Arranged

Chapter-14

"Kelly, is that you? Are you all right?"

Her father's voice made Kelly raise her head off the kitchen table – or, as it was infamously known in the family, the Table of Harmony and Love. She did not sit up straight, but peered at her father's silhouette in the open doorway from about half an inch above the wooden surface. She sniffled and wiped her nose using the long sleeve of her sweater. Ted walked in to the room and turned on the lights of the kitchen. It made Kelly cringe and cover her face as if she were a creature of the darkness and did not appreciate the sudden brightness that dawned on him. He walked to the chair opposite from his daughter and climbed up on it. Kelly had managed to adjust her vision to the lighting by then.

Her eyes were swollen and red, her cheeks puffed up and her lips quivered slightly. Not to mention, her nose was as red as Rudolph the Reindeer's.

"Key dear, what's wrong?" he tried again, leaning forward and clasping his daughter's left hand in his right.

Kelly shook her head and smiled, the effort not lost on her father whose eyes saddened at her attempt. "I came down for...ice cream," she eventually said, her eyes wondering up, down and around as she tried to think of an excuse. "I couldn't sleep."

"I can see that," Ted affirmed.

"And I had been crying."

"Yes, I can see that too."

Kelly looked curiously at her father, who was smiling warmly at her. "Don't you want to know why?"

He looked at her intently, his eyes searching hers; he was perhaps trying to think what he should reply, she figured. What he said though made her sit up straight. Only three words: "I know why."

It took her a longer moment to gather her bearing and ask in disbelief, "You do? But Ma doesn't know..."

"No, she does not. I believe, only I know." When her expression stubbornly did not change, he laughed lightly and remarked in a mock rebuking voice, "You underestimate the observational skills of your old man, Kelly. That is simply disgraceful." He continued the charade by retrieving his hand away from hers, crossing his arms across his chest and huffing loudly.

Kelly could not help but laugh.

"Now there's the sound I love the most," he said and clapped his hands once. "So, tell me, what has brought you back to this station after four months?"

Kelly frowned and scrunched up her face as her lips moved while her eyes gazed at the ceiling and her thumb moved rapidly up and down her fingers. She looked back at her father and smiled with a newfound respect. "Wow. That was the exact estimation."

"And here you go changing the subject again. I appreciate your courage, honey, in wanting to deal with it alone, but sometimes you have to loosen it up and let others in. I have been a silent partner in this routine of yours since the first time you started it two years ago. I think I deserve to be let in now."

Kelly's expression turned rueful and she pressed the heels of her palms to her forehead, groaning as she did so. "Papa, I don't... I don't mean to shut you out. I'm so sorry I made you feel that way..."

"My dear Kelly, that's the least of your worries. I know you well enough. I know that unlike the first two, you take after me, so you tend to shut down your feelings rather than be spontaneous with them. Even so, honey, it has been a long time already. Don't let it become a habit, and I can tell you with guarantee that such habits stick for a long time."

The last comment made her ears perk and she could not believe she has not wondered about it until this moment. "Papa, why are you up at this hour? Rather, why have you been up at this hour for the past two years?"