“That’s nice.” Dad had never been social, but a little voice in my head said he didn’t want to be seen with me. I took a deep breath. “Your glasses are cool.”
“Oh?” He shrugged. “Astigmatism got worse. These help.”
“It’s good that you got it treated,” I said, my words as staggered and awkward as I felt. I looked down at my lap.
“You’ve got my eyes, you know. You should take care of yourself.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll take you to the optometrist soon. Need to get your eye looked at after that shiner anyway.”
“Yes, sir.” A billboard rose from the trees to the left, depicting a cartoon soldier firing red, white, and blue sparks from a bazooka. GENERAL BLAMMO’S FIREWORK SHACK. We turned into the sun so his eyes were hidden again, his jaw set in a way I didn’t know how to read. “What did Mom tell you?”
“She was worried about you,” he said. “She said you weren’t safe where you were living.”
“Did she tell you about what happened sophomore year? When I … was in the hospital?”
His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. He stared ahead silently as we passed an old brick building with a tarnished steeple. The sign read NEW HOPE BAPTIST CHURCH. A Walmart loomed behind it.
“We can talk about that later.” He adjusted his glasses and sighed. The lines in his skin seemed to deepen. I wondered how he had aged so much in six years, but then I remembered how much I had changed too.
“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.” I watched the patchwork tobacco farms roll by. “It’s just, you never called or wrote.”
“Wasn’t sure what I could say,” he said. “It’s been hard coming to terms with … everything.”
“Have you come to terms now that you’ve seen me?”
“Give me time, kiddo.” His lips puckered as they formed the last word, so unusually informal for him. “I guess I’m just old-fashioned.”
The turn signal clicked in time with my heart as the car slowed. We pulled up in front of the Sartoris Dinner Car, an actual converted railroad car on a cinder-block foundation.
“I understand,” I said. I imagined how I must look to him, and my mind leaped to fill in all the worst things I had ever felt about myself. “My name is Amanda now though, in case you forgot.”
“Okay,” he said. He killed the engine, opened the door, and hesitated. “Okay, Amanda. I can do that.” He walked to the front door in that clockwork way of his, hands in his pockets and elbows pointed at symmetrical angles. I couldn’t help seeing my reflection in the window: a gangly teenage girl with long, brown hair in a cotton shirt and shorts rumpled from travel.
A bell jingled as we entered the empty diner. A sleepy-eyed waitress looked up and smiled. “Hi, Mr. Hardy!”
“Afternoon, Mary Anne,” he said, grinning broadly and waving as he took a seat at the counter. That smile gave me a feeling of vertigo. He had smiled when I was seven and I told him I wanted to try out for Little League. He had smiled when I was nine and I agreed to go hunting with him. I couldn’t remember any other times. “Heard your granny had a stroke. How y’all holding up?”
“She says heaven don’t want her and hell’s afraid she’d take over,” the girl said, pulling a notebook and pen from her apron and walking over. “The physical therapy’s been a bear, though.”
“She can do it if anybody can,” Dad said. He slid his menu to her without looking at it. “Sweet tea and a Caesar salad with chicken, please.”
She nodded. “And who’s this with you?” she asked, turning to me. My eyes flicked from her to Dad.
“I’m Amanda,” I said. She looked like she expected more information, but I had no idea what Dad had told people about his family. What if he told them he had one child, a son? I shakily handed her my menu and said, “I would like a waffle and Diet Coke please, ma’am, thank you.”
“She’s my daughter,” Dad said after a moment, his voice halting and stiff.
“Well, she looks just like you!” We exchanged an uncomfortable look as Mary Anne trotted off to get our drinks.
“She seems nice,” I said.
“She’s a good waitress,” Dad said. He nodded stiffly. I drummed my fingers on the counter and wiggled my foot back and forth absentmindedly.
“Thank you for letting me stay with you,” I said softly. “It means a lot.”
“Least I could do.”
Mary Anne brought our food and excused herself to greet a pair of white-haired older men in plaid work shirts.
One of the men stopped to talk to Dad. His nose was round and spider-webbed with purple veins, his eyes hidden under storm-cloud brows. “Who’s this little beam of sunshine?” he asked, leaning past Dad to wave at me. I turned so he couldn’t see my black eye.
“Amanda,” Dad mumbled. “My daughter.”
The man whistled and slapped Dad’s shoulder. “Well, no wonder I ain’t seen her before! If I had a daughter as cute as this’n I’d keep her hid away too.” My cheeks burned. “You just tell me if any of the boys get too fresh, now, and I’ll loan you my rifle.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Dad said haltingly.
“Oh, trust me,” he said, winking, “I had three daughters, not a one of them half as pretty as this one in their time, and it was still all I could do to keep the boys away.”