Page 87 of I Accidentally Summoned A Demon
Allen’s gaze drifted to Kat as they strolled down the sidewalk. “Why didn’t you tell me something was wrong?”
Kat tugged on the fringe at the ends of her scarf. “I didn’t want to make it into a big thing.”
“Katherine.” Allen sighed. “I know you’re private, but if something like that’s happening, I need to be informed. I can’t have people making the young women in our church feel uncomfortable in a place that should be safe.”
Kat chewed her lip. “You’re right. I’ll tell you if it happens again.”
Allen smiled, but Kat didn’t feel much like smiling. The way Gabriel looked at her made the hair on her neck stand up. The same way it did every time she passed the church recently.
She side-stepped a telephone pole. “Have you been at the church a lot the last couple of weeks at night?”
“No. Grace has had several photoshoots at night, and she wanted me with her, so I’ve been tied up with that. Unfortunately, all our elders have been busy too. I’ve had to lock the church. I did post a sign with phone numbers and directions to shelters in case anyone came by.”
Kat frowned. It wasn’t Pastor Brighton. Someone else had been in the church. Someone who shouldn’t have been because the door was locked. Kat shivered, and her gaze dropped to the snowy ground dirtied with muddy shoe prints.
Am I reading too much into it, or do I need to be worried?Since the accident, she didn’t trust herself not to be paranoid. The first few months after it happened, she struggled, saw things that weren’t there, and got jumpy and anxious for no reason. For all she knew, she’d imagined the movement. She didn’tactuallysee anyone.
Not wanting to think about the accident or talk about Gabriel, she went for the least obvious subject change. “How’s Grace doing?”
Allen’s oldest daughter was an aspiring model. She was stunning inside and out. Although Kat wasn’t close friends with her, they were the same age, and Kat knew her well from growing up in church together.
A smile spread across Allen’s face. “She’s doing well. Her last agent wasn’t a great fit, but this new one is wonderful. She’s secured all kinds of contracts that Gracie’s excited about. Sometimes Gracie gets nervous about shooting at night, so I go with her and work on my sermons. I don’t mind. She amazes me with her poise under pressure. Must be something she learned from her mother because she certainly didn’t learn it from me.” He chuckled. “I’m proud of her.”
“That’s great.” They paused in front of Kat’s house.
Allen stared with a sad expression at the home noticeably dark compared to the rest of the street full of Christmas lights. “No Christmas decorations this year?”
Kat fiddled with the buttons on her coat. “No. I,” she kicked at the snow, “um, couldn’t.” She took a deep breath and stuck her hands into her pockets. “It’s stupid and silly, but I couldn’t.”
“You don’t have to explain.” He inclined his head to the bench on Kat’s covered porch. “Do you have a minute?”
Kat waved him ahead, and they sat. Nex was out with Lucian. He’d started turning on the lights inside when he was home so he wouldn’t startle Kat. The lights were off, so she had time to talk.
Allen leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You know, sometimes it’s terrifying to be a parent to girls. This world we live in, it’s scary. Gracie asks me to attend photoshoots because she’s often in a studio alone with two male photographers. That, and she has to park downtown and walk alone after dark to get there. I wish we didn’t live in a world where my daughter was scared to go to work and walk down a street, but we do, and I don’t blame her for being scared. I’m scared.” He clasped his hands together. “I’m glad she asks me to go. I wish things were different, but it’s how it is, and at least I can say I’m glad my daughter knows she can come to me when she’s scared. Sometimes,” he glanced at Kat, “we need help when someone makes us uncomfortable, and that’s okay.”
Kat’s lips pulled down. Even if she wasn’t sure how much of it was paranoia, it was better to be safe. Pastor Brighton knowing Gabriel bothered her was good, but maybe she needed to tell Nex.
“You know the other thing that’s hard about having girls?” Allen continued. “I try to bring them up right. I encourage them to be themselves, to know their value, to feel comfortable in their skin, and be anything they want to be. But society tells them something else.” He dragged his shoe across the porch to scrape off the snow. “Society tells them to be, look, and act a certain way. That there’s only one way to be beautiful and successful. Hope’s on this kick of wanting to be a firefighter. She talked me into buying her an outfit and everything. She walks around the house with this pretend hose, putting outfires.” He made air quotes with his fingers. “Saves her stuffed animals from burning buildings.” He laughed. “It’s adorable, and I encourage it. If my daughter wants to be a firefighter, she can be a firefighter.”
Despite the uneasiness from Gabriel, Kat smiled. Hope was Allen’s youngest—six years old and an absolute delight. All his daughters were. His whole family was warm and welcoming.
“One day, Hope went to school wearing her outfit, and a boy told her she couldn’t be a firefighter. Only boys are firefighters. When she cried, he said that’s exactly why only boys can be firefighters, because girls are too emotional.” Allen rolled his eyes. “Something his parents taught him, I’m sure. So, Myra and I had to explain sexism to our six-year-old. She’ssix. My girl shouldn’t have to worry about things like that, but it starts young and doesn’t stop. It’s a constant battle. You know one of the more important things I wish I could get through to them?”
Kat twisted on the bench to face him. “What?”
He turned toward her as well. “To have compassion for themselves. Life can be difficult. People can be cruel, sometimes consciously and sometimes not. Things go wrong. Accidents happen. Biases exist though they shouldn’t, and it affects us more than we’d like to admit. Then there’s outside pressure telling us there’s an appropriate way to react. Gracie had a fellow model mock her for bringing me with her.” He pressed his lips into a thin line. “She told her she was a bad role model for needing a man with her, and that was something Gracie already felt self-conscious about.”
“She shouldn’t feel that way.” Kat breathed on her hands to warm them. “Everyone has their own levels of comfort.”
“I agree.” Allen rested his palms on his knees. “And Gracie does too, but it doesn’t mean those words don’t affect her. Hope knows she can be what she wants. It doesn’t mean that boy’s words didn’t hurt. Then there’s Faith.” He ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Faith struggles with self-esteem. Myra and I tell her she’s beautiful, but thirteen’s a difficult age. Half of her friends dress up and wear makeup. The other half say that conforms to society, making her feel guilty if she puts in extra effort. All three of my girls have these struggles.” His downcast eyes and sad expression made Kat’s heart ache. “Gracie feels like being scared makes her weak. Faith feels like she’s not pretty enough but doesn’t want to trytoohard. Hope feels bad that she cried and gave that boy more firepower. My girls come home, and they’re so hard on themselves because there’s outside pressure pulling them in different directions, telling them that to be aproperfemale, they must be soft but not too soft, strong but not too strong, pretty but not too pretty. Crying makes you emotional, but if you don’t, you’re cold and heartless. That’s an awful amount of pressure to put on girls so young.”
Kat made a face. “It’s unfair.” She had no idea the girls were going through so much. It had been a long time since she had dinner at their house.
“It is unfair. People think there’s one right way to go through something, and that’s not true. If Gracie’s scared, she should be able to ask me to be there. If Faith wants to dress a certain way to feel good about herself, she should. And Hope should be able to be what she wants and cry if she needs to. There’s no one right way of handling these scenarios. We all have struggles we have no control over that make life difficult. Knowing that everyone struggles in their own unique ways should make us compassionate to one another and to ourselves, don’t you think?”
Kat stared at her lap. He had a lesson coming.
He set his hand on her shoulder. “It’s not stupid or silly that you don’t have decorations out.”
