Carmen

 

When I woke up in the morning, I was on cloud nine. It felt like my feet were barely touching the floor as I walked around the bedroom while I went through my morning routine. Ben had kissed me before he left, saying something about having to go to the clubhouse to check on the boys’ progress. I clung to him for as long as he would let me. I knew if anyone were looking on, they would have thought I looked ridiculous, like a little puppy unwilling to let his master leave the house. But I didn’t care. I wanted to keep his smell in my nose and his taste on my lips and the more I thought about it, the more I decided that anyone who wanted to get in the way of that could just go ahead and eat it. For the first time in a long time, I felt happy.

 

The shower was steamy and warm as the water cascaded down my skin. I closed my eyes and for a second I swore I could feel Ben’s touch on my skin, his lips on my neck. I opened them and shivered. He had already worked his way into my freaking nervous system, it seemed like. He was in my head, under my skin. I should’ve been freaked out, by all rights. And yet, I didn’t mind in the slightest. I’d never felt better.

 

I swaddled myself in one of Ben’s thick white towels as I stepped out of the shower. My skin was rosy from the hot water. I looked in the mirror and saw, in the middle of the peals of steam rising around me and the condensation on the mirror’s surface, that I was smiling a goofy, borderline manic grin. “Get ahold of yourself,” I scolded my reflection. “You’re being ridiculous.” I was. I knew I was. But I couldn’t help it.

 

I hummed under my breath as I sat on the edge of the bed and brushed out the kinks in my hair. There were a few things I could busy myself with around the house today, but nothing too major. Hopefully Ben wouldn’t have to work too long and we could go for a ride or something when he went home. Maybe I’d make up a reason to call him back early. I’d go to the store and get some new furniture that required a big, strong man to lift it into the apartment. I grinned again. The one voice in my head reprimanding me for acting so petulant and needy was waging a miserable, losing war against the thousand other thoughts that all revolved around Ben. I felt like one of those girls in the cartoons who sits in class and doodles things like Mrs. Ben Killmore in the corners of her notebook. I needed to get my hands working quickly before I started to do the same.

 

I wiggled into a pair of elastic-band pants and a clingy gray tank top before ambling back into the bathroom to touch up my makeup. Just after I’d run a few light passes of the mascara brush over my eyelashes, I heard something coming from the bedroom. I frowned, paused, and listened intently.

 

It sounded like a buzzing. It would rattle for a few moments, pause, then repeat. I set the brush down and stepped into the bedroom. “The cell phone, dummy,” I said out loud as I smacked myself in the forehead. I really was losing my grip on reality. I guessed I just wasn’t used to receiving calls on it. The phone had been almost completely silent since the day Ben had given it to me. It was mostly for emergencies. Ben had only left about an hour ago, so I doubted it was him. But who else would be calling? It must be him.

 

I picked up the phone and looked at the caller ID. It wasn’t a number I recognized. Maybe Ben was using Jay’s phone or something like that.

 

“Hello?” I said, taking the call.

 

“Hey, Car Girl.”

 

I froze. I hadn’t heard my father’s voice since the wedding. I still remembered the last thing he’d said to me. It’s almost time. Finish getting ready. What kind of father sent his baby girl to the altar with words like that? He hadn’t said anything to me as we walked down the aisle together, or before I’d hurried out of the church to climb on the back of Ben’s motorcycle and set off on this crazy new life I’d stumbled upon. The voice I’d heard then was metallic, ice-cold, and completely unfamiliar.

 

But the one coming through the phone was the voice I grew up with, the one I knew. It was his warm, laconic honey voice. He said “Car Girl” the way he always had—like he was my daddy and he loved me.

 

“Hi, Daddy,” I whispered.

 

“How are you, dear?” He sounded completely unconcerned, like he really was just checking up on me. It was as if he had totally forgotten about the wedding and the fact that we hadn’t spoken in almost a month. Like he hadn’t given me away in shame and disgust.

 

“I’m…good, I guess.”

 

“You guess?”

 

I straightened up, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “No, I am. I’m good.”

 

“Things are going okay?”

 

“Yes, they are.” I took in a deep breath, getting ready to explode with all the questions that I’d been burying deep in the recesses of my brain and trying not to focus on. Questions like: Where have you been? Why haven’t you called? Am I not still your daughter? Do you not love me? How could you abandon me like you did?

 

But he spoke again before I could decide where to start. “I owe you an apology, Carmen. I haven’t been a good father to you lately.”

 

I sat in silence, waiting for him to continue. He paused, then said, “You must understand that this was hard for me. My only daughter, the only family I have left…To get involved with a pig of a man like Ben Killmore…I was angry. You have to see things from my perspective.”

