Patricia McCormick - Cut

She’s back in a minute with the water. “Thanks,” I say. But she’s gone again, putting a gigantic coffee filter inside a gigantic coffee machine, then waiting on a businessman who wants a large black coffee to go.

I sip my water slowly, trying to make it last. I make a conscious effort to stop shivering; it doesn’t work. Peggy keeps looking over at me; I do my best to act like I don’t notice. She wipes down the counter with a rag. I wrap my arms around myself. Out of the corner of my eye I see her nod, like she’s just decided something important. She flips a switch on a big machine on the counter; it drones to life.

Then Peggy’s standing in front of me with a cup of hot chocolate with a fancy, twirly peak of whipped cream on top.

“This is what you want, I think,” she says. She puts another cup on the counter in front of me, splashes some coffee in it, takes a sip, swallows. She takes another sip. “Runaway?”

I wonder then if she’s going to call the police. Or if anyone else from Sick Minds has ever ended up in here. And if they got kicked out. Or sent to Humdinger.

“Sort of,” I say.

She exhales, the way Sydney does when she’s blowing smoke rings.

“How could you tell?” I say.

She tips her chin up. “No coat. It’s a little cold out there to be going around without a coat.” She smiles. “I figured maybe you left somewhere in a hurry.”

I cup my hands around the hot chocolate, hoping the warmth from the cup will pass through to my hands.

“Where you headed?” Peggy says.

“Nowhere. Home, I guess.” I shrug and stare at the tray of cream-filleds.

“You want one of those?” she says.

“That’s OK,” I say. Then, “I don’t have any money.”

She whisks a sheet of waxed paper out of a little box, grabs a cream-filled, and puts it on a plate in front of me. “On the house,” she says. The front door opens and a family comes in. Peggy helps them pick out a dozen to go. The men down the counter pay their bill and more people come and go while I eat my doughnut and drink my hot chocolate.

Peggy comes back, takes a sip of her coffee, and scrunches up her nose. “Cold,” she says, sticking out her tongue. She studies me. “Anyone know where you are?”

“My dad. He’s on his way.”

She nods, evidently satisfied; I feel a little proud and a little embarrassed at the same time.

“Listen,” Peggy says. “I got a kid. He’s grown now. But he’s still my baby you understand?”

She says this with such certainty I can only say yes, even though I’m not sure I do understand.

“He still lets me fuss over him, like when he was little.” She beams. “When your dad gets here, he’s probably gonna wanna fuss over you.” She sips her coffee. “Let him.”

I’m still not warmed up, not even after my second cup of hot chocolate, when I see the reflection of a familiar white car in the window. The car rocks to a halt and my dad jumps out, taking three long, running strides to the door. He’s not wearing a coat and the wind is blowing his hair up in wisps around his head.

Then he’s inside the Dunkin’ Donuts and I’m inside a warm, dark hug, a hug that smells like aftershave and spray starch and home. His whole body is shaking, but finally I’m not shaking anymore.

When he eventually draws away from me, he looks shy. He glances down and pats his pockets like he’s looking for something, and I notice that his hair has thinned a little more on top. When he looks up again, his eyes are moist; my heart hurts.

He spins the vinyl stool next to me. “Mind if I join you?”

“Yes. I mean no. I don’t mind.”

He sits down cautiously, as if he’s worried the stool is too small for him or something. He looks so tired and disheveled, his hair all mussed up like he’s just woken up, I feel shy now, embarrassed for bothering him.

“You OK?” he says finally.

“I guess.” I shrug.

The moment seems to call for a better answer, or at least a longer one. “Yeah, actually, I think I’m getting better. That’s what’s weird.”

Peggy arrives with her coffee pot, my dad says yes please, and she pours some coffee into a mug in front of him. She gives him an appraising look, and I bob my head, wanting to tell her this is him, this is my dad. She half smiles, then pivots and goes off to wait on someone else.

My dad and I sip from our mugs and stare straight ahead at the racks of doughnuts. The wall across from us is covered with a mirror with pink writing, advertising different doughnut and coffee combinations, and between the letters I can see the two of us as we sip from our mugs, then set them on the counter at the same time. I watch my dad bite his lip, then I see myself in the mirror doing the same thing.

“I called that place, the place where you were, and told them you were safe,” he says.

I nod a sort of thank-you.

“So,” he says. “You went out for a jog?” His face goes from joking to serious.

I nod.

“Felt trapped?”

I want to agree because I think that’s the answer he wants. But I can’t say yes, since that’s not why I left. I shrug.

There’s a long silence, then we both start talking at the same time.

“You go ahead,” he says.

“How’s Sam?” I say.

“Sam? He’s good. Really good.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince me, or maybe convince himself. “He hit 60 last week. Pounds.”

“That’s great,” I say, thinking about how happy we all were when Tara weighed in at 99 last week.

“Yeah,” he says. “Great, huh?” He still looks so tired and worried, though, I want to tell him something to cheer him up. I want to tell him everything I’ve learned at Sick Minds. So he knows I’m OK, so he doesn’t have to worry about me.

“You know,” I say, in a very sane, you-won’t-believethis tone of voice, “I thought it was my fault. About Sam.”

He glances over quickly, then away.

“I thought it was my fault, Sam getting sick.”

He looks at me again, this time like he’s seeing me for the first time.

“I was supposed to be watching him that day,” he says to his coffee cup.

“I know,” I say

Something inside me loosens, because I really do know.

I set my cup on the counter, but it feels like I’ve just laid down something enormous, something very heavy.

I look over at my dad’s profile. A muscle in his jaw is working the way Debbie’s does when she’s trying not to cry. He looks so miserable, I want to say something to make it all better.

“It’s OK.”

“No,” he says. “It’s not OK.”

“No, really,” I insist. “Don’t worry. You have enough to worry about with Sam and Mom.”

“Is that how it seems to you?”

“Yeah, I guess. Sometimes.”

He runs his fingers through his hair, not making any real improvement. I trace a line in the powdered sugar on my plate.

“Well, I am. You know, worried about you. Now.”

“I’m OK,” I say. It’s almost worse, him being worried. But I like it, too, a little.

Peggy doesn’t want us to pay, but my dad insists, and then says we’ll also take a dozen doughnuts to go. As we’re standing at the cash register picking out two of this kind, two of that, I whisper that he should leave Peggy a big tip. He gives me a couple of dollars and I walk back to where we were sitting and tuck them under my hot chocolate mug.

She thanks us and my dad reaches across the counter and shakes her hand. She doesn’t act like this is dorky so I decide to shake her hand too. Then she goes off to wait on a couple of punk rockers.

“You wait here,” my dad says. “I’ll get the car warmed up, then you can come out.”

“Sure,” I say. “OK.”