gave up your family, people who loved and supported you for some bimbo? No Dad. Sorry isn’t anywhere close to enough.” The words came exploding out of me, like they had been waiting to be let go for the longest time. His expression didn’t change. It was still stern yet sad. He put his hands in his pockets.

“I know. I know Karlee. I hate myself for what I did. And I know I’m sorry will never be enough. I just can’t think of another way to show you how much I regret it. But I miss you so much. And I think about you every single day. I think about how much you must hate me for what I did to you. But I want you to understand something. I want you to know that I left your mother, not you. I never wanted to hurt you.” I laughed humorlessly.

“Yeah, well that plan went well then didn’t it? You could have contacted me somehow. I called you. I called you all day when I found out. And you never picked up once. It made me feel like you didn’t want either of us anymore. So I stopped trying. And I tried to go on living life pretending that you never existed. Because if I thought like that, your absence was at least explainable.” I felt myself getting more worked up inside, but only about to break down on the out. I did not want to cry in front of my father, I didn’t want him to be worth those tears.

“Karlee you have to believe me that if there was a way to go back and change everything, I would, I—”

“You wouldn’t cheat on mom?” His mouth automatically shut and was quiet for a long time. Too long. He took a step towards me, at to which I took a step back.

“No, I wouldn’t cheat. I would divorce her fir—”

“So you’d still leave,” I cut him off. I heard him sigh. “You’d still leave, you’d just do it the right way this time, is what you're saying?”

“Your mother and I weren’t happy together.” I was the one to take a step towards him this time, though he didn’t move unlike I did.

“No, you weren’t happy. Only God knows why, but you weren’t happy. She loved you. She loved you more than anything and you destroyed her. You guys argued a lot, fine. But she was always willing to work through it, because she loved you. Do you want me to keep saying it? Cause I will. She loved you dad. And I hope it hurts to hear that. Because you didn’t see her after you left. She was a mess. She started drinking religiously. And now I come home today, and because you were here I see she was drinking again. Don’t you see what you did to her? Don’t you even care?” My voice had started out hard, but then softened extremely by the end. I could feel my hands shaking, everything within me was trembling. But I wanted nothing more than to show my father that I was able to stand up to him without crying like a little girl.

“Of course I care! I loved your mom very much, I still care about her. I just wasn’t in love with her anymore.” He looked down and placed his hand on his temple, like he was getting a headache, then looked back up at me with a sigh. “Karlee, when I first got here today, your mom told me everything you just did. You need to know that I will never be happy with myself ever again because of this. I’m never going to forgive myself, and I don’t expect you to, or your mother. I hurt both of you. But I still care about you both very much. Especially you Karlee. You’re my daughter and I love you.”

“Yeah well, that’s a pretty shitty way of showing you care.” He stared at me, trying to think of words to say, I could tell. I stared right back, with guns full of ammunition of what to say packed strongly in the back of my head. Though, I stared at him. He looked mostly the same since the last time I saw him. Tall and broad, big cheekbones and stern eyes. His hair got grayer however. Probably from stress.

“Your mom told me about Nick.” Out of all the things I had expected him to say, that was not one of them. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. But if it would make you feel any better, cheaters never have good reasons. It’s always stupid and selfish, and honestly, you’re better off without someone like that in your life.” He grew quiet for a moment, as if he had expected me to say something, when in reality I had nothing to say to him, or about Nick. “Which is why I didn’t try to contact you. You didn’t deserve a father like me. I didn’t want you to associate with someone who would do the things I did. And so, I really am sorry about that. I’m sorry about everything Karlee. I know that doesn’t mean anything, but I am. And that about wraps up what I wanted to say to you. So then I guess I’ll just be on my way and let you hate me as you please.” He turned and began to walk out of the kitchen, and I didn’t have to follow him to know he was heading for the front door.

“I don’t hate you.” He was in the other room, but I spoke just as loud as I would had he been right next to me. I heard the floor stop creaking in the room beyond me, so I knew he stopped. He poked his head back into the kitchen.

“You don’t?” I shook my head downward. I threw my eyes back up at him.

“No. I was raised better than that. I’m just really disappointed in you.” His expression was hard to comprehend. He looked pleased, but sadly pleased. “But I really think you should go now.” His head disappeared from sight and I only heard the floor from the living room creek only so many more times before the door opened and slammed.

I felt like falling to my knees and crying myself to sleep right there on the kitchen floor.