At thirty-seven years old, with a twelve year old daughter, Joel Cetokavich was a tired man. He could stay up late—well, till about one-thirty at his absolute, hands down best, and he still swam and ran enough that his muscles weren’t atrophying or anything. He could stay up through a movie. But he was a different kind of tired—the kind of tired that sleeping couldn’t fix, really. The kind of tired that wanted peace of mind.

But that was really not an option, especially considering the fact that Joel was sitting in a principal’s office, being lightly scolded. Considering it was his daughter who got in trouble, he thought it was a little unfair that he was in the hot seat.

Principal Edwards continued his explanation of what his daughter did and why Joel was being called in to discuss her “attitude problem”.

Joel closed his mouth into a firm line, pressing his lips together as he fought to keep himself from snapping a snide remark that would surely lead to at least one more of these god awful meetings. He hated meetings with principals and teachers, all pitying eyes and recommendations as if they could possibly understand what he and Janie are going through.

“Look, Mr. Cetokavich,” Principal Edwards butchered the pronunciation of his name, a small smile on his face. “I understand that Janie is going through a lot.”

“She’s fine,” Joel clamped his lips together again. Shit, he thought, hold it together.

“Well,” Edwards hedged. “She did talk back to her teacher. You understand, we don’t tolerate disrespect.”

“What did she say?” Joel asked.

Edwards tilted his head, as if the question confused him.

Joel took a breath and repeated himself. “My daughter. What did she say?”

“Oh,” the principal glances down at the incident report. “She told Mrs. German, one of our best math teachers, that the assignment she gave Janie was, quote, asinine and redundant.”

Principal Edwards gestured emptily as if that said all that was needed to be said. Joel worked hard on not smirking. “Was it?”

The principal frowned. “Was what?”

“The assignment. Was it asinine and redundant?”

Edwards sighed, folding his hands together on top of the desk. “Mr. Cetokavich—”

“Because if it was, then Janie wasn’t being disrespectful. She was pointing it out.”

“I hardly think that’s the takeaway,” Edwards said pointedly.

Joel lifted one eyebrow, leaning back in the chair. He only just managed to stop himself from folding his arms across his chest. “I disagree.”

“Mr. Cetokavich—”

“It’s Chet-oh-vick,” Joel interrupted, slowly pronouncing his last name. “I’m surprised Janie hasn’t corrected you yet.”

“I can see where Jane gets her—spark,” Edwards lifted his hands in surrender. “Listen, Mr. Cetokavich, I understand that Janie has been having a hard time lately for—personal reasons. We’ve tried to be understanding of that here at Summerson.”

Technically, this was true. Joel remembered too well all the times Janie refused to come to school, would storm out in the middle of the day. The middle school had been kind to them, after Angela—

Joel didn’t like thinking about his wife. She would have been handling parent teacher meetings much better than he was able to.

“I know,” Joel admitted, sighing. He ran his hands down his face, breathing deeply into his palms as his fingers froze. He released his breath and dropped his hands to his lap. “And you know that I appreciate that.”

Principal Edwards nodded, face softening a little. He was a round, pleasant man and Joel really should stop actively making the man’s life more difficult. Especially if Janie was already cornering that market.

“We’re not unsympathetic,” the principal continued. “It’s my understanding that—an anniversary is coming up?”

He raised his eyebrows, hesitating, and Joel wanted to take back his seconds-old decision to not act against him.

His breath caught his throat and Joel nearly cursed at the little sound it let out into the room. “Yes,” he said from between clenched teeth. Janie has friends at this school, he told himself, do not smash this man’s nose in for sticking it where it doesn’t belong. “It’ll be five years next month, since Janie’s mom passed away.”

Principal Edwards nodded, hands folded again. His face was pitying and it surged through Joel’s veins like poison, but he counted and breathed and tried not to get pissed off. “With that in mind, we think it’s fair for Janie to take a half-day suspension today, but no further punishment.”

Joel considered the suspension. The day with Janie would be like going to hell in a handbasket and it was probably best if he was the only casualty. Last time he got called in, she stayed for the rest of the day and ended up fighting with three of her friends.

“Any way we can keep this off her permanent record?” He asked wryly, already leaning towards Principal Edwards with his hand extended.

Edwards grabbed Joel’s hand, shaking it firmly as he laughed. “Unfortunately, an official complaint was submitted from Mrs. German.”

Joel sighed and grabbed his coat, running one hand through his hair quickly. “I thought as much. Where is she?”

Edwards gestured towards the front office, right through his office doors. “Just sign her out with the secretary and then you’ll be ready to go.”

