Tall Coffee, No Room

The wind had just started to pick up when she saw him.

She stood outside the Starbucks, pretending to scroll on her phone. She’d gotten there ten minutes early on purpose, thinking she might feel more in control that way. But now that she saw him—broad-shouldered, graying at the temples, wearing a simple white t-shirt like he’d worn for as long as she could remember—she just felt small again.

He spotted her and gave a little wave. Not a full wave, more of a half-lifted hand, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be casual.

“Hi, baby,” he said as he reached her. His voice was soft, like he didn’t want to spook her.

She nodded. “Hey, Dad.”

They had just seen each other yesterday, when she was at the house doing laundry. She usually popped by on the weekends to do laundry.

Inside, the Starbucks was full of laptop people and old church ladies and the smell of dark roast. They found a table in the corner, next to a fake potted plant and a wall plug that no one was using.

She got a vanilla cold brew. He ordered a plain coffee, no room for cream.

“I didn’t think you’d say yes,” he said, settling in.

Jaime shrugged. “I was curious.”

That was only partly true. Her mom had no idea that they were meeting here. She couldn’t stand to be left out. Like a perpetual 13-year old girl, just the idea that the two of them would go anywhere without her but the grocery stores was mind blowing.

But Jaime was twenty-four now. She had recently moved back home while she completed her junior year of college and she paid for her own health insurance. She figured this was just a chance to connect over coffee.

“So, what’s new these days?” he asked, like this was a reunion.

“Busy. Working. Doing some freelance design stuff. You?”

He hesitated. “You know, the usual. Job’s been steady. Still at the hospital. Married life’s fine. Well—” He laughed nervously. “Mostly fine.”

She just sipped her drink.

There was a silence then. Not awkward, exactly—just thick. He cleared his throat.

“I don’t want this to be weird,” he said. “I didn’t ask to see you just to, you know, dump anything on you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Okay.”

“But I do—” He paused, picking at the sleeve of his coffee cup. “I do kind of need someone to talk to.”

Jaime blinked. “About what?”

He stared at the table for a long moment.

“There’s this woman,” he said finally. “At work. In nursing. Not that it’s… not what you think. But we’d been talking, texting now and then. Just… talking. We had a lot in common. She makes me really happy.”

Jaime said nothing.

He pressed on. “I think—I don’t know. I guess I maybe relied on her more than I meant to. Not in a bad way. I mean, your mom doesn’t know. And it’s not like I crossed a line or anything. I didn’t cheat. I wouldn’t do that. But I don’t get it, she just stopped responding to me…”

Jaime kept sipping.

“She just stopped. Last week. Just, like, dropped off the face of the earth. No replies. Nothing. I keep thinking, What did I say? What did I do? And I’ve been feeling... I don’t know. Sick about it.”

He rubbed his temple. “I didn’t know who else to talk to.”

Jaime looked at him then—really looked at him.

He still had that little scar above his eyebrow, from when he tried to build a treehouse for her and fell off the ladder. She remembered crying more than he did. He had been a good dad once. A long time ago.

But then, somewhere around her fifteenth birthday, she started to see him for who he really was. Showed up but…whiny.. Had “a lot going on.” He and her mom had issues and her mom was just “letting herself go.” Always complaining about her mother. Always some shitty comment. Why she was surprised that they had ended up here, at a starbucks of all places, she didn’t know.

And now he wanted to talk. Again.

To her.

About another woman.

“That’s rough,” she said, her voice dry.

He didn’t catch the tone. Or maybe he did and chose to ignore it.

“I just feel awful,” he went on. “It’s like—I counted on her, you know? Not in a romantic way, just… emotionally. She made me feel like someone saw me.”

Jaime shifted in her seat. “Do you talk to Mom like this?”

He flinched slightly. “No. I mean, your mom and I—we don’t really… She wouldn’t get it.”

“She might.”

He looked at her, expression wounded. “Look, I know I wasn’t there the way I should’ve been. I know you probably think I’m being dramatic or selfish or whatever. But I’m just—hurting. And I didn’t know where else to go.”

Jaime stared at her drink. The ice had melted, leaving the surface pale and diluted.

He was asking her to do something she didn’t know how to do.

Be the adult.

Be his mirror.

Be the daughter and the confidante.

She didn’t say anything.

After a while, he sighed. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I don’t know who to talk to, and I just need someone to hear me. I just thought—maybe you’d understand. I always thought we were kind of alike.”

Jaime gave a tired smile. He always needs someone to hear him. “I don’t have any married coworkers texting me, so I guess we’re different.”

He chuckled nervously. “Right. Yeah.”

They sat there in the humming silence of air conditioning and espresso machines. People came and went. The world spun on. “So… what have you told her about mom”, she finally asked him? He looked shocked at the question. Once that passed, he quickly averted his gaze to his cup. “Nothing, really…”he trailed off, but looked embarrassed. Finally, she thought, he looked ashamed. She felt ashamed, just hearing having this discussion. Knowing how insecure her mother was, had always been, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for all of them.

Eventually, he stood. “Well. I should head out. I’ve got OSHA prep work to get back to.”

She nodded and stood, too.

They looked out over the parking lot, both vehicles not far away.. He didn’t hug her. Just patted her shoulder and said, “Thanks for listening.”

Jaime watched him walk across the parking lot, shoulders hunched a little like he’d been carrying something heavier than he let on. He got into his beatdown Chevy truck—no nicer or worse off than they’d ever had—and drove away.

She stood there for a long time.

The sun was setting in a Kansas kind of way, flat and orange and wide as sin.

She felt… heavy. She felt bad. A little sick. Not angry. Not even sad, really.

Just…sick.

Like he’d given her a box of weight and a hint of the flu, and walked off with empty hands.

She didn’t have anything to say to her mom. Not now, not ever. That was their pact, right? Daddy’s little girl. His favorite, his one to listen when he ‘needed someone to talk to’.

But she would go home and wash her cup and maybe sketch something on her iPad and not tell anyone about the conversation—not because it was secret, but because there was nothing in it worth repeating.

No apology. No resolution. No mention ever again that the conversation had taken place.

Just a pathetic, old man who missed being seen.

And a girl who’d managed for years to get his attention by being his confidante—

And when she finally got what he needed from it, it seemed to stop mattering.