Chapter 15: VEE

“Girl, it’s about time. Where’s my tea?”

I snuck into Barnaby’s kitchen and started boiling water.

It smelled musty, so I opened the windows. He coughed as soon as he felt the breeze, but he was only doing it to be annoying.

Looking back at those years, I didn’t quite remember how our relationship developed. One day he was pointing a shotgun at me, as I had tried to take a can that looked abandoned at the entrance to his property, and the next day, I was sitting in his kitchen drinking tea while he told me about his life.

That first time, I was only nine years old. A lot had happened since then, but Barnaby was still the same white-haired, scrawny-bodied curmudgeon.

“Here you go.” I poured him a steaming cup and noticed new boxes taped to the door. “Did you clean again?”

He nodded and popped a cookie into his mouth. “I found something for you.”

I smiled, although Barnaby’s gifts had stopped exciting me the way they used to. As a child, every discovery meant endless possibilities, but then, my priorities had changed. Or maybe, I was just tired of dreaming with a future that might never arrive.

“What is it? You know I’ve stopped making things up.”

The sweetness in his eyes touched me. That surly old man loved me as much as I loved him, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

“It’s not that. I’ve checked the boys’ rooms.”

I felt a pang in my chest.

Barnaby almost never went upstairs. When he did, it was to exorcise his own demons. He had seven children, and he barely had any contact with a couple of them who rarely visited him. He was very lonely and imagining him searching the rooms of these boys with whom he had cut off almost all contact, made me angry and sad in equal measure. No parent deserves to die alone. Barnaby was terrified that one day, his heart would stop beating and no one would know until his body was covered in maggots.

“You should have told me,” I reproached him.

“Why should I have? You’re not my daughter, not my wife. Stop acting like one.”

I shoved a biscuit into my tea so hard that I splashed out.

“Because scars hurt less when you’re with someone,” I spat at him, brazenly.

“I found something in Cade’s room.”

Barnaby handed me a piece of paper. It was a menu of sorts. On the back was the address of a coffee shop. This was something new. It wasn’t a broken leg from an antique piece of furniture, or a fashion magazine from fifty years ago, or an empty perfume bottle.

“What is this?” I asked in fear, but a part of me already knew.

“My son Cade owns some of those franchises. I’ve talked to him.” My eyes widened in surprise, because Cade wasn’t one of those who kept in touch with his father. “He’ll interview you when you’re ready, but don’t be afraid, it’ll just be a formality.”

I tried to find the words, but it wasn’t easy. Barnaby never called his children, he was the proudest man I had ever met in my life. Just picking up the phone to do this was a big deal.

I looked at the menu between my fingers and realized what it meant— what Barnaby was offering me. I had been wanting it for so many years that, once I was in front of it, it was hard to accept.

He had given me a job. A way out of the hole I was living in. It was a chance to start over. It was a dream materialized on a piece of paper.

“But ... this ... this is in Los Angeles.”

He smiled. His bony, wrinkled hand met mine on the table. We had never touched before.

“That’s right. It’s an opportunity. For you. Happy birthday, Vee.”

I looked up into his eyes not knowing what to say.

I was going to Los Angeles. I held him in my arms as if the world was about to end. In a way, it was.

Or maybe, I was just one step away from starting over.