“Yes,” he said.

He didn’t elaborate. I didn’t fill the silence.

Who broke first? If Eric wanted to play that kind of little dominance game, he was in for a fight. I had four give-a-fucks left and Eric didn’t deserve one.

I was convinced he’d hang up on me when he ventured, “Good notes.”

Were they in front of him now?

“Thank you.”

“Your dad is on the line.”

“Oh, good. Kind of expected that. Can you patch him through?”

“We’d rather you come in for a chat.”

“Soon. Dealing with my sister is hard for me. You’ve read all the files, right? You know what happened?”

“Yes.”

“I’m taking ten minutes. If you could connect me to my dad it would be appreciated.”

He didn’t immediately answer. It was quiet enough on his end that I could imagine he’d muted his end of the call. Asking a question?

What else are you going to do? Not allow thorough communication about someone who just attacked one of our hero teams?

Hero teams around me were huddled at their tables, talking. A few isolated capes sat alone. Heroes that had never attached to a team, but who wanted to help. The mood was one of a forest fire, all hands on deck, people waiting to be deployed to the latest area that was getting out of control, hoping to get things back down. Keep it under control for long enough, we pretended, and maybe the fires would burn down. Things would be okay. The healing would start.

I ate another chicken strip. The peppers were small and heavy enough that they’d piled up toward the bottom of the salsa. They weren’t ones I’d ever had before, but they nicely captured a bit of earthiness, like a root vegetable, with a bit of smoky heat, like barbecue over charcoal. The tomato in the salsa balanced it out. The sour cream cut straight through the worst of the capsaicin heat.

With no fanfare, response, or further communication, the phone clicked, buzzed for a moment, and then rang once.

“Victoria?” was the familiar voice.

“Hi, Dad.”

“I just talked to Amy.”

“Can you get her to that therapy appointment?” I asked, closing my eyes. “I’ll work something out.”

“I’ll try. I wanted to tell you that I’m proud of you.”

I felt numb. I didn’t trust my instincts, not when I couldn’t be sure if I trusted my appetite, desire to sleep, or my desire for human contact. I had no idea if I could trust my dad’s words, or trust myself to accept them. What was he proud of? That I’d reached out? Found a way? Faced down the monster?

I felt angry at the words and I shouldn’t have. Proud of me?

“What are you doing, Dad?”

I felt like he’d expected the question. His response came faster than it would have for ninety percent of people who got a response like that. “I don’t know. Wishing it was ten years ago, so I could do everything differently.”