Chapter 9

"Grandpa isn't allowed to come by," Marc tried to explain it to her.

Ariel stared up at him, and then back at Brendan, probably wondering why he was involved. "By why?" Ariel asked the question that Marc didn't want to answer.

Brendan knelt down next to her then. "He's done a lot of mean things," he filled in. "And it's not safe. Masden talks about that with your class, right? Safety?"

"Yeah, but that's with strangers," Ariel pointed out wisely.

"Your grandpa is a little like that," Brendan told her. "So you can't go with him, if he ever tries to come and get you from school or anything. Okay?"

"Why?" she repeated the question.

Marc sighed and cupped his hands together. "Grandpa likes to hurt people. You know how you hit Eric? Like that."

"But he wouldn't do that to me," Ariel protested, though she didn't sound completely convinced. "Right?"

"I don't know, and I don't want to find out. I just know that when I wasn't much older than you, he would hurt me," Marc had to get it across.

Ariel seemed to understand a bit better then, fixing her eyes down on her feet with a frown. "Oh," was all she said.

"You still have plenty of people that love you," Brendan chimed in then. "Your dad does. I do, and Terri does too. She has a lot of fun doing art with you."

Marc set her upstairs with all of her art supplies then, and sighed out in the hallway. Brendan had followed him upstairs and leaned against the wall. "Have you talked to your dad yet?"

Marc shook his head. "I know I need to." Obviously he wasn't just going to get the hint, or he was going to show up at Ariel's school again or something.

"Just call him if that's what you're most comfortable with," Brendan said. "Or coffee in a public place."

"Calling him is probably better," Marc grumbled. He didn't want to have to see his dad's face and know what was coming. "But I'll do that later."

Brandon raised a disbelieving eyebrow but went with it. "Do you want me to stick around until dinner or something then?" he offered.

"Yeah, maybe show me how to make something other than soup," Marc snorted. They'd been having a lot of that recently, even though he'd been buying some more food. He just didn't know what to do with it all.

Brendan agreed and went downstairs to go through the kitchen. He pulled out whatever he deemed useful and then started looking up recipes on his phone. He helped Marc through the process of making something that involved a lot of oil and soy sauce with honey, and even though it involved only vegetables, tasted savory like meat.

"Do you think Ariel will eat it if I tell her what it is?" Marc wondered. So far, she wasn't actually that picky.

"She might. Or pull the ultimate parent and not tell her what it is until after she tries it," he chuckled.

"I'm not even sure what that is anyways. Ariel just wanted it because it was purple," Marc admitted.

"Eggplant," Brendan huffed. "Try a bite." He forked up some out of the pan and had Marc try a bite.

"How do you find recipes like that?" Marc questioned, actually quite pleased with that it wasn't disgusting.

"The internet, and Blueberry looks up a lot of them, and then I just copy what she does. She's the real cook of the house," Brendan explained.

"Is it going to be enough without meat or anything?" Marc wondered.

"Yeah, shouldn't be a problem. I get by just fine without meat," Brendan paused. "I'm vegetarian."

"Oh." Marc was sure there was a slew of questions he could ask about that, but he also figured most of them were without grounds. Obviously Brendan was healthy enough from eating vegetables.

They dished it up onto some plates and called Ariel down to eat. She eyed it suspiciously at first. "What is it?" she questioned.

"That purple thing you bought," Brendan informed simply enough.

She was excited for it then, and liked it after she took a bite. She was upset that it wasn't purple anymore though. After they ate they got Ariel to help with the cleaning up, and Brendan put some of the leftovers in to the fridge. "You can eat it cold or warm it up, either way," he said.

Ariel wanted to watch another movie afterwards, and Marc convinced her out of watching Lilo and Stitch. As much as he liked it, he was starting to get tired of it. Brendan picked out another movie for her to try, this time pulling Monsters Inc. out of his backpack.

"You carry movies around with you?" Marc questioned.

"I'll play movies when I'm at the studio, yeah," Brendan answered. "Set it up on my laptop and watch while I'm carving or something. I've got a few others too, but I think she's too young for them." He pulled out some animated movies that Marc didn't recognize, but looked like they had some Asian influences.

"When she's older she can watch Miyazaki films," Brendan stated. "But they might be a little scary for her right now."

"I could watch it," Ariel protested.

"You wouldn't want to," Brendan tried to sooth her. "You would want your dad to watch it with you or something, but not by yourself."

Marc was about to ask why she would be watching alone before remembering he had committed to placing a phone call. Brendan had set the movie up as a distraction for Ariel.

