To Be Happy Now

He looked different, despite wincing in pain as Alaska bandaged his hand. He looks exhausted and weary and old. He didn't look like her loving, fun, and young father.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I had to pick up a microwave," she said, quietly, avoiding his eyes. She finished wrapping up his hand and she started cleaning up all the bloody towels and gauze and alcohol.

"Thank you," Geoffrey said.

"Welcome," she mumbled.

She was finally seeing her father for the first time since she found out about her cancer. Not once did he visit her or even call her. He didn't do anything to try and contact her to see how she was. He relied on his wife to tell him that. He just stayed holed up in the workshop, building nonsense things to get his mind off of it.

Alaska finished cleaning and she stood in front of her father, trying to find something to say, but he just looked up at her, waiting, and she couldn't do it. She sighed and started walking up the stairs. She heard start the saw and it finally made something snap in her. She stormed back downstairs.

"Why don't you care?!" she screamed. Her father stopped the saw and took off his mask.

"What?"

"I haven't seen you in almost four months and you don't even bother to see if everything is okay. Why don't you care?"

"You think I don't care?" he sounded angry.

"Honestly, I don't," Alaska shook her head, crossing her arms.

"You're my only daughter," he said, sternly. "And you're dying!"

"I have cancer! I'm not dying!" Alaska exclaimed. "And even if I was dying, you'd really waste four of the last months I'd have to live working in here, instead of seeing me for the last time?"

Geoffrey shook his head.

"Alaska, I can't do this."

"Why not?"

"We were perfectly fine!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms up in frustration. "We were perfectly fine and then you were diagnosed with cancer and now your mom won't stop crying every night, your brother won't stop calling here, worried out of his mind for you, your aunts and uncles won't stop bringing up the fact that you might not be here in a year. I can't hear this stuff about my little girl! I can't handle this!"

"How do you think I feel?!" Alaska exclaimed, even though she was softening up. "Dad, I'm the one that mom cries over, I'm the one Ricky doesn't know how to handle, I'm the one everyone talks about and pities all the time. This is happening to me and I don't have my dad to tell me stupid stories about my childhood and just hold me when I need him. I need my dad in a way that's different from my mom and my brother and my best friend."

Geoffrey fell silent. A muscle in his jaw twitched and he spoke, his voice shaking,

"I want to be there, Alaska. I just don't think I can handle this."

Alaska nodded, the tears slipping out. She was quiet for a while, trying not to burst into tears and she said, "Okay."

"Alaska..." Geoffrey sighed.

"No matter what, I'll still take you back," she said. "You're my dad."

"I love you, Alaska."

"I love you too, dad."

Alaska stood there for a while, silent tears streaming down her face. Geoffrey sighed and set down the saw and pulled his daughter into a hug, in which Alaska sobbed louder into his chest. He kissed the top of her head and they stayed like that for a while.

Alaska was relieved that they finally took a step forward. She hadn't hugged her dad or even said 'I love you' to him in four months.

"Okay," Alaska said, regaining herself. She smiled, sadly, up at her dad and said, "I have to go."

Her father nodded his head. It still wasn't what Alaska was hoping it would be, but since she had gotten cancer, she wasn't all that surprised that things weren't going the way it was planned. Her life fluctuated and she expected that.

Things were just a little bit better.