Page 68 of The Grumpy Side of Paradise

“Her ex is back. I’m worried they’ll get back together,” Dad says. “If she could stay with you for a while, I think she could get straightened out. She’ll listen to you.”

There’s a pleading in Dad’s voice I haven’t heard before. His words are always very careful with me. Not like they are with Hope and his other kids with Faith. He yells at them sometimes, but he also laughs and jokes around with them. We don’t do that. He’s the only person I don’t laugh with.

“Like I said, I want to help, but some things have to fall into place before I know how long I’ll be in Paradise.” I control my voice the way Dad controls his. Measured and polite. No hint that I’m upset he’s even asking me to take on parenting his twenty-one-year-old step-daughter. “And if I stay here, I don’t know what she’d do. This place is small. The closest college is almost an hour away. Where would she work?”

“She’s your sister, honey.” Even after half a lifetime living in Kansas, Dad still hasn’t lost his southern accent. He lays it on thick when he wants something, and I’ve often wondered if that’s what attracted Faith to him, an unknown youth pastor working at his father-in-law’s church in Manhattan, Kansas. “You gotta take care of your family. Everything else in life comes and goes, but you’ll always have your family.”

This isn’t the first time he’s said that to me. It’s not even the first time I’ve felt my chest grow so tight I can’t breathe when he’s said it. But it is the first time words I’ve only ever thought make it past my brain to my mouth.

“You mean like you took care of me and Mom? Is that how I should take care of Hope now? Or your other kids?” The words escape in a loud pop, like a balloon too-filled with helium. I expect a wave of guilt to follow, but all I feel is relief.

“That’s not fair, Evelyn. Your mom and I had problems that couldn’t be fixed. I didn’t leave you. I left a marriage.” There’s a wavering in his voice that makes me think he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince me.

Maybe that’s why I tuck away my anger again. Or stuff. It takes some stuffing to make my next words come out soft. “It felt like you left me, too, Dad.”

He lets out a long breath. “I’m sorry you felt that way, sweet pea. But the past is the past. There’s no use staying mad about it. Anger doesn’t fix anything.”

“I guess not,” I say slowly. Something about his words doesn’t feel right. “I’ll keep in touch with Hope. I’ll know better in a week or two if there’s more I can do for her.”

“I’d appreciate that, honey. You’re a good sister.”

I don’t say that she’s not really my sister. I’ve spoken my truth enough for one night. All it did was make Dad unhappy. I’m the one who’s supposed to keep people happy.

I say good night to my dad, then go to my office to do some work. The antlers I found with Adam are within my line of sight, and I’m reminded of the fight he had with Zach. They both got angry. Adam said what was hurting him. Zach listened, and then they weren’t so angry anymore. They got it out. Things aren’t fixed between them, but that seemed to be a step in the right direction.

My dad isn’t totally wrong about the uselessness of staying mad, but I don’t think I believe anymore that anger doesn’t fix anything. Maybe sometimes it helps fix things if we’re willing to let it go once we’ve let it out. There’s no use letting it out on a leash, only to be pulled back in and used over and over.

I spend the rest of the night mulling that thought over, wondering if telling my dad how angry I am at him would allow room to really love him again.

The conclusion I come to is that it’s better to hold on to what little relationship I have with my dad than risk losing any relationship at all. He hates fighting. He grew up surrounded by it and has spent his life avoiding it. I remember him telling my mom before he left he couldn’t live with her yelling and fighting with him anymore.

The thing I don’t remember is her yelling. I remember her crying and saying that she just wanted the truth from him. But I don’t remember her yelling it.

I hate thinking about that time, so I carry the antlers to the other room and set them in front of the TV. I spend the rest of the night rubbing the dirt off them with a wet towel while watching a completely unbelievable Hallmark romance with no yelling and a happily ever after.

The antlers are even more beautiful when I finish cleaning them up. But the movie leaves me unsatisfied and restless. Happy feels less…happywhen there’s no opposite emotion to complement it.

I scroll through the channels looking for something that will really make me happy. What I land on isLittle Women.A story of a family that I know will make me happy. As long as I skip the part I always skip. The sad part. The part that, if I watch it, I won’t be able to tell myself that Beth is living her best life in France or England. Maybe both.

I turn on the movie and curl up in a blanket, remote clutched in my hand for fast-forwarding purposes.

But when Beth gets sick, I don’t fast forward. I watch her fight for her life with her family’s help. And when she starts to feel weak again, I don’t skip ahead. I watch all of it, and I feel all of it. Beth dies, and I cry. Meg has babies and money troubles, and I cry. Jo falls in love with the professor and inherits Aunt March’s house, and I cry. Amy marries Laurie, and I cry.

When I go to bed, I should be tired from all the crying, but I’m not. And I don’t want it to stop. I prop myself up in bed and scroll through my Spotify library. Every sad song I can find, I play. I playExileand other Bon Iver songs over and over, along with Phoebe Bridgers, some Adele, and the saddest Frank Ocean songs.

I let myself cry for all the sad things in the world. Little girls who idolize their fathers, until those fathers leave. Men who love and lose big, but are still willing to try again. Mothers who love their children more than anything, even if they can’t remember them anymore.

I find a lot to cry about until the night slips into morning. It’s almost noon when I wake up. My eyes are puffy and red. My hair is matted and stuck to my face. I look like absolute hell.

And I’ve never felt so good.

Chapter 32

Adam

I go to work early the next morning, intent on not thinking about Evie. There are a few little things to finish with the framing that will only take a couple of hours. I’m grateful for the distraction. Work gives me something to think about besides Evie.

Except she’s impossible to forget. Everywhere I go reminds me of her. I used to think that about Dakota, but I could at least go to work and not think about her. But the work I’m doing now is essentially for Evie, even if Zach istechnicallymy boss.

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