Saturday afternoon, Kyle was elbow deep in macaroni. Rebecca had insisted he didn’t need to bring anything to her barbecue, and he’d insisted that he did. It had started to get awkward, but she’d relented when he’d offered macaroni salad. So now he was trying not to singe his fingers as he tossed steaming pasta around in a strainer.
He was about an hour behind. Caroline was feeling better, but still wasn’t a hundred percent and had slept in, which meant breakfast was late, and so cleaning up had been late. Caroline had demanded cuddles on the couch while she watched the episode of Princess Amazonia where Prince Arvin gets kidnapped by the monkey tribe for the billionth time since she’d come home sick on Tuesday. They really needed to release a new season ASAP because Kyle had caught himself humming the monkey tribe’s war chant while he’d been on the phone with Shannon. He was starting to wonder if maybe the king of the monkeys was gay, because the way he looked at Prince Arvin . . .
“Kyle, I’m gay.”
Okay. So maybe the whole day was off-center because Kyle had been off-center since his cell phone had tumbled out of his hand the evening before. His behavior still made him want to curl up and hide in a closet—and the irony of that metaphor was not lost on him at all—but at the same time, Adam’s admission made everything seem so much more complicated. Before yesterday, Adam had been his friend, and his daughter’s almost unbearably hot teacher. Kyle had been able to lust after him from afar, while appreciating Adam as a friend who didn’t treat Kyle like he was the seventeen-year-old he’d been when he left town, but now . . .
Now . . .
It was too soon to get involved with someone. Kyle knew that. The panic attacks and the way he couldn’t wear certain clothes from his closet told him that. He hadn’t been expecting that with Adam, and yet, the idea of it, now that it was a possibility . . .
Kyle shook his head, scooped a large spoonful of mayo into the bowl, and stirred the salad together.
“Jelly Bean!” He carried the bowl to the front hall and set it by the door.
“Yeah?” she said somewhere upstairs. Kyle climbed the steps and headed to his room.
“I’m changing my shirt, and then we’re going to go meet Haley and Lily and Uncle Ben and Auntie Kirsten, okay?”
“Okay.”
He rummaged through his closet, rejected six comic book T-shirts before finding a red checked button-down in a rumpled pile on the floor. It reminded him of a picnic blanket and seemed appropriate for the day’s events. He dashed downstairs and into the laundry room where the ironing board stood waiting. They were supposed to meet at Ben’s and drive over together, and if Kyle got Caroline in the van at that exact moment, they’d only be a few minutes late. He barely gave the iron time to heat up before he gave the shirt a quick pass and threw it on.
“Bean! Let’s go!”
He heard her little feet running down the hall, and a moment later she appeared, a vision in rustling purple polyester as she swept down the steps in her princess dress.
“Bean.” Kyle sighed. They were going to be so late. “What are you wearing?”
“I’m a princess.”
“Yes, I can see that.” He tried not to sound impatient. The princess dress was an inside-the-house-only wardrobe choice, and she knew it. “What happened to the clothes I put on your bed?”
“I don’t want to wear those. I want to be a princess.” Caroline pouted. Kyle squatted down so he was at eye level with his daughter.
“We’ve talked about this. You can’t wear the dress outside.”
“But I want to be a princess.” Her lower lip stuck out, and she jutted her chin toward him.
“And sometimes princesses have to wear shorts and T-shirts so they don’t get their nice dresses dirty,” he said. Her lower lip pushed out farther and started to tremble. “Bean, we don’t have time to argue. Uncle Ben and Auntie Kirsten are waiting, and I need you to get changed.”
“Will you make my hair fancy?” Her voice wobbled.
“If you’d asked me an hour ago, I could have, but now we have to go, so you’re going to have to wear your hair—” He didn’t bother to finish because Caroline’s face crumpled, and fat tears began to roll down her cheeks. “Caroline—”
“No!” She stomped her foot. “I wanna be a princess!” Kyle reached for her but she stepped back, so he stood up straight and grabbed for her again, only to have the slippery purple fabric slide from his grasp. She wailed. They were seconds from a full-on meltdown, and he really didn’t have time for this today. He bent to pick her up, and fumbled a bit as she went rigid and arched away from him.
