moving back home to live with her cop dad was not really what minnie had in mind when her aunt gave her the talk about how she’s missing out on getting to know him. aunt ziyi could be harsh like that. for a woman who seemed to always have her head in the clouds and blew through a series of irresponsible boyfriends, she saw the truth in things and wasn’t afraid to call you out on it. especially when you were someone she loved. minnie on the other hand, ever her father’s daughter, was content to vacation in the isle of denial. checking in with her father only when necessary until auntie z spelled it out for her clearly: someday, that poor man is going to die, too. then you’ll really wish you hadn’t wasted all those years mad at him for doing what’s best for you. sometimes her mother’s sister could be painfully right.
still, she had pictured herself in some funky loft downtown ( did charming even have loft apartments? it didn’t matter ) with her own separate life. her first night back home, she spent lying upside down on her bed, letting her head dangle off the foot so she could really see how askew everything is. the radio station pay is jack shit, but at least they let her play whatever she wants ( within reason ). if she wants her own apartment, she’ll no doubt have to get a second job. this place, even more than the town of charming itself, feels like a cemetery for all her long forgotten selves and her bedroom is a carefully curated shrine put together by her father in memoriam. it has all her favorite things from when he knew her most.
peering into the darkness of her closet, she spent her first night home wondering if her polly pockets were still there–loyal, hiding–a bunch of mini minnies living in their carefully contained worlds. they haven’t been opened in so long, they don’t even know that their mother is dead. walking back home from the station, headphones omitting all other sounds, that night seems like a dream. as she enters the house, there’s no tula to greet her and she figures that means her dad’s taken the dog out, so she doesn’t even bother taking off the headphones as she searches for a bowl of ice cream, drops up her bag and heads up to her room.
she doesn’t take the headphones off until she realizes her door is ajar and, even then she only exposes one ear before she realizes her dad’s inside of it. she should be angry, but she really doesn’t know what to say. what are you doing in my room? sounds so fucking juvenile. instead she takes her headphones all the way off and crosses the room with her bowl of ice cream, sitting across from him in her desk chair as he speaks. when she finally does ask, “what are you doing in my room?” it’s not accusatory. instead it sounds more like she’s asking him why he’s reading in the dark, as if he’d spent all day reading and hadn’t thought to turn on a light when dusk came.
taking a bite of ice cream, she mulls over his question, considering if she really wants to room to change. “i don’t know. it feels sort of weird to change it.” she admits. maybe not knowing one another anymore makes it easier to be their true selves. “it’s like building a mall over a cemetery or something.” she doesn’t mean it to be morbid and immediately regrets the analogy, wishing she’d said something different. “i didn’t know you were home.” she admits, changing the subject. “i would’ve brought you some ice cream too.”
rick remembers the days when entering minnie’s room would elicit an irritated scream and the silent treatment for a whole afternoon. he remembers when the love his daughter had for him slowly then suddenly went from the regular adoring admiration children had for their parents to all out teenage angst; he had plenty himself, though he also had two older brothers to guide him through it. that last part, he didn’t experience it as long as other fathers, because the normal troubles of high school turned into the loss of her mother. now, caught laying on her bed with his dog, she only seems mildly confused. should he have expected that sort of reaction? rick doesn’t know what to expect of minnie anymore. he can’t anticipate her emotions anymore, like he could when she was a child. he has to get to know her all over again, as an adult, when he’s only ever known the child version of her, and briefly as a teenager. (that’s all his fault, though, it’s always his own fault.)
he still doesn’t look as she crosses the room and sets down on her desk chair, his shoulders shrugging lightly even with his hands still behind his neck. “sorry.” rick apologizes, trying to think of a response that doesn’t put a spotlight on how long they’ve been absent in each other’s lives. it’s the reality of the situation but they’re both experts at dancing around the subject, no amount of time will erase either trait from them. “i came to see if you were home and i got a bit nostalgic.” does it sound like he’s nostalgic for a time when she wasn’t living here, just a few months ago? shit. “i remember the day we all painted it together.”
his house felt more like a dollhouse, not that he had intimate knowledge of them, his mother’s children were all boys. what he knew of them, it was analogous to his home. not so much artificial as it was forgotten, dusty no matter how many times you wiped it clean. he hadn’t meant for it to become such a tomb, as if the clock stopped the moment lily took her last breath, a crypt that only has living ghosts. there’s barely any life left inside, despite the two humans and a dog that inhabit it, but rick never meant for it to be that way. there was no conscious decision to keep the couch his wife picked out and the paint colors twelve-year-old minnie liked, it just never occurred to him to change it. and at the end of the day it’s just another reminder that all of this is temporary—minnie’s not staying for long, and when she does leave, everything will remain the way it was before she even came back.
despite how morbid her analogy is, in a place where death is never the topic of conversation but always lurking in the corners like easily ignored mold, rick laughs at it good-naturedly. minnie has a wit drier than her father’s, that much rick could never forget, that much will never change. he lets the comment go unaddressed, he’d have to think about how everything in this house needs an upgrade and it’s not just minnie’s bedroom that’s a cemetery. rick never considered himself a sentimental man before lily’s death, but he nearly cried when he had to replace the oven four years ago. his own officers might agree with that assessment, sentimental, but he doubts minnie would ever think of him that way. he doesn’t want to know what minnie thinks of him, because what she thinks of him is probably on par on how he sees himself. what lily loved about rick, he’s never actually been sure, but those parts must’ve died with her. he’ll never take a hard enough look at himself to realize he thinks he’s unlovable, despite the therapist he sees every other week knowing that for years.
finally he sits up from the bed, petula roused lightly from her sleep but quickly laying her head back down. “i knocked off early. everyone’s mostly focused on foundation day coming up and planning that shit makes me want to shoot myself.” rick darkly jokes, his own morbid bon mot. it’s weird to curse in front of his daughter, but she’s an adult now, and he let out more swears in front of her than he remembers. even with his dark joke, rick shows up every year to man the barbecue pit as the captain always does. “are you thinking about going?” he doesn’t remember if she’s ever been to the foundation day celebration when she was a girl. then he gestures towards her ice cream, “is that all you’re going to have for dinner or should i get out some takeout menus?”
