The Devil's Pet

Chapter 2

Friday, June 13, 2008

Although it should be cooler, now that the Sun was setting, the heat of the day continued to ooze out from the ocean of concrete and skyscrapers in downtown Chicago.

The first heat wave of summer had arrived.

Not the slightest breeze intervened, except for the air thrown off by passing cars. Sean breathed in the noxious mix of humidity and car exhaust in the heavy air that smothered all other scents. He was wearing a suit for the occasion, and was dripping sweat after leaving the air conditioned restaurant to follow Cathy.

His carefully planned dinner, turned out to be a smashing failure.

Sean wished he could take it back and script a wonderful evening with Cathy to celebrate her college graduation. Instead, she was storming three paces ahead of him breathing fire, her heels pounding the sidewalk like stiletto jackhammers.  

After they had traveled another block in silence she whirled around and began a verbal assault, waving her arms in the air for added effect, “I can’t believe you!  Dad, what’s wrong with you?  You tell me you want to take me out to a nice dinner, you tell me how proud you are, then you embarrass yourself--and me, in front of everyone at the restaurant. So what if that man was staring at me? You didn’t have to be nasty like that. You could’ve just let it go. So what if he was a jerk? He wasn’t bothering anyone--only you did that. I can’t believe you yelled at him like that. Thank God they didn’t throw us out!”

Cathy stood on the sidewalk in front of Sean, hands on her hips, looking like her mother. He could tell she was waiting for an answer.

When she didn’t get one quickly enough, she said, “Don’t just stand there looking at me like some hurt puppy, say something!”

Cars rolled past them slowing down, allowing the passengers more time to watch the fight. It seemed to Sean, that everyone liked to watch other people’s misery. He remembered seeing a documentary which showed how monkeys always gathered in a circle to watch a fight and thought, what a sorry bunch of mammals we all are. Here in the middle of a modern, man made city, with planes flying overhead, and people driving cars, we still can’t help acting like monkeys.

A tear rolled down his cheek as he said, “I’m sorry, honey. I know I shouldn’t have acted like that. It’s my fault, and you have every right to be angry with me. But can you please forgive a flawed father who loves his girl more than anything else in the world? I know I can be a jerk. I’m trying to be better. Please consider me a work in progress.”

“You’re fifty years old,” Cathy said, “how much more time do you need for improvement?”

Sean replied “Some of us are more special than others; me? I’m a late bloomer.”

He wiped his face with his sleeve and gave a big smile to his girl.

“No! No, no way you’re going to smile your way out of this one. You promised you’d behave, you promised!  God, sometimes you drive me crazy. When you act like that I can’t believe I’m related to you.”

Sean gazed with a loving eye at his daughter. She appeared beautiful to him, lit up with emotion and the last rays of the fading Sun. She was all he had left in his life after Paula was killed. He became overprotective of her to the point that he had a short stint with therapy sessions. It seemed to help, but he had flair ups from time to time, like tonight.

A middle-aged man sitting at a nearby table had been staring at Cathy. This wasn’t uncommon as she was a beautiful girl, and looked especially nice tonight because of her graduation. He didn’t like that she was wearing a revealing low cut, black party dress. Add the tall heels plus make-up and it made her look too available for his taste.