Kate was uncomfortable as she walked over to meet her father. Her new shoes were rubbing blisters around her heels and she could see the skin already reddening. He was waiting when she got to the cafe, his coffee already half empty.
He looked up, and gave her a flat grim smile. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“Hi Dad,” she said, sliding herself into the seat opposite him. “Joey’s all unpacked.”
He scowled at once. “I was hoping we could have some nice conversation before we started fighting about this, Kate.”
She pushed out her lower lip. “Well, we can’t,” she said, using her best firm-but-clear voice. “I’m not going to change my mind, so you just have to get used to it. You should just talk to him already, this is dumb.”
“No,” her father said. He leaned onto the table, folding his arms over each other and looking straight at her. “He comes to his senses, or we don’t talk to him. You know that’s how that is, and I’m surprised at you that you’d go against us like this.”
“Really?” She felt suddenly upset, heat flushing up her face. “You’re surprised I’m doing something that you didn’t tell me to do first? God, Dad, he is my brother and he is your son whether you’re mad at him or not. And you’re mad at him, I’m not.”
“We’re not angry with him, Kate, but he needs to change before we’re willing to talk to him again.”
Kate folded her arms back at him. The anger built in her chest, boiling and overflowing until she spit it out at him. “You can stop talking to me too then. I’m done with you.” She said it and watched his face drop into sadness, and then she left.
She started home earlier than she’d expected. She had to help her brother settle in, after all.
all the in between 