She gave in and Brendan hit the play on the movie. He and Marc went upstairs and into Marc's office with the door cracked, just in case they needed to hear anything out of Ariel.

"What do I tell him?" Marc asked again.

"The truth. You don't want him around Ariel, and you would appreciate it if he didn't call or come over. Or if you want to be more blunt about it, he's not allowed to see Ariel anymore or you'll call the police," Brendan said it like it was easy, but Marc knew it would go very differently over the phone.

He sighed and tried calling his father anyways. Usually it was his dad calling him and not the other way around. He did answer, sounding tentative over the phone. "Hey, dad," Marc greeted, trying to at least sound somewhat normal. "I need to tell you something."

"Can't you and Ariel just come over for that?" he tried.

"No," Marc answered instantly. That part wasn't hard. "Actually it's about that. The more thought I've put into it, the more I've decided that I don't think you should come around. No more showing up at Ariel's school, no more phone calls for dinner invites, and no more coming over." He at least managed to sound firm when he said it, becoming more set in what he was saying as he went on.

His dad was quiet on the other line for a moment. "Why?"

"You know why," Marc snapped. "I don't want you hurting her."

"She needs her family. And I haven't done anything to her," his dad continued to protest.

"You haven't had the chance to do anything because I won't let it happen," Marc corrected him. "And she'll be just fine without you. We don't see you much anyways."

"Obviously something has happened," his dad didn't sound convinced. "And maybe we should talk about this another time."

"There's nothing else to talk about," Marc groaned. "I'm saying to stay away, okay? Otherwise, I'll get child protective services involved." He wasn't sure what evidence would be involved, but hopefully the threat of it would be enough.

"Fine," his dad agreed sourly. "I'll still try and call—"

"No," Marc cut him off. "I don't even want that much from you. Good-bye." He hung up quickly before he could lose much more of his backbone.

He gave Brendan an owl-eyed look, still not registering what had happened. Marc wondered how true his father would hold to it—and it was weird to think that it might just be that easy as never seeing him again, and not having to worry.

Brendan smiled and gave Marc a one-armed hug. "Give it a day or two and you'll feel better about it," Brendan said. "You should be proud of yourself for that."

***

Now that Ariel had started watching Monsters Inc. incessantly, she then decided she wanted to show it to Eric, which meant setting up another play date. Marc figured that it was a good thing that she was up to two friends now, though it had only been Eric that he had met so far.

Marc just wasn't sure he wanted to put in the effort of having to interact with other people. He and Alice just set up at the kitchen table and worked through the movie again. He was slightly curious about her personally—they hadn't really talked and he wondered if she was still married, or how things were with her parents.

Was that really an okay thing to ask though? Marc sighed and cursed himself for being so bad at these things. He and Brendan were only friends really because Brendan had forced his way in. And apparently it looked like they were dating or something.

He was still slightly stuck on that. Marc knew he wanted to change things, but even that was different. He had always debated the idea of other men, but all it took was one good rant from his father to put him off and into dating women, because that's what he was supposed to do. But was it really a possibility for him?

And obviously Brendan had everything so figured out, when Marc was just barely out from under his father's thumb. It didn't mean he couldn't talk to Brendan though.

Though if there was anything Marc might be able to talk to Alice about, it was handling kids. He gave her one last glance and made himself speak up. "Is Eric's father around?"

Alice gave him a suspicious look. "Why?"

Marc gestured over to Alice and lowered her voice. "Her mom left two years ago, and I was only just wondering if you might have some advice."

"Do they talk?" Alice asked. "because sometimes that's a big thing. My husband goes off on a lot of business, and obviously it's not that he doesn't want Eric, but it makes it hard. So he makes sure to talk to Eric a couple of times a week, and sends gifts, so on... to let Eric know that he's being thought of."

Marc nodded. It wasn't a bad idea, but with his ex-wife being in Europe he didn't know how the time difference worked and all. Maybe it would mean writing some letters instead, since Ariel was learning that. But Marc would have to see if his ex-wife even wanted that.

The movie finished, so Alice cleared herself and Eric out to go home. Ariel ran upstairs to go draw up in her art room, and Marc kept working at the table. He switched between the internet and his work, remembering what Brendan had said about counseling and wondering if he should go through anything like that.

He Googled a few options and did some research, just keeping a few names in mind since he didn't really know what he was looking for. He e-mailed them onto Brendan without anything else aside from the link to their websites. Brendan would know what it was for.