Mending Fences
(2014)
Mark looked down at his daughter, suddenly a little worried that he wasn’t going to be able to accomplish the task he’d set himself. It didn’t help that he kept wondering when she’d gotten so tall – or so prickly.
“C’mon, Dad,” she huffed, folding her arms across her chest defiantly, “you weren’t even there.”
Inwardly he winced, the pain refocusing him on his purpose. “That’s right,” he pounced on her words, “I wasn’t there. Now, what puzzles me is why you’re giving me points for that.” He arched his eyebrows, hoping she’d get it and make it easy for him. When her expression stayed pouty, he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Don’t you see, Britt? I should’ve been there. The fact that I wasn’t and your mom was, well, that’s points in her favor, not mine. I’ve been MIA lately, and I’m not proud of it.”
Britt’s hazel-green eyes narrowed a little as she allowed herself to consider his words. Not many teenagers would’ve tried to see both sides of things, but she’d been raised to play fair.
“She didn’t even want to be there,” she mumbled after a minute, her young heart still aching at the way her mother had behaved.
“No, I’m sure she didn’t,” Mark agreed, almost smiling at the thought of his tomboyish wife, Meg, at a high school fashion show. She would’ve been bored stiff. “She went because she knew it was important to you. She went because I couldn’t. And, if I had gone to a few more things, given her a break between, she wouldn’t have popped off the way she did.”
Britt frowned doubtfully. Her mother had a low tolerance level for immodest clothing, one that Britt sympathized with. Still, she knew Dad was right about one thing. Her mother was usually able to handle things with a lot less drama. And he was right about Mom being tired. Britt was ashamed not to have realized it before, but Mom had been at the short end of her rope for a while and Britt, the oldest, hadn’t done anything to help.
“So ok,” she shrugged, “I’m not mad at Mom anymore.”
Mark braced himself. “Are you mad at me?” he asked, watching her closely.
Britt took a deep breath. “Maybe. A little. I don’t know!” She threw up her hands and turned to stare out the window. “Are you going to stay MIA or what?”
“No, that’s over with. It was never intentional,” he added by way of excuse. “I’m one of those weird people who really like their jobs, but,” he shook his head, “I can see now that I’ve actually lost more than I have gained by letting it become my focus.” He paused and took another good look at her. Her strawberry blond hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail and her t-shirt featured Pegasus, a sign that she was still a little horse crazy. Maybe there was time to get to know her again before the boys her age noticed how beautiful she was. “I’m out of the loop with my own family, the people I love most in this world,” he told her. “I want to fix it and I want it to stay fixed.”
“How do you fix a broken family?” Britt asked, turning to face him again. Her hazel-green eyes were suspiciously bright and she was blinking rapidly.
“The first step is admitting there’s a problem,” he said slowly. “Then, if the damage isn’t too bad, you put everybody back in the picture. With love, time, and lots of family prayer, things get better. Eventually, you won’t even be able to tell it happened.”
Britt inhaled shakily. “Then you and Mom are ok?”
Mark hesitated. “I let her down. I wasn’t there when she needed me. I told her that when I apologized to her last night. We’re working on a new approach to our lives, going to work as a team instead of two strangers with the same kids.” Even as he echoed his wife’s words from the night before, Mark wondered if it was the sort of thing he should be sharing with his teenage daughter. His fears subsided when she took two quick steps forward and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Thank you,” she told him, her breaths coming rapidly. “Thank you!”
Nonplussed, Mark put both of his arms around her shoulders and kissed her hair. Then he suddenly remembered that Britt’s best friend had become a legal orphan a couple of years ago when her parents had split up and sent her to live with her grandmother. Closing his eyes, he rocked Britt gently while she cried.
“What’s wrong with Britt?” asked Phil, her ten-year old brother, from the doorway.
Mark made a mental note about remembering to shut the door before having a heart to heart with any one of his four children.
“It’s ok, Phil,” Britt gave him a watery smile. “They’re happy tears.”
Mark smoothed Britt’s hair and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “Time for a family council,” he announced, letting go of Britt to scoop up Phil, who protested loudly that he could walk. “Anna, Mike,” Mark shouted, “come to the family room, please.”
Britt wiped away her tears and rolled her eyes. The chances that five year old Anna or nine year old Mike had heard her father were slim to none. “I’ll get them,” she announced, surprising herself. As she left to find them, her dad set Phil back down and started to answer a barrage of questions about what a ‘family council’ was.