Chapter 1
Gerald Knolls sat at the metal desk, waiting. The washed-out walls made the room feel much more spacious than it really was. Dark green file cabinets and black desks held the perimeter, and LED lights made the freshly waxed floor shine.
The sheriff had gone to take a piss, and for the moment, Gerald had let the tension out of his shoulders, let his back slump, and let go of the gut he’d been holding on to for no real reason. Everyone else had gone home. They’d managed to see the janitor off as he was led in, but that was it.
He closed his eyes and thought about the phone conversation he’d just had.
“Hey Nia, it’s Dad. I...uh, got myself into a bit of a situation. Would you mind meeting me at the sheriff’s office in Huntington? I saw on Facebook that you were in town the other day,” he had said.
It would have been easy to ask about the engagement party where Stepdad Thomas would be giving the toast rather than the real father of the bride. It would have been a little harder to admit that he’d followed the party here in hopes of a last minute invite. He would never admit that he parked outside the restaurant for an hour, willing the call to come. It would have been impossible to admit that he’d gone out to drink away the sorrow when it never did.
“I just need a ride, honey. That’s all.”
The line had gone silent. He almost thought she’d hung up, and he’d somehow missed the click.
She had sighed, “Okay Dad. I need to get some things together. I’ll be there in a few.”
The sheriff came back. He plopped down a few desks away and booted up his computer. Gerald listened to the keyboard clicks to distract him from the fear that Nia had blown him off.
The car had been nearly empty when she turned the key.
“For fuck’s sake,” she whispered. How hard would it have been for Mary to gas up the car?
She was startled by a knock on the window.
“Babe? I thought you left twenty minutes ago.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m going,” She said, staring at the dash.
Mary leaned closer, “Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” She huffed, “I have to go.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“You have to work early. It’s fine,”
“But do you want me to?”
“Jesus Christ, Mary. If you want to come, I won’t stop you. But I have to go,”
Nia watched her fiancée climb into the car with her cat themed pajama bottoms, Grinch T-shirt, and bare feet.
“Let’s go,”
He knew he hadn’t been a great father. That’s probably why Hina and Nia replaced him so quickly. But he’d tried, damnit. He’d really tried. When Nia was born, though, it wasn’t joy he had felt. It was fear. It was a feeling that he’d made a big mistake, that he could never be good at this whole dad thing.
At first, they chalked it up to the jitters. After all, Hina had gone through a pretty rough bout of postpartum depression. But as months turned to years, he realized that he wasn’t cut out for it. He just knew fatherhood was a bad color on him.
Gerald began to take the later shifts at work—under the guise of new work policies—just so he’d only be home when Nia was at school. It meant lying to Hina, but she only ever seemed to worry about where he took off his shoes and socks anyway. So, everything seemed to work out that way, anyway.
Nia was dreadful to be around once puberty had set in. Picking fights with her mother, breaking every house rule, and acting out with the hair dye and the piercings. It was easier to walk away. After all, the night shift paid better.
“How’s the head?” the sheriff asked.
“Oh, it’s doing okay,” Gerald said.
He’d been knocked pretty good towards the end of the scuffle. The sheriff had given him an ice pack, but it was more or less a bag of lukewarm water at this point. Gerald was surprised that the sheriff hadn’t just locked him up and called it a night already.
“I can get you more ice...if you need it,”
“That’s alright. I’ll feel it sooner or later,”
The two of them listened to the clock on the wall for a few minutes.
“So,” the sheriff sniffed, “What brings you to Huntington?”
“Fishing,” he lied, “I don’t know it is about your lakes, but I swear the fish are ten times the size they are at home,”
The sheriff nodded and went back to his typing.
“Why are we stopping?” Mary asked.
“Because the car’s out of gas,” Nia said. There was an aggressiveness to her parking the car, opening the gas tank, even taking off her seatbelt.
“Oh. Sorry about that.”
“Whatever.”
The gas station was on the way back to the Airbnb. How hard could it have been to just stop for ten minutes and gas it up? Mary had to work anyway. Would’ve done them both a favor.
Mary rolled down the driver’s window, “Babe?”
