Page 32 of Retrofit Analysis

“Dad, do you know what it looked like when I walked in?” She meets my eyes, her head tipped back, tears welling up again. And I do know what it looked like, because it felt amazing.

“It looked serious,” I tell her, nodding. “Honey, it feels serious. You were right about everything, Orla. About me needing to feel alive again, needing company. Needing to do things on week nights that don’t involve my nephews.”

She steps back out of my hug and starts pacing the boards of my deck. “It’s too fast, Dad. It’s too convenient. Your high school girlfriend and her kid move in across the street and you’re just what? The kid’s new Dad? Playing house?”

“Orla, you’re crossing a line.” She closes her eyes. “I’m setting a boundary and asking you to go process what you’re feeling and come back when you can speak rationally about what’s bothering you.”

Orla flings her arms up in the air. “You’re such a god damned cyborg sometimes. It’s like living with Liam.”

“You haven’t lived here for years, Orla. This is always how we’ve approached problems.”

She rolls her lips between her teeth and I watch her counting to ten internally. “You’re right,” she says. “I need to process. I’ll come back. We’re not done talking about this.”

Orla stomps off through the house and out the front door. I note that she doesn’t grab her basket of laundry. I sigh and look to the kitchen, where Elizabeth is drying her hands.

“You shouldn’t have cleaned up,” I say, looking around. Everything is put away. Jake is gone. The kitchen is just as it was before they arrived today—sterile and photo-ready. Nothing out of place. Nothing spicy or vibrant. All the things Beth has brought into my life.

“It’s ok. I felt…” Elizabeth sighs. “I put the leftovers in your fridge. You’re the only person I know with an organized Tupperware cupboard.” She huffs out a laugh.

I swallow. “Orla just needs some time to adjust. I haven’t dated anyone else…”

Elizabeth nods. “I know, Kellen.” She leans in and kisses my cheek. “It all feels fast.”

I grab her hand and bring it to my lips. “It is fast, but it’s also not fast enough. Beth, I’m…you make me feel so alive,” I tell her. “You and Jake. Both of you. I need you,” I tell her. “Orla will come around.”

Elizabeth cups my cheek. I can’t get a read on what she’s feeling. “This was a lovely day,” she says. She stretches up to quickly kiss me, a brief, chaste pressing of her lips against mine. I want to prolong it, to press her against the wall or sneak into her kitchen like we’ve done every night since our Star Wars date. But she retreats, both physically and emotionally.

“I’ll text you tomorrow,” she says and makes her way toward the door. When she’s gone, I open the fridge and stare at the leftover forbidden meal. I open the lid to the container and inhale, savoring the smell one last time.

I think about Orla, about her sense of betrayal at seeing me all in for this relationship. It did feel like an instant family. Elizabeth and Jake fold into my life as if they’ve always been there. But they haven’t always been there, and my obsession with this new phase has hurt my daughter.

I dip a finger in the dish, tasting the lemon and black pepper one last time, and then I throw the food in the garbage.

Twenty-Five

Elizabeth

I’m sorry about this evening. I pace around my house, cleaning and doing laundry and trying not to call Kellen. I can’t stand that I’ve caused a rift between him and his daughter. I got so swept up in the fairytale of this amazing man helping my kid, helping me. God, what must his daughter have thought, coming upon us cozied up in her father’s dining room. Eating their grief trigger, apparently.

“Instant family,” I heard her yell from the deck. Is that what is happening here? Jesus, after the shit with Todd did I just want to…play pretend with Kellen? Everything with him just feels so right. Maybe that’s just in comparison to how drastically, shamefully bad things were with Todd?

Kellen doesn’t immediately respond to my text and I fight the urge to run back over there and check in. But I also feel like I have ants living in my skin, so I call Lisa to see if she has any guidance.

“I was on my own for a heartbeat, Lisa. What am I even doing?”

“First of all, you’re having tons of orgasms, is what it sounded like when we last talked.” I hear her moving through her house, picking up food packages and other crinkling plastics. Lisa doesn’t have time to sit and chat on the phone. She wraps our conversations into the things that need to be done.

It’s what I relate to most about her. Both of our lives have been so intense. We’re always one small domino away from the entire set crashing down. The difference is that Lisa has Ashish to rely on.

“Second, you’ve been on your own for a long ass time, babe. You’ve just been fending on your own under the pull of a gaslighting philanderer.”

“Hm,” I huff out. I had not considered this angle before, not until I started getting a whiff of what things could feel like when I get a chance to refill my own batteries. “I didn’t move here to jump into a serious relationship, though,” I sputter back as the anxiety kicks back into high gear.

“You haven’t even had a sleepover yet. Keep waiting on that, by the way, until you’ve used that cream a bunch and gotten your cave walls nice and sturdy before anyone goes spelunking.”

“Spelunking!” Where she comes up with this stuff I’ll never know. I never have the energy to spout out anything witty.

“Anyway, listen.” I hear Lisa open the trash can and cram in the crinkly plastics. “I don’t think you’re moving too fast. I think his daughter maybe needs to do some work around the idea of her father dating again.”