 

I felt tears stinging my eyes. How dare he ask for an apology. After what he did—sending me away like an unwanted servant? Like livestock, spoiled for its intended use? “Daddy, how could you?” I said.

 

“I know you’re angry, dear. I certainly can’t blame you for that. I would be angry, too, if I were you. But there are things you don’t know. Things I haven’t told you. If you knew, you’d see why I reacted the way I did. I’m not a perfect man, far from it, and I admit that blind rage may have gotten the best of me for a while. But I want to make things right.”

 

“What don’t I know?”

 

“I can’t tell you over the phone. It’s not safe. I can’t risk you getting caught in the middle of things. You’re in a dangerous enough position as it is.”

 

“What’s dangerous, Daddy? Why can’t you tell me? What is going on?” The warm bubble of happiness I’d been enjoying had popped completely, leaving me exposed to the cold daggers coming out of my father’s mouth. Danger, rage, safety—what was he talking about? He sounded sad, and almost…afraid. I’d never known him to be afraid.

 

“Can we talk?” he asked. “In person, I mean. I can have one of my men come pick you up and bring you to me in a couple hours. But, Carmen…”

 

“Yes?”

 

“It has to be just you. Ben can’t be here. And he can’t know about this.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I’ll explain everything when you’re here. It’s hard, Carmen. You’ll understand soon.”

 

I set my jaw. He sounded like my true father, but so much had happened in the last few months. The bond that was once there, the unquestioning trust, had eroded at the edges. I wasn’t about to just jump out and have faith that I could hold onto it anymore. To lie to Ben, or to go meet my father without telling him, which was as good as a lie, felt serious, almost deadly. Suddenly, things had taken on this do-or-die feeling that I didn’t like, not one bit. My heartbeat was pounding threateningly in my chest.

 

“I won’t meet you unless you tell me what’s going on.”

 

“Carmen, I said I’d—”

 

“No. I need to know now. I won’t lie to Ben without good reason. Tell me what’s happening or I won’t come.”

 

I could hear him sigh, his voice crackling through the connection. “Very well,” he said. “I tried to protect you from this for as long as I could. But maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time for you to know.”

 

The dread was closing in around me. It felt cold, wet, dark. I didn’t think I was ready to hear what was coming next. But I had to. It was time.

 

“Carmen, Ben was the one who killed your mother.”

 

# # #

 

As soon as the car came to a stop, I leaped out of the passenger’s seat and ran towards the little house. My father emerged from the doorway as I crossed the yard. I barreled into him, throwing my arms around his neck and sobbing.

 

“Shh, it’s okay, baby,” he said, rubbing the back of my head as he hugged me back. “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be just fine. I promise.”

 

“Daddy,” I choked through sobs, “how could you not tell me? How could you let me do all of this?”

 

He held me at arms’ length and studied me carefully with his gray eyes. “I made a mistake,” he said eventually. “I acted out of anger and spite. I should have known that keeping you locked away wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. I wanted you to be safe, that’s all. After that monster stole my wife, stole your mother away from me, I was desperate to protect what I had left.”

 

“But you gave him to me,” I said, sniffling.

 

“I’m sorry, Carmen.” He stroked away a tear running down my cheek. To my surprise, I saw one shining at the corner of his eye. He rubbed at it with the heel of his hand. His whole face was softened in sadness. “I thought you had chosen him, in a way. That it was just my fate to have him take everything from me. I shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong of me. I hope you can forgive me.”

 

I didn’t know what to say. I was stunned that he was crying and that he was telling me all these things. He’d waited so long. If I’d known Ben was the one who murdered my mother, I would never have gone to the party to begin with. All the memories I had of him, the ones that had been so comforting this morning, were tinged now with a sickly sheen, like someone had come along and wiped a nasty, greasy film on top of them. He was distorted in my mind’s eye. He was exactly what my father had called him: a monster. Not satisfied with taking my mother, he had to take me, too.

 

No wonder he refused to tell me about the cause of the hatred between my father and him. It was him all along! He kept me close to him because winning me over would be the final dagger in my dad’s heart. He’d been so charming, so loving, so goddamn cunning. I hated him. I hated Ben Killmore.

 

But was I ready to forgive my father? It was hard to say. Even if he had felt like I had betrayed him by sleeping with Ben, it had been so wrong of him to just cut me out of his life like that. What father abandoned his daughter to his worst enemy, her mother’s murderer?

 

“I know it’s going to take a long time to earn you trust back, Carmen,” he said. “I understand that. I just want you to know I’m here now, and I won’t leave you ever again. I love you, baby girl.”

 

I buried my face in his chest as the tears dried up. “I love you, too, Daddy.” His arms around me were huge and comforting. They blocked out the world around me. I didn’t want to be anywhere else but here.

