Alice

Daniel has always taken pride in being an anomaly—a person existing, not just on the fringe, but beyond it. He likes being an outlier, a data point too many deviations away from the mean, and someone that could pose a novel idea to the world or be the one to blow the whistle on a long held one and say: hey, maybe let’s take a closer look at these dots off to the side here that are telling us that shit isn’t working and figure out why that is.

Usually. Usually, he enjoys this.

Once his age surpasses the record for the oldest human ever lived and he’s still revving and ready to go, he’ll laugh as he soars off the graph. Being a medical marvel for achieving ten orgasms in a day in the physical body of a 69 year old? He’ll brag about that to anyone who will listen.

What he doesn’t enjoy is holding the title as Man Who Ingested A Year’s Worth of Microplastics In One Morning. But he’s holding it whether he likes it or not because the first thing he registers when he opens his eyes is glitter cascading onto his slack jawed face and landing in the back of his mouth. He sits up and hacks out as much as he can but a good amount of it still makes its way down his throat.

Daniel wipes the tears that have cut through the layer of rainbow glitter and race in competing rivulets down his cheeks. Even with his vision cleared, the only thing he is able to see is a piece of paper being shoved into his face, barely an inch away from his nose. He backs up until his eyes can focus and the pale green construction paper that’s been folded into a card shifts into view. Daniel deciphers the waxy crayon scribbles that cover the creased page and reads the message aloud:

“Happy Daddy’s Day! I love you so, so, so, so– Ok, I get the point. I’m not reading the rest of these so’s, kid.— much! Love, Armand. P.S. All my stuffies love you so, so much too! They said to kiss you and so I will kiss you a whole lot today!”

Armand lowers the card and nods in enthusiastic concordance with his own words. He leans over from where he’s sitting, perched on Daniel’s lap and delivers the first of many promised kisses to the corner of his lips.

“Did you like my card? I made it myself,” He boasts, puffing out his chest and waiting to be lavished with praise.

“No way! It’s so beautiful. I mean, give Hallmark a chance, honey. People aren’t buying Hoops and Yoyo cards like they used to.”

Pleased with the feedback, sarcasm flying past his radar undetected, Armand asks “And the glitter? I wanted it to be like confetti.”

Daniel’s phone chimes with a text right as Armand finishes his thought. Reaching over to his nightstand, Daniel yanks the charger out and unlocks his phone to see a little blue bubble next to the group chat he’d made with Kate and Lenora. It has been inactive since its inception and it’s Kate who has broken out the duster and cleared off the cobwebs.

Kate Molloy: Hi, Dad. Happy Father’s Day. Don’t think I have to tell you it’s been a while since we last spoke but Lena and I made reservations for dinner tonight. Harry’s at 10. It’d be good to see you.

It’d be good to see him? He doubts it. They must want something– that’s what this is, a ploy. To get what? He draws a blank. Neither Kate nor Lenora would answer the phone when his calls had five million dollars tied to them so clearly it’s not money they’re after. Or maybe it is. Maybe they’ve decided that gritting their teeth and plastering on a smile as they put up with him for an hour or two is worth it if they can add a few layers of padding to their bank accounts.

Well, tough luck if that’s what they're aiming for. They had their chance a long time ago. Ten million doesn’t stretch very far when Armand has access to devices and websites that make it way too easy for him to make purchases with a tap of his finger.

Daniel can’t say he knows his daughters well enough to be able to come up with an alternate, in character motivation for them to have decided to reach out and reconnect now besides money. He didn’t have it before but he has it now. Money talks. Money gets people to talk—even when they don’t want to, even if it’s to their insufferable, emotionally distant, estranged father. He’s been nothing to them but a glaring absence in their childhood photos. Both of them, but Lenora especially. His relationship with Kate has always had a thin layer of rosiness smeared across the lens. She got the version of him who felt awe at the sight of a miniature nose that was just like his and who had vowed to himself to be the best father he could.

He’d never been able to fully commit to the role and by the time Lenora was born he’d long since hung up that ill-fitting hat. That’s why he can’t buy the sudden change of heart. They want something. They have to.

A sharp, demanding, “Daddy!” shakes him out of his head.

“What? Oh, yeah…glitter. Loved it. There’s no better way to be woken up than sparkly dust obstructing your airways.”

Armand makes a happy trilling noise not unlike a purr and hops out of the bed.

“I have more presents in my room! I’ll go get them.” He scurries out the door and Daniel takes the few seconds he’ll have before Armand comes back to send a message of his own.

Would it be good to see me, Lenora?

The response is instantaneous and it makes Daniel wonder if the girls are together right now, mapping out the best way to navigate the night’s conversation and planning an escape route if it comes to that.

Lenora Molloy: It’d be fine. I don’t expect you to show up anyway.

I’ll be there.

Armand is back and plopping himself in Daniel’s lap again, along with a bunch of handmade crafts. He doesn’t show them to Daniel yet but instead, gets distracted and starts babbling excitedly.