“Great, thanks,” he nodded goodbye, heading towards the door.

“Oh, Mr. Cetokavich!” Principal Edwards called after him.

Joel turned back with his hand already on the doorknob, raising one eyebrow. The principal was smiling. “Please remind Janie that she will have to complete the math assignment, regardless of her complaints on its necessity.”

Joel raised his eyebrows and counted to five. “Will do. Thanks again.”

When Joel got to the office, Janie was still where she’d been when he first came stomping into the middle school. She was slumped halfway down a chair, arms crossed across her chest, and a scowl on her face. Her dark brown hair was a rat’s nest on top of her head, covering half of her face. He would give anything to have her cut it but every time he even brought it up, it somehow got bigger. Joel wasn’t tempting fate any more.

“Get your stuff,” he said to her, flickering his gaze towards her to make sure she was listening before grabbing the sign out form. “I’m taking you home.”

“No,” Janie said, eyes narrowed on him but otherwise unmoved from her begrudged position.

“Wasn’t a question,” Joel finished scrubbing his name and turned to her, crossing his arms. “Get your stuff. Now.”

With a huff, Janie practically threw herself out of the chair, grabbing the discarded messenger bag and jean jacket from the floor. She stormed out of the office, letting the door slam closed behind her.

Joel sighed. He rubbed his temples, bid the secretary goodbye, and then followed after his angry preteen.

Things had been easier with Angela. There wasn’t all this anger and resentment and every tantrum could be soothed with her mother’s soft voice and sweet potato pie. There wasn’t anything that Janie could do that Angela wasn’t ready for.

Joel figured that Angela always being so on top of everything was why he stopped. He didn’t need to worry about how to fix Janie’s bad moods because Angela always could—until she couldn’t. And now Joel had an angry, pissed off daughter that could barely stand the sight of him half the time.

He loved Janie. He loved her with a ferocity he could barely comprehend, let alone get across to her. But he didn’t get her. And he wasn’t sure just loving her was enough.

He climbed into the car, flickering with the radio until Janie was buckled and ready to go. She laid her forehead against the glass, glaring out the window. Joel kept the music low and his driving easy.

The drive home was quiet. Their little house sat at the edge of the small, coastal town, right on the beach. It had big open windows and light wash wood and that was enough for Angela to declare it an oasis. She and Joel both grew up in L.A., and as soon as she showed him the sonogram, they decided to leave the city and find the most picturesque Californian small town their budget could afford.

Even now, a decade and some years later, Joel loved pulling into his little driveway. He loved seeing Janie in this house, the ocean just a few yards away, the flowers her mother planted growing the best they could year after year. Even when Janie was just stomping past them and slamming doors behind her, like she was today the second Joel cut the engine, he still loved having her home. It was almost as good as it had been to see Angela there.

Joel swallowed. His wife would have known what to say. She would have gone in there, already confident that she’d won the argument, and turned the whole thing around. Within five minutes alone with Janie, they’d both be laughing and eating ice cream and Janie would be working on an apology letter to her teacher.

He didn’t know what to say or how to get that. He didn’t even think they had any ice cream left.

Regardless, Joel knew he couldn’t stay in the car hiding from his daughter forever. Reluctantly, he climbed out of his little, safe hatchback and went inside.

Tornado Janie had already taken place and retreated by the time Joel got inside. Her school bag was upturned, half on the couch and half on the wood floors. Pens and papers, little hair ties and an assortment of other things that Joel didn’t have the energy to identify were strewn across the two levels. Her jacket was on the floor next to the coat rack.

He considered calling her out of her room and having her pick up her mess. It would be the appropriate, parenting choice.

Pick your battles, man.

Joel scoffed to himself, the only sound in the empty room. He hung up the jacket and scooped her stuff back into the bag.

The house looked frozen in time. With no walls between the living room and kitchen, he could still see the beginning of dinner he had started when he got the phone call from Janie’s school. He had planned on making a roast but now, an hour later, it would take too long to cook and he didn’t have the energy. Maybe ordering in would get Janie’s mood up, anyway. His laptop still sat on the kitchen island, open where he’d been absently working in between chopping up vegetables.

He ignored the mess and let his eyes keep scanning until they landed on the large framed photo above the fireplace. He’d argued for a solid three months to hang a T.V. there but Angela insisted a family photo was better.

He looked like a ghost of the man in the photo. The same square jaw, the same green eyes, the same brown hair—but Joel had circles under his eyes now, dark and heavy no matter how much he slept. His jaw was never clean shaven, his shoulders never that strong and tall. His smile was never that broad, not anymore.