“Caroline, we’re getting you changed one way or the other, but if you keep this up, then you can stay here with Grandpa and you won’t get to see Haley and Lily at all.” It was a bluff. Kyle’s dad had worked overnight and was working the late shift tonight. He’d been asleep since he’d gotten home at nine, and while he was undoubtedly awake now with the noise Caroline was making, Kyle knew he’d go back to sleep as soon as they left.
Caroline shrieked as they got to the top of the steps. It echoed through Kyle’s left ear and made his teeth ache. He pulled her closer to muffle her as they passed his dad’s closed bedroom door and hurried down the hall to her room. He deposited her on the bed, next to the clothes he’d left out for her that morning.
“Get changed now!” His nerves were on edge. He was anxious to see Adam and try to make sense of what he felt, and that was enough to deal with without adding a six-year-old’s temper tantrum to the agenda.
“No!” She hopped off the bed and darted for the door. Kyle’s arm snaked out to grab at her, and amidst the chaos, the hiss of tearing fabric soared to the top of the register, and the flimsy sleeve of Caroline’s dress pulled away from the rest of it.
Her eyes widened, and Kyle felt his own expression mirror her horror. Her arm wrenched free, and she stumbled.
There was silence for a moment as they both gaped at the purple fabric in Kyle’s hand. He dropped to the ground and reached for her, still clutching the torn sleeve.
“Oh my god, Bean!” he breathed. She gaped at her now bare arm and back at him. “I am so sorry.”
Caroline’s face collapsed again, and she flung herself onto the floor, sobbing.
And that was how Kyle’s dad found them a moment later, when he shuffled down the hall to investigate the crisis. Kyle imagined it was quite the picture, with Caroline wailing into the carpet like a mother who had lost her son to war, and Kyle kneeling by her side, clutching a piece of shiny fabric like an offering. Practically Shakespearean.
“Everything okay in here?” his dad said. Kyle’s emotions must have been written on his face, because his father picked Caroline up and sat with her on the bed. He rocked her a little and stroked her hair.
Kyle uselessly smoothed the torn sleeve onto the comforter and stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He closed his eyes and listened to the rumbling sounds of his father’s voice, and the softer higher sounds of Caroline as her crying quieted.
He was a horrible father. It was a dress. A cheap, made-in-China costume. Would it have mattered if she’d worn it? He choked out a watery cough, allowed himself ten seconds to wallow, and then stumbled down the hall to phone Ben.
“Hey, buddy, where are you?” Ben said.
“We’re . . .” Kyle searched for the right words and took a deep breath to calm himself. “We’re a bit off course? We had to delay for an impromptu costume change and . . .”
“Oh man, did Caroline try to wear her princess costume?”
“How’d you know?”
“Haley tried to do it too. Kirsten laid down the law on that one pretty quick though.”
“She’ll have to give me some pointers.”
“I’ll remember that. So you’re on your way?”
Kyle glanced back up the steps. He could still hear his father talking.
“Not . . .” He cleared his throat. “Not yet. Soon. I think. I don’t know. You guys should go without us. I’ll drive us over later.”
“Why don’t we come pick you up? Save you the trip?”
“But you’re on my way to Rebecca’s,” Kyle said. “It doesn’t make sense for you to come here first.”
“It’s not far. We’ll get the girls loaded up and head out soon. See you in twenty minutes?”
“Yeah,” he said, grateful that Ben knew what to do. “Yeah, we’ll be ready.”
Ten minutes later, his dad walked into the kitchen and stood at attention in the doorway.
“Presenting Her Highness, Princess Caroline of Fentonia,” he said, then stepped to the side. Caroline came into the room. She was wearing the T-shirt and shorts Kyle had pulled out, with her hair braided neatly into two pigtails over her shoulders. Kyle wondered where his father had learned to do that. He stood and bowed toward Caroline.
“Your Highness,” he said. She twisted her hands into the hem of her shirt.
“Her Highness has something she’d like to say,” his dad said. Caroline glanced up at him, then back toward Kyle with wide brown eyes.
“I’m sorry for making us late.” She said it so quietly Kyle had to lean forward to hear her.
“Oh Bean,” he said. “Thank you for your apology. I’m sorry too. For getting mad and for ripping your dress. I shouldn’t have done that.” Her eyes got teary again, and Kyle hoped they weren’t going back down to the waterworks, but then she smiled and ran across the kitchen floor and into his arms. He hugged her and breathed in the shampoo smell of her hair. After a minute, Kyle looked up and found his dad still standing by the doorway.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Anytime,” his dad said, then shuffled out.