Flash #19

Jo is paying bills at the kitchen table when there’s a knock at her back door. She looks up in time to see the ring with black onyx on the middle finger retreating from the glass: Mac’s hand, his father’s ring. It makes her chest feel a little tight, but there’s no way she’s giving him any indication of that.
“It’s open,” she calls.
“Jesus Jo,” he says, before he even steps through the doorway. “What the fuck you got your back door unlocked for?” Jo watches as Mac stamps the dirty snow and sand from his feet.
“Easy Killer,” she says as if his comment doesn’t piss her off. What does he think – she’s some kind of moron? “I just took the trash out back and I’m sittin right here.”
Mac shakes his head. He hasn’t even really looked at her yet. “Still…not smart.”
“Yes sir,” she mutters. “What’s your story?”
Mac finally lifts his face to look her way. His eyes seem a little sunken to her. It makes her wonder how much painkiller he’s still on.
“I wanted to talk to ya – if you’ve got a second.”
Jo nods. “What about?” she asks, immediately embarrassed by her stab at nonchalance. Her heart is beating at the base of her throat as if she’s fourteen and he’s asked her to dance. She’s been waiting for him to want to talk, but it is hard to admit, even in the privacy of her own brain, that she wants him to talk about the night before all this happened. The night she thought things might be starting up again.
“About Sheila,” he says, unzipping his jacket. “She around? Coast clear?”
It’s beyond embarrassment now. She takes a deep breath, letting the feeling of rejection really take hold.
You bastard, she thinks, but carefully vacuums the emotion from her face to a neutral expression.
“Yep, coast clear,” Jo says, shoving a kitchen chair his way with her foot. It takes a lot not to send it flying across the room. “Have a seat.”
Mac sits. “She told me last Saturday that she quit basketball.”
I should be happy he gives a shit about his daughter, she thinks, already reprimanding herself. “Yep she did.”
His forehead bunches sourly. “And that doesn’t mean anything to you?” he asks.
Jo doesn’t care for the edge of accusation. She feels like launching into him, telling him the real reason, but she reigns herself in. That would be about her own shit and he really doesn’t look like he’s doing so well.
“It’s only basketball,” she answers.
Mac leans closer to her. “Bullshit Jo. She’s been playin for years. Always loved it. Now you let her just walk away without a reason?”
Her heart isn’t beating like a lovesick girl anymore.
“Just because she didn’t give you a reason,” Jo shoots back, “Doesn’t mean she’s got no reason.”
Mac sits back a little, studies her. His eyes make Jo even more aggravated. The greenness of them is ridiculous. They could be candy for Chrissake. Nobody’s eyes are that color.
“She’s keeping a secret?” he asks, sounding a little wounded whether he means for Jo to hear it or not.
She nods.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” Jo answers with more heat than she thinks might be fair, but – God, how can he be so dumb?
Mac looks genuinely bewildered now and it makes her feel a little guilty. She makes herself switch gears to a quieter voice.
“It’s because of what happened to you Mac,” she explains.
“What? What about it?”
Jo shakes her head. She knows he honestly hasn’t thought of this and she knows it’s going to hurt to hear it.
“She’s having a hard time with it. That’s easy to understand, right? I mean, you’re her daddy.”
Jo can see his eyes fill with tears immediately. He makes no move to stop them and it makes her anxious. He finally blinks them away.
“I don’t...” he starts, but his voice is heavy with emotion. He stops to clear his throat and tries again. “But what has that got to do with her playing basketball?”
“She says she just doesn’t care about it anymore. That it’s no fun. She wants to stick home some more.”The kitchen takes on their silence; the only sound is the refrigerator buzzing on. Jo lets her mind go to what she thought this conversation was going to be about: the night of the Christmas party. It had been a long time since it had happened, but it hadn’t been the first time since the divorce. Every so often, when neither was seeing anyone very special, it seemed they would end up together for a short while. No plans would be made. No attempts at talking about how they felt for one another. No big explanations about why it happened or went back underground. But at least they had acknowledged it the other times, joked about it a little. That was one of the differences this time: Mac hadn’t called her or said a thing about it after the fact. Then, the stabbing, the hospital. It was if it hadn’t happened at all.