Ten Minutes on a Bench

The red light on Jenna’s desk phone flashed three times before the corporate receptionist patched the call through.

“Jenna Hayes,” she said.

“Jenna.” Her father’s voice sounded thin, like dry paper dragged over stone. “Don’t hang up. The front desk said you had ten minutes.”

Jenna pressed her lips into a flat line. Her seventh-floor office looked down over High Street, where city buses exhaled exhaust into the midday heat.

“You called the switchboard, Robert.”

“Your cell blocked my number,” he said. His breath hitched through the receiver. “I’m downstairs. Across the street by the fountain. Just ten minutes on the bench. If you tell me to go, I’ll take the bus home.”

She checked her watch. It was twelve past one.

“Ten minutes,” she said. “Beside the coffee kiosk.”

She hung up, took her badge, and rode the elevator down to the lobby.

The summer heat hit her through the revolving doors. Across four lanes of midday traffic, Robert sat under a pin oak on a green bench. His silver sedan was gone; he had ridden the city transit line down from the northern suburbs. His polo shirt hung loose over his chest, the stiff edge of his back brace showing through the fabric.

He pushed off his knees as her shadow fell across the concrete.

“Sit down,” Jenna said. She took the far end of the wooden slats, leaving three feet between them.

Robert dropped back down. He stared down into his lap at his cracked knuckles.

“David told me what happened,” Jenna said. “He told me about Brooke and the screen door.”

“David told the truth,” Robert said. He reached inside his windbreaker and pulled out a legal envelope, creased from his pocket. He laid it flat on the wood. “I pulled the statements from the credit union. Twenty-two months.”

Jenna did not touch the paper. “What is that?”

“Twelve hundred a month,” he said, his voice hoarse. “That’s twenty-six thousand four hundred dollars. Plus the two hundred and fifty every month for Brooke’s car insurance. Another thirty-five hundred.”

He rubbed the gray stubble along his jaw.

“I listed the bass boat with the Sandusky broker this morning,” he said. “He expects thirty-one thousand by next week. The money goes straight to you.”

Jenna looked at the creased envelope. “You spent six years saving for that boat.”

“I took money meant for my granddaughter and handed it to a bully,” he said. He looked up, his eyes bloodshot and wet. “I knew what Brooke was. But she screams until your mother chokes on panic. You never screamed. You solved problems and paid bills, so I piled the weight on you because you didn’t fight back.”

His fist struck his own thigh once.

“I let her pull the plate from Lily’s fingers,” he said. “I saw my granddaughter’s chin shake, and I told you to keep quiet so Brooke wouldn’t take the boys away. And she took them anyway the second the card stopped working.”

“Keep the boat,” Jenna said.

Robert blinked. “It belongs to you.”

“I don’t want your cash, Robert. I want my daughter to never wonder why she was second best.”

“She wasn’t,” he whispered, bending forward until his forehead hovered above his knees. “God forgive me. She never was.”

Jenna stood as the municipal clock chimed half past the hour. “David’s engagement dinner is in two weeks downtown. If you come, you sit there as a grandfather who earned his chair.”

She turned toward High Street, leaving the envelope resting between the empty slats.