All the fluster, the confusion, is on his side.

“You need me to—your what? Out of jail?”

Maybe I should have worked my way up to it.

I wish I could have picked another time, some morning when I walked into the kitchen and he actually looked happy to see me. As opposed to this morning, when I found him reading the paper with his coffee, the circles under his eyes too dark, his mouth too sad when he caught sight of me at the French doors.

There’s no other time, though. Only this time, this pain twisting in my guts as I think about how my future with my dad could be like this forever—this disappointment perpetual, our old relationship impossible to recover.

“His name is West Leavitt, and he’s being held in Putnam by the police. At least, I think he is. It would be good if you could find that out for me, actually. He was planning to confess to misdemeanor possession of marijuana.”

“You have a boyfriend. Who smokes marijuana.”

“Sort of. I mean, yes, he’s my boyfriend. And he occasionally smokes it. But mostly he just …” Sells it.

Gah. I need to pay more attention to what I’m saying, because my dad is sharp. He’s been talking to accused people for a long time. I guess he’s pretty good at hearing what they don’t say.

When it dawns on him, I can see it in his eyes. The lines deepen in his face, and his jowls look saggier.

I always used to think he was the handsomest dad. I’ve never seen him as old before, or weak, and it hurts so much to be what’s weakening him.

“This is that kid,” he says. “That kid from across the hall. Last year.”

“Yeah.”

“You promised me you’d stay away from him.”

“I did stay away. For a long time.”

Then there’s silence and snow tapping at the windows, because the weather has turned foul.

He takes a sip of his coffee.

I grip the back of a kitchen chair and wonder about my mother. If she would have taken my side, if she hadn’t died.

I think of my sister Alison in the Peace Corps. She’s got email where she is, and the Internet. I wonder if she knows yet.

I wonder about my sister Janelle, too, who does know. She wrote me this email—this long, long email that I had to close and not look at, because the first paragraph contained the words I forgive you, and I don’t want anyone’s forgiveness.

I’m not the one who has to be forgiven.

“Tell me what happened,” my dad says.

“With the drugs?”

“The whole thing.”

So I try.

I try in a way that I didn’t try the other day because I was too angry.

I try even though I feel like there’s no time for this and I wish I were with West right now, and I’m not sure how much of what I tell my dad can even reach him through the filter of his pain and disappointment.

I try because I know him, and I know that he’s fair, and I know that he loves me.

I start at the beginning. I work through to this moment, this kitchen. I tell him everything I think he really needs to know. What Nate did to me. What West has given me. Everything that’s happened, everything that’s pertinent, and more.

I use the word love. I tell him I love West. Because that, too, is pertinent.

And because, now that I’ve said it to West, I could say it to anyone.

I love West. I love him, I love him, I love him.

When I’m done, my father walks out of the room, but I don’t go after him. I take his coffee cup to the sink and rinse it out. I take the beans from the freezer and grind them and make another pot, and I collect some dishes from the countertop and the table to load the dishwasher.

I give him some time.

I think, if I were him, I would need time.

I’m his youngest daughter, his girl who lost her mother earliest, when I was still too little to remember her. He was the one who rocked me to sleep against his chest when I had bad dreams. He was the one who came to every awards ceremony, every debate tournament, every graduation.

He has a picture of me in his chambers with a gap-toothed smile, my hair in pigtails.

I think maybe when your last baby, your motherless daughter with her hair in pigtails, grows up and leaves, you console yourself with the knowledge that she’s smart, and she’ll be safe, and she knows how to make good choices.

It must be so difficult for him now, to deal with the fallout of the choices I’ve made.

I’m not a white dress. My future is not a thing I can dirty, tear holes in, or ruin. Not in any way that’s real. But for him, I guess that dress … it’s a dress that he laundered, a hope that he cherished, and he’s got to find a way to adjust to what I’ve done to it.

His daughter is naked on the Internet.

His baby girl is in love with a drug dealer.

I give him time.

It only takes him ten minutes to come back to the kitchen.

He accepts the cup of coffee I offer him. He stares down into the black brew. He meets my eyes and says, “I’ll make a few calls.”

“Thank you.”

He sighs.

He puts the coffee mug down.

“Don’t thank me yet. There’s probably not a lot I can do. And I have to tell you, Caroline, I’m not certain I’d do even this much if this boy—”

“West.”

“If this … West didn’t have one foot out the door.”

“Okay. Thank you.” It’s a big concession on his part. If he’s going to make some calls, it means he’s putting his own reputation on the line for West—and that means he does trust me. At least a little.

I put my arms around him. His neck smells like aftershave. Like my dad.

“I love you,” I tell him. Because I do. I always have. He’s the world I was born into, and he gave me so much. Safety and strength, intelligence and courage, the knowledge I arm myself with.

He’s a great dad, and I love him.

When I squeeze, his arms come up, and he squeezes back.

“After this, can we be done for a while with the bombshells?” he asks. “You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“I hope so. Although maybe now is when I should tell you I’m not going to be around for break. Once you get West out, I’m staying with him until he flies home.”

Another sigh.

A long minute, with the snow hitting the glass, and my dad not letting go, and me not letting go, either. His shirt collar is stiff, his body warm, the size of him surprisingly wrong since I’ve spent so much time snuggled up to West.

My dad isn’t very tall. I’ve always thought of him as taller than me, but he’s not, after all.

He’s just ordinary.

We’re both doing the best we can.

“I talked to Dick,” he says. “We have some strategies to consider.”

“Okay. Why don’t you set up a meeting for the three of us, and I’ll take anything he has to share under consideration.”

My dad backs up a step and looks down at me with his eyebrows steepled. “You’ll take it under consideration?”

“Right.” I touch his arm. “This is my fight, Dad. I’ll take your help, if it’s help I think I need. But don’t get confused about who’s in charge.”

And it’s funny—he laughs. Not a big laugh. Kind of a snort with half a smile attached to it, and a slight shake of his head. “You always were a ballbuster,” he says.

But he says it like he’s proud.

I wish I had a picture of what she looked like that day.

I’d told her not to come, not to get involved, but I didn’t really expect her to listen. It’s like she said to me—we’re a team, and she’s the leader.

There are guys who’d have a problem with that, her asshole ex among them. And, sure, even I threw out a token protest when she said it, but that was mostly to make her smile.

Caroline’s being the leader—it doesn’t mean I’m her flunky. It doesn’t diminish me. It’s just who she is.

I always liked that about her. How she could walk into a classroom with her books, her binder, her pens, and you could see by the way she raised her hand, the questions she asked, the straight column of her spine: She’s the leader.