“There’s so much to do. We have to do all of Daddy’s favorite things! We can watch cartoons and go to the park to chase pigeons and catch roaches in the basement and do Lite Brite and yeah!” He finishes, breathless.

“Those sound like all of your favorite things, kiddo,” Daniel laughs.

“But you like them too because we do them together! It’ll be so much f-”

A text tone cuts Armand off.

Kate Molloy: Good. See you there.

“Are you texting? Who is it? Are they using emojis? Let me see!” Armand bends to the side and cranes his neck so he can peek at the screen. He scans the words and when he sits up straight again all expression has been wiped clean off his face. His eyes have the glassy, unseeing quality of a doll and his voice is flat when he asks, “Why are you texting them?”

While Daniel had been worried about Armand’s reaction to his daughters, any fear he harbored belonged strictly within the walls of the fantasy version of his life wherein all his wrongs have been forgiven and Kate and Lenora come around enough for it to be a problem. And despite hearing first hand from Louis just how unkindly Armand takes to sharing his partner’s affections with other people, romantic or familial, he never thought it’d be applicable to their relationship. How could he have predicted that after decades of silent landlines and an empty email inbox, his girls would choose to do something other than let him die without an attempt at reconciliation? He couldn’t have. It was never in the cards. But now, suddenly, it is and Armand is reacting as poorly as Daniel thought he would.

Dropping his phone on the duvet, Daniel reaches out to try and cup Armand’s cheek, hoping to provide reassurance and pull the drain plug on whatever whirlpool of self-doubt Armand is letting himself be swept up and dragged under by. When Daniel’s hand makes contact with Armand’s skin, he flinches away violently as if the gentle graze of roughened fingertips had been the stinging slash of a knife instead. He scrambles off Daniel’s lap and into the farthest corner of the bed, arms wrapped securely around his knees, keeping himself tightly furled in a ball. He’s trembling and his awful gasping breaths are cut off sharply before they can fully make their way into his lungs.

Lowering his voice into the deep and rumbling register that never fails to stall the squeaky, ever rotating hamster wheel in Armand’s head, Daniel says, “It’s just dinner, honey. They’ll parrot their therapists’ words at me, tell me about how every bad thing that has ever happened in their lives is my fault, drop the bomb that they’re having me put in a home, and fuck off. They won’t even stay for dessert. It won’t take up the whole night. We can still do all your fun plans, I promise.”

It doesn’t work. Armand remains a heaving ball but he manages to pant into his legs, "You don't eat human food so don't go. You can't go. You're m-my dad not theirs! It's our...it's our day. Please stay. We don't have to watch cartoons. We can watch t-the boring news i-if you stay."

"Look, Armand. We'll have lots of Father's Days to spend together but I only have so many left to spend with them. None, maybe, depending on how things go. God knows the reason, but they want to talk to me. They’re my kids, okay? I have to go,” Daniel sighs.

Armand starts to rock, rolling from his bottom onto the heels of his feet, where he digs them into the plush mattress to push against it, sending himself falling back. He repeats it over and over again. Back and forward. Forward and back.

“I’m your kid. You’re t-trying to get rid of me a-and have them i-instead.”

The rocking gets faster and his gasps have progressed into full on hyperventilation with wounded, guttural sounds bubbling out of his mouth.

It’s agonizing to watch and Daniel desperately wants to scoop him up and cradle him until it's over but going off how Armand reacted to the smallest of touches moments earlier, he doesn’t think that would be well received.

He’ll just have to talk him through this and hope his words have the ability to worm their way in and ease the panic.

“I’m not trying to get rid of or replace you. I’d never do that. I chased you down for months, remember? I put myself on a tour bus with a coked up Lestat and his k-holing millennial entourage trekking all along the northeast and midwest with the hope that it’d result in a scrap of information that might help me find you. I’ve never done that for anyone else. And I never will again. Trust me, there’s nobody but you that could make the torture seem worth it. You hear me?”

Armand shakes his head and even if it’s in response to Daniel’s question, Daniel knows that just because Armand heard the things he said, it doesn’t mean he internalized or believed them. Love remains a mirage with a constantly shifting goal post for Armand. Security and certainty in Daniel’s devotion are a dizzingly impossible oasis he has to crawl toward on his hands and knees, his tongue cracked with thirst even as Daniel fills his cup past the brim.

"Daddy...I can't br- I can't breathe. Help me."

He’s squeezed so tightly inward it’s no wonder he’s having difficulty getting air. Daniel doesn’t know how exactly he’s supposed to help Armand but he figures getting him to adopt a different position where his chest is able to expand would be a good start.

“Okay, honey. Why don’t you lift your head up for me first. Just focus on that.”

Armand raises his head slowly and his face is pallid and dewy, sweat adorning his nose like decorative pearls. He takes in a harsh, racking breath through his mouth and the fierce grip he has on the long sleeves of his oversized sleep shirt releases. He looks blearily at Daniel and extends a droopy, sleeve-blanketed hand outwards, across the distance between them.