Angela looked the same as she always had and always would to him and Janie. Her long brown hair, smooth and perfectly curled, bright lips parted in a laugh caught on camera, brown eyes so wide and bright that she looked more like an animated princess than a woman who would agree to spend even a day with him—Janie looked like her now, but with the shadows of him pressed against her tiny face. In the photo, Janie was just a toddler. She was grinning and happy, pressed in her mother’s arms.

Joel loved his daughter.

He scrubbed his hands down his face, groaning. He could feel her, sometimes, slipping from between his fingers. Feel her reluctance to be near him.

He wondered if she blamed him for Angela’s death—a freak accident, a dog in the road when she was alone on the street. He knew that he did most days.

Joel shouldered the messenger bag and slipped off his shoes, setting them by the door. Then he slowly made his way down the hallway, hesitating outside his daughter’s door.

They would get through this, Janie and him. They’d get past this anniversary and this pre-teen angst and the grief that still clung to them. Joel didn’t know how, exactly, but he knew it was his responsibility to get there. And he’d do it.

He’d figure it out, for her.

For both of them, really.

He knocked on Janie’s door.

“Jane,” he called through the wood, “Can I come in, please?”

Strict rules in the house meant Janie couldn’t use the knives or the computer without permission, and Joel couldn’t come into her room uninvited. Both had protested only briefly before complying.

After a minute, Janie’s voice rang out. “No.”

The small word sounded even smaller. He could hear the way it was swallowed and wet.

“Janie,” he tried again.

“No!”

“Well, then you come out here.” He bit back his irritation. “We’re going to have a conversation, Janie, but you can pick where.”

He waited. He could hear the shuffling of her blankets and he could practically see her, thrown across her bed face down, crazy brown hair covering her entire head. He hoped she had the good mind to take her shoes off. She still had carpet in her room and sand in the bed was as annoying for him in the laundry as it was for her when she slept.

“You can come in.” He heard the annoyance in her tone.

Still, an invite was an invite. He never told her she had to be happy about it.

Joel cracked the door open and, as predicted, Janie was laying face down on her bed, legs dangling over the edge and arms stiff at her side. It was a hopeless, dramatic sight and Joel swallowed a laugh.

“Janie,” he greeted, sitting on the floor beside her bed. His knees cracked a little and he swiftly put that thought aside, deciding to deal with his impending age another day.

Janie said nothing. He swatted lightly at the soles of her sock clad feet. She giggled then groaned, annoyed that the tickling forced a laugh out. She threw herself up and sat against her headboard, holding a pillow to her chest.

“Dad,” she mocked his greeting.

He raised an eyebrow. She cocked her head. Stalemate.

Buck up, Cetokavich, Joel thought. “So. You wanna tell me what happened?”

“Principal Edwards already told you.”

“He told me what your teacher said,” Joel agreed. “I’d like to hear your version, though.”

Janie looked at him warily. She scrunched her nose up, contemplatively, and then threw her head back. Joel winced when it hit the headboard hard. “I hate Mrs. German,” Janie said, words tumbling out quickly. “She’s mean and old and she doesn’t even care about anything except humiliating all of us! And I did really well on the test but other kids did bad so she’s making us all redo it! And it’s unnecessary and a waste of time and she’s such—” Janie cut herself off, taking a deep breath.

“So that’s the assignment you got mad about?” Joel clarified.

Janie nodded. Well, sounded fair enough to him. That did seem asinine and redundant, at least for her. Janie was great at math.

“Are you mad?” Janie asked, tilting her head. She had her hands clasped tightly together and Joel wanted to reach over and hold them.

“No,” he said honestly. “But you shouldn’t talk back to your teachers—even when it seems totally justified.”

“Even if I’m right?”

Joel sighed. “Unfortunately.”

“That’s crap.”

He laughed and stood up, his knees cracking again as he straightened them. God, he was getting old. “Yeah, honey, it is.”

“I’ll do the stupid assignment,” Janie muttered.

“Good girl. What do you want for dinner?”

“Pizza?” she asked hopefully.

Joel grinned. “A woman after my own heart. I’ll put in the order, you start your homework.”

“Don’t forget the cheese bread!” Janie called after him.

Joel rolled his eyes and didn’t slow his gait out of her room. “What do you take me for, an amateur?” he muttered to himself. As if he’d ever forget the cheese bread.

He listened to Janie shuffle around her room as he ordered their regular from the pizza parlor and thought that maybe things were looking up.