I was in the art club, and we sometimes had gallery shows. Mac usually sent one of his colleagues while he was busy working a case. I can picture every face belonging to a badge sitting in the front row for one of my orchestra performances. I wasn’t on a sports team that really called for fans—I golfed—so I usually played my tournaments and just let Mac know how I did the next morning. He’d usually nod, and say something gruff, or simple, like “Good job.”
Looking back, I suppose I missed out on a lot of father-daughter bonding. But I didn’t know that at the time. It was just life, the life I knew. And I existed, happily.
But things changed when I turned 17. I had a boyfriend, my first, really. My few friends at school all had boyfriends, and I wanted one too. His name was Wes. I didn’t really go on dates with him—honestly the thought of asking Mac if I could, of acknowledging to Mac any interest I had in boys, made my stomach sink. Wes would drive me home after school and make out with me in his car or in the halls after classes let out. I loved him. Or whatever-I-thought-love-was-ed him. Wes was cute and popular, and he made me feel beautiful. I liked the attention I got when I kissed him at school, the jealous stares from other girls. I liked the way my insides felt when he held my hand. And I liked kissing him. I liked kissing him a lot.
Until I didn’t.
The afternoon after it happened, I was propped up on my elbows, scribbling on my math worksheet, and wincing from the pain on my right cheek. My door was shut, my lamp was on, and I was powering through. It was just like a fight with my girlfriends when I was little. I worked through things on my own, here in my room, and then eventually we were friends again. I figured I’d just wait, and eventually I’d be Wes’s girlfriend again—or I wouldn’t. I was okay either way.
I don’t know what made Mac open my door. In the ten years we’d lived together, I could count on one hand the number of times he stepped foot in my room. But something drew him in that night, and when his weathered eyes zeroed in on the purple puffiness, he changed.
He asked who hurt me, and I said I fell. He asked again, and I got quiet. When he charged to me, lifted my chin with his giant hand, and stared me in the eyes, his nostrils flaring—I whimpered. Not from pain, but from a crack in my emotional armor. This wasn’t how these things worked out. Mac wasn’t a part of this, and he was never supposed to know.
“Name,” he said, his breath heavy, but controlled. I shunned, and he asked again, louder, squeezing my chin with a little force now.
“Name!” he yelled.
The tear that ran over my bruised cheek burned as it slid, carving a hot and painful path to my top lip, which quivered as soon as it reached it.
“Wes Nieves,” I croaked out.
Mac was gone at my words. Every door between where I lay and his pickup were left open along his trail. He was gone for hours. I was in the kitchen after midnight, boiling water for pasta when I finally heard the rumble of his truck out front. I turned the burner on low, and walked to the edge of the kitchen facing the hall to the front door. I was nervous about what his reaction would be when he came in. I watched him close the door behind him and hang his jacket on the hook. I watched him slide his work boots from his feet and pull his wallet, keys and badge from his pockets, tossing them in the bowl by the front door. Then I watched him unfasten his holster and wrap his gun before he walked in the opposite direction to his bedroom.
I went back to my pasta and was mixing in a can of sauce when Mac slid the chair out at the table. We didn’t speak. I pulled two bowls from the cupboard and poured equal parts of the noodles in each. I slid one bowl to Mac, and he just picked up his fork and started to eat. No eye contact. No words—only this strange, new kind of silence.
I never spoke to Wes again, and he took the long route to classes just to avoid me. Mac and I never spoke about it, either. But he started showing up to things after that day. In fact, for the next year, there was hardly an event in my life that Mac Hudson wasn’t front and center for. I had gone from Charlotte Ferris, roommate—to Charlie Hudson, Mac Hudson’s daughter, all because some douchebag hit me. It was the most horrible and most amazing thing to ever have happened to me. I’d been abused, yes…but I came out the other end with a father—a real father.
Mac joked with me, laughed with me, and filmed my stupid golf matches. He took me out for my 18th birthday, because no other boy was good enough. And before my prom, he was the one who helped me curl my golden brown hair into spirals (though it took him hours). He was my rock—my very unexpected but oh-so-treasured rock. He was suddenly the one person in life who wouldn’t let me down. And I think that’s why I miss him so goddamned much today.