An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,86
pretty happy with the end result. Not that his opinion mattered if Sophie wasn’t happy.
Evidently she wasn’t making a move, so Marie stood first. “All right, let’s have a look. This...apartment...is where you’ll be living for the foreseeable future?”
Mark could appreciate her concern. An apartment wasn’t a house and Sophie had always lived with a yard. “I think it’s for the best. I’ve never owned a home or taken care of lawn or anything like that so I’m not sure what I would even do with a weed whacker. Between starting the business and well...Sophie, I’ve got to be careful where I spend my time. It’s not like I need to worry about the correct school district for Sophie. And these units are all condos so I own this outright.”
Sophie, who had been looking out at the forty-story view of the downtown Center City, acknowledged that she was actually listening to the conversation.
“What do you mean you don’t have to worry about a school system?” she asked. “You don’t have to worry about anything with regard to me.”
“Come see the room, Sophie.” Mark hoped that once she saw the room, saw that he was serious about meeting her needs, she’d better accept him in her life.
“Why do I need to look at a room I don’t plan on ever staying in?”
Frustration mounting, Mark decided this was one of those moments that necessitated changing tactics. For months he’d been playing the nice guy. Months of pandering to her every desire in the hope that she might give him the time of day. Months of calmly accepting every snotty response to every question he asked. Months of tolerating her incessant eye rolling as if he were the least intelligent man on the planet and only she knew it.
He was done with being the patient, nice guy. She was his daughter. He was her father. It was time she understood the facts.
“Marie. Tell her.”
Marie instantly jerked and looked to Dom for support. “This wasn’t the plan. We said a few more weeks. She’s not ready.”
“She’s not ever going to be ready,” Mark said. “This isn’t working and she needs to know what’s happening in her future.”
Dom nodded his head slowly. “He’s right. We can’t keep putting it off. You might as well tell her.”
Marie opened her mouth but the only sound that came out was a sob. She made her way to Dom. “I can’t do it,” she said. “I just can’t.”
“Fine. I will.” Mark walked over to Sophie, who straightened, suddenly much more attuned to what was happening around her. “Come see your room, Sophie. Now.”
He added enough heat to the last word to actually send her in motion. They walked past the spacious kitchen to the hallway that had a linen closet, a bathroom and two bedroom doors.
“The bigger bedroom is mine, obviously, and I have my own bathroom.” Mark opened the door to his room and cringed when he realized that the bed was still unmade and he’d left his clothes on the floor. Shutting the door quickly, he opened the door to her room. “This is yours. You have a connecting door to the bathroom next to it.”
Sophie didn’t comment. The theme of the room was purple, but it wasn’t overdone. The bed had a musical motif comforter on it and enough pillows to make a harem happy.
Mark had purchased the electric keyboard Marie had said Sophie had her eye on and it was set up with a music stand along one wall. On the other side of the room there was a desk that held the latest iMac computer. Bookshelves framed the desk, but Mark had left those mostly empty. He figured she would want to fill them herself. Same with the closet that he’d had fitted with an organizer to be able to make the most out of the space.
“Okay. I saw it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Happy?”
“No. No, I’m not happy. I’m not happy your mother died in that car accident. I’m not happy about the kind of father I was while you were growing up. But I can’t change those things, Sophie, and you need to realize that we have to get over this in order to move on.”
She whirled on him with real anger in her eyes instead of the usual contempt. “I don’t need to move on from anything. My mother died and it sucks. But I’m dealing with it the only way I know how. You need to know