Nia didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry about the gas. I’ll make sure to fill it up next time.”
Nia wanted to tell her that it wasn’t that big of a deal, but something stopped her. It wasn’t like Mary knew that Nia would need to make a two a.m. run to pay her estranged father a rescue, but even so, it was irresponsible. She was always doing things like that. Forgetting due dates for work, not locking the door, forgetting to pick up milk on the way home...without Nia, Mary would hardly be able to take care of herself.
The gas pump clicked, and just like that, they were back on the road.
Mary thought about seeing Gerald’s truck outside the Olive Garden last night.
Nia had been under a spell since they took off to the islands for a vacation that Mary had won at work. Packing, setting up a dog sitter for Plato, and organizing the itinerary had Nia worked up in a happy frenzy. She’d had the ring for a while, waiting to propose, and it seemed so perfect that the trip fell into her lap. Something about watching the woman you love assure the dog you adopted together that “mommies will be back soon” made it so painfully obvious that Nia was the one.
Mary had planned the engagement party. She made reservations, sent out invites, and ordered the cake from the villa. This was one thing Nia wouldn’t have to plan for them.
The actual proposal went off better than Mary could have dreamed. She’d asked the staff to set up some flowers and fairy lights around the villa while they went out to have smoked salmon and roasted asparagus. She’d asked Nia to wait in the driveway for five minutes as she got the ring and Nia’s favorite dessert: chocolate pie.
Ever since that, Nia had been on cloud nine. Her mom and stepdad were ecstatic, their friends fawned over the ring, and the Olive Garden pasta wasn’t too bad, either. It didn’t seem possible to be so happy, but here they were. They were in love, they were engaged, and they were happy.
But the gray Toyota pickup and its driver had the potential to ruin it all.
“Look, man, she might not be coming. You can just put me up in a bunk and head home for the night,” Gerald offered.
“How about we give it one more half hour? I needed to get this report written up, anyway,”
Gerald didn’t say anything. He knew the report would tell some judge somewhere about how he started yelling obscenities at a bachelorette party—insult to injury, at this point—a few whiskeys later. So-and-so, with the obnoxiously yellow dress and ugly pixie cut, had threatened to call her big, bad, law enforcement boyfriend.
“Go ahead, bitch. Go ahead. I’ll knock his head off, right after yours so he can watch,” Gerald had slurred.
Well, call she did, and arrive he did.
The guy really didn’t look so intimidating, but Mr. Knolls wasn’t in his right mind.
“Man, they’re just having fun. Katie’s getting married,” he had said.
“Oh, oh, Katie’s getting married? I’m sooooo sorry. I didn’t know it was Katie,”
The guy sighed, “Can I call someone for you?”
“Good, lucky Katie. Does your daddy know?”
“Alright. Let’s get you some fresh air,” the boyfriend had sighed as he took his arm.
“Does he know that you’re sitting here with a dick for a hat, getting ready to prance off…” he had lost his train of thought along the way.
The guy asked again if he had anyone worth calling.
“Fuck off, man. You’re not responsible for me,”
“Actually, I kind of am. Let’s just get you down to the station to get you somewhere to crash, okay?”
“Go away.”
“Very mature. Let’s go, now.”
Gerald had been very firm in his position of wanting the boyfriend to go away. In fact, he’d tried to make good on his promise to Yellow Dress. Of course, a drunk, middle aged man is no match for a sober, fit cop half his age.
The boyfriend’s name turned out to be Darrel, and Darrel had had enough of Mr. Knolls by the time they’d made it to the lion’s den. He’d locked him up in a cell and called the sheriff to come down and “deal with this fucking asshole.”
“I can come in with you,” Mary offered.
“It’s okay. I’ve been thinking about what I want to say to him for a few years now. This seems like a good opportunity. Leave the car running, though.”
Nia stepped out of the car and knocked on the glass door.
“Must be your daughter, Mr. Knolls,” the sheriff said, “I’ll be right back,”
Gerald was suddenly aware of what a mess he must’ve looked like. Beer stains, some of his own blood, and sweat had soaked into his shirt. Oh well; too late now.