 

“Come inside,” he said. “There’s some food here. Lasagna, your favorite. I want it to be like old times, just you and me.” He kept an arm around my shoulders as he guided me inside.

 

I cast a look behind me just before we crossed the threshold. The man who had driven me here, a massive mountain of a biker with a black and red bandana tied around each bicep, had taken a seat on a lawn chair at the front of the yard. He had an automatic rifle lying across his lap. I frowned, but kept walking. Daddy pulled the door shut behind me.

 

The table inside was heavy with a heaping tray of lasagna and plates of breadsticks. There were table settings for three, but he didn’t say anything as he pulled out a chair for me to sit in. I settled down and tried to calm my breathing down.

 

After the initial shock of what he had told me, I was beginning to come back to earth. It felt like things were finally clicking into place. After all, what he’d said had made so much sense. It explained Ben’s vagueness and Jay’s reluctance to explain what his boss was up to. It explained my father’s anger at the wedding. I would probably hate everything the way he had if my daughter had come home pregnant with my worst enemy’s baby. He must have felt like Ben was stealing his whole life away. I couldn’t blame him.

 

But now he was trying to make things right. He was still my daddy, after all. How could I not love him back? How could I not give him a second chance?

 

“Everything okay, Car Girl?” he asked from across the table.

 

I smiled. “Getting there,” I said.

 

He nodded. “It’ll take time, I know. But we’ve got plenty of that. Now, I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

 

Taking my plate from in front of me, he ladled out a big slice of the lasagna from the tray in the center of the table, then stacked a pair of breadsticks alongside it. “Here you go, babe,” he said, setting it back down on the placemat.

 

“Thanks, Daddy.” I dug in quietly. I wanted to focus just on chewing and swallowing. Simple, basic things that I’d been doing my whole life. Bite, chew, swallow. Nothing complicated about that. It felt good to have food in my stomach, like there was something solid and dependable in this world after all.

 

I still had so many questions for him, though. “Where are we?” I asked after a few minutes of quiet eating.

 

“Don’t worry about it, dear,” he replied quickly.

 

I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Daddy, you need to start being more honest with me. I’m an adult now. You can’t keep me hidden away from everything.” My gaze was level, but I was sure to keep my shaking hands below the table. After all, a reaction like that from me flew straight in the face of the relationship I’d had with my father in the three years since my mother died. If I didn’t ask any questions, he wouldn’t have to give me fake answers. It was his own cloaked form of don’t ask, don’t tell.

 

But I was sick of secrets and lies. If he wanted to be my father again like he said, he needed to start by telling me what he was doing and why.

 

He swallowed and dabbed at his face with a napkin. “You’re right,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. Old habits die hard. I’ve been a man of secrets for so long that it’s just what comes naturally to me now. But I’ll do my best to level with you whenever I can. This is a house that my club owns to do business from. We’re on the outskirts of town, just off the highway.”

 

“What kind of business?” I demanded.

 

“Carmen…” he said warningly. I fixed him with the sternest glare I could muster. I wanted to know. I deserved to know. “Okay,” he said, giving in. “If you insist. It’s nothing bad, mind you—no guns or drugs or anything like that—but it’s not exactly legal by the strictest definitions of the law. One of the things we do is print documents for immigrants coming across the border. Passports, social security cards, that kind of thing, the stuff they need to start a new life here. It’s profitable, yes, but I really think we’re doing some good, too. These are good people. Hardworking. Smart. They just want what’s best for their families. I try to help them get that.”

 

I nodded slowly as I took in what he was saying. “Okay,” I whispered after a while. “I can live with that.”

 

He took a drink of water, keeping his eyes on me the whole time before setting it back down on the table with a clink. “I’m not a bad man, Carmen. I’ve been a liar, but I won’t be that anymore. Not to you.”

 

I focused on my breathing. This was so much at once. My life was being turned upside down for the umpteenth time in the last few months. This time, though, it felt permanent. I meant what I said; I really could live with this. I had my father back, and if Ben was the man Daddy said he was, then I was perfectly fine with him staying in my past. That’s where he belonged—far away from my family and me.

 

“Next question,” I said. He waved for me to go on. I pointed at the unused place setting. “Who’s that for?”

 

He smiled sadly. “I’m afraid that one is going to be a secret for just a little bit longer. I’m expecting one more guest tonight.” His gray eyes flashed, stormy and indecipherable.

 

All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door. My eyes flew wide open and I squeezed the table until my knuckles went wide. But as I looked over at my dad, he was as calm as ever. He took one more sip of his water, dabbed the corners of his mouth, then laid his napkin on top of his cleaned plate.

 

“And speak of the devil,” he murmured, “there he is. Right on time.”