“Hi,” he heard the sheriff say from around the corner, “I’m Sheriff Hanks. Your dad’s right this way,”
“Thank you...for looking after him,” Nia said, “I’m sorry, too.”
Sheriff Hanks chuckled, “It’s quite alright, miss. Congratulations, by the way,” he said, gesturing to her ring and thinking to himself about how little he gets paid for call-ins at three in the fucking morning.
“Hi, Dad. Can we talk?”
“I can’t really think right now. Let’s just get out of here, yeah?” Gerald said. His head felt like it was about to explode.
“No, I think we should talk first,” Nia turned to the sheriff, “Can I get some water, sir?”
“No problem,” he said.
Gerald watched Nia watch the sheriff walk away. She pulled a chair up to the desk he was handcuffed to.
“How come you’re not in a cell? Isn’t that what they do with violent drunks?”
“The sheriff let me sit out here once I sobered up.”
“Ah,” she nodded, “Well, I guess that was nice of him.”
“Yeah.”
He looked at her face as she looked around the room. She looked tired...and mad.
He gulped down the nausea, “What did you want to talk about, honey?”
“You don’t have to call me that.”
“What?”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend that this,” she motioned to the two of them, “is a thing.”
“You’re still my daughter, Nia.”
“And you’re still my dad, but you’ve never called me that before, so we don’t need to start now.”
The sheriff came back with the water and sat at his computer again.
The three of them sat in the station in silence for what felt like hours. It was like the universe had formed its own little pocket of space where the passage of time was felt even if it didn’t occur.
“Do you want an apology?” he asked.
“Not really, Dad,” Nia said.
“Well, what is it you want to talk about so bad? It’s been a long night for me, and I’d like to get home to my bed.”
“You want me to drive you all the way home? That’s over an hour, Dad,” Nia asked, shocked.
“Well, I’m not going to stay with you and Melissa, now am I?”
“Her name is Mary.”
The sheriff coughed a few times, excusing himself to use the facilities.
“Mary, then.”
Nia sighed for what felt like the millionth time in the past hour, “You know what? I think I do want that apology.”
Gerald mentally shrugged. Whatever got him out of here sooner.
“Alright. I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” she said.
Gerald was taken aback, “What?”
“I know I was a tough kid to raise, but it wasn’t my job to make your life as a parent easy. In fact, it was your job as a parent that should’ve made my life easy.
“Look, I was never supposed to be someone’s dad. I know that now. Me getting out of your hair was a good thing. You got a great stepdad out of it, didn’t you?”
Nia stood up, “You don’t get to take credit for Thomas. You were supposed to be there for me, for Mom. Instead, you avoided me. You put the burden of raising me solely on her. You made me feel like I had done something wrong by being born.”
“That’s not fair. I tried, but it just wasn’t a good fit for any of us.”
“I was a kid! I never got a choice of my parents. I didn’t get to just walk away because you were a ‘bad fit.’ I had to stay behind and deal with your choices. Do you know how hard it was for Mom to get a job, years after being a housewife? What it was like when you started skimping on the child support?”
“Look, can we fight about this another time? I really would like to get home.”
“No, we can’t. After I leave tonight, I don’t want you to speak to me, ever again. You can call a friend of yours to take you home.”
“Nia, come on. It’s three in the morning. No one will want to come.”
“I didn’t even want to come! But you didn’t think about that. You just care about what you want and nothing else.”
“Nia–”
“Goodbye, Dad.”
Gerald Knolls looked around the cell. It was a lot smaller than it felt when they first brought him in. The gray bars made the reality painfully real, much more so than the manila walls of the office room. The toilet and the sink stood at attention as he settled on the bunk.
The sheriff had offered his condolences and asked if there was anyone else to call. Gerald had said no, and they both knew what came next without saying.
Gerald didn’t think about how long those words must’ve been welling up in his daughter’s head. He didn’t think about how terrifying it must have been to say them. It never occurred to him that she could barely get herself in the car before bursting into tears, crying on her fiancée’s shoulder, asking why her father didn’t love her. He had never even considered how Hina might fare without him after the divorce.
Instead, he just closed his eyes.
