The Illegitimate Daughter: A Modern Family Fanfiction

by: cooopercrisp

Chapter 10: He's Coming Home

Phil awoke to the smell of coffee wafting into the guestroom where he had been sleeping. It was Wednesday, and it had been about a week since he had left the house with Luke. He checked the time on the alarm clock on the nightstand next to his bed. It read 8:11 AM. Figuring it was time to face the day, he dragged himself out of bed and downstairs to the kitchen. When he got down there he saw Frank sitting at the kitchen table.

"I figured the smell of coffee would get you to come down here," Frank said, his eyes twinkling as he looked at Phil. "It always did."

"Did Luke come down yet?" Phil asked groggily, letting out a loud yawn as he stretched his arms.

"Haven't seen him," Frank said. "Phil, I think we need to talk about your game plan going forward."

"What plan? I don't have a plan."

"All the more reason to make one! I'll get you a cup o' Joe and we can talk man-to-man."

"Um, okay," Phil said hesitantly, taking a seat across from Frank's chair as Frank got up to pour Phil a cup of coffee.

"I've never seen my dad this serious," Phil reflects. "I mean, I know he's been through a lot, but I wasn't expecting him to directly attack the problem." He leans closer and starts to whisper. "Look, I'm gonna be completely honest, part of the reason I went to his house was to avoid the whole thing. But I was only thinking short-term, so when he started talking about a 'game plan' I got really nervous."

"Dad, what exactly are we talking about here?" Phil asked. "What is this game plan we're trying to make?"

"To help you patch things up with Claire," Frank said matter-of-factly. "I'm not about to see my son go through a nasty divorce over some misunderstanding."

"It's not a misunderstanding," Phil said. "She deliberately lied to me for twenty years about my oldest daughter. That's not something you just get over."

"It's not something you can run away from, either," Frank said. "You still have responsibilities as a father. Maybe not so much to Haley, since she's over eighteen, but Alex needs her dad around and Luke can't be on the run with you forever, he's got school to go back to in the fall. You need to set things right with Claire, if not for her sake or even your sake, then for the sake of your kids."

Phil took a sip of coffee and put it down, a large frown on his face. "I know my kids need me, Dad, but I don't think I can be the same dad I was before."

"Who said anything about being the same?" Frank asked. "I'm not expecting your family to go back to normal like nothing happened. You gotta start changing some things if you're gonna learn to readjust the family dynamic."

"When did you get so insightful?" Phil asked. "We've never had conversations like this."

"A lot changed when your mother died," Frank said. "I had pains in my chest when I found out, and silly old me thought it was something I ate! But once I sat down long enough to actually pay attention to how I was feeling, I sobbed and sobbed, regretting being so emotionally distant with her and with you growing up. It's too late for me to fix what broke between your mother and I, but you and I still have a chance, and you and Claire still have a chance." Frank put his hand on top of Phil's. "Don't make the same mistakes I made. Talk it out, work it out, because you never know when that day will come that you won't get a chance to fix what's broken, and by then it will be too late." Frank started to tear up, so he took his hand away and wiped his eye with it. Phil took a deep breath, and a few tears of his own fell into his cup of coffee.

They heard a shuffling noise and turned as Luke came down the stairs and entered the kitchen. "I heard talking," he said. "What's going on?"

"Just having a little heart-to-heart with your dad here," Frank said.

Phil said nothing, but he rose from the table and gave Luke one of the tightest hugs he could ever remember giving him. Luke stood there awkwardly at first, not knowing what to do with this sudden display of affection, but eventually he returned the hug.

"Luke, I love you," Phil said. "I'm sorry if I don't say it enough."

"You say it enough, Dad," Luke said. "What's going on? You look really out of it."

"We've got a lot to talk about," Phil said, "and I just got a great idea. Luke, let's just take a drive."

"What are you talking about, Dad? Where are we going?"

"Anywhere, nowhere, it doesn't matter," Phil said. "There's gonna be some big changes coming, and we need to work out what we're doing."

"I don't get it," Luke said. "What does that mean?"

"We've gotta talk about getting you home," Phil said, "about getting us home."

"We've gotta go back? After what she did to you?"

"That's no way to talk about your mother," Frank scolded. "Phil will explain everything on the drive, I'm sure."

"I'll do my best," he said, "so let's grab you something to eat, get dressed, and we'll get going."

"Okay, I guess," Luke said, rolling his eyes.

"I should've known my dad was gonna be a pushover!" Luke says bitterly. "He's always caving in to what Mom wants, and now he's gonna go back to her even after all the lies she's told him. If it were me, I would never want to go back, but I had no choice. I was stuck with my dad, and if he decided going back was the right thing to do, there wasn't much I could do about it."

"My son's reaction was...disappointing, to say the least," Phil said. "I was hoping he'd be a bit more mature about the whole thing. But I had a car full of gas and nothing but time and a winding road to work out whatever we were gonna work out. I just hoped I'd be able to convince him, even if I wasn't completely convinced myself."

"Ready to go?" Phil asked once he had met Luke out at the front door.

"Yeah, let's go," Luke said with a sigh. Phil grabbed the keys to the car and waved goodbye to Frank as he left the house. Neither Phil nor Luke said anything until they got into the car.

"Before we go, let's put the top down," Phil said. "It's so nice outside today." He pressed a button, and the top of the car gradually began to retract. Phil smiled at Luke as the roof retracted above them, but Luke rolled his eyes and stared out the window.

"Buddy," Phil said. "I know you're mad at your mother, but we've gotta be realistic here. We can't stick around here forever. You've got school, and I've got a job I've been neglecting the past week."

"How are your clients gonna feel?" Luke asked.

"Luckily I haven't missed any meetings or open houses, but I can't just idle by and let guys like Gil Thorpe sweep the rug out from under me."

"So that's it, huh?" Luke asked while Phil backed out of the driveway. "You have to go back to the house because you have to be responsible?"

"I don't expect you to understand this while you're so young," Phil said. They were cruising smoothly down the road, headed away from the city.

"Hold on, Dad, I've been thinking about this," Luke said, "and I want to have my say."

"Go ahead, buddy," Phil said. "I'm listening."

"I had no idea what he was gonna say," Phil explains, looking at me in earnest. "I don't ever see him get riled up or angry, but he's been so angry at his mom for the past few days that I was a little scared about what was gonna come out of his mouth."

"Think about what you had to do with your life, Dad," Luke said, "or what you thought you had to do. You got caught with a broken condom, rushed into marriage, and had to settle down and start raising a family. Fast forward twenty years, and now you don't even know if Haley is actually yours. What if she hadn't been yours? What could you have done with that time?"

"I couldn't believe what my son was saying to me," Phil says, "but it was totally outrageous. He thinks he knows so much about life because he's at that age where you think you know everything. What he doesn't realize is that life has a way of throwing curve balls at you, and you can't always knock them out of the park."

"I have to stop you there, Luke," Phil said. "There was nothing I wanted more than to start a family with Claire. I was asking her to marry me over and over again. Turns out she was the wild child that had to settle down, so if you're gonna confront anyone about living a life of regret, you should talk to her. And we'll be getting a chance to do that sooner than you think."

"Ugh, I still can't believe you want to go back," Luke said. "She totally betrayed your trust on every level, what could you possibly want from her now?"

"Luke, we have over two decades of history together," Phil said. "I can't just throw that away, no matter how much I was thinking about it when she first told me. And I can't keep running away from this. You remember The Lion King, right?"

"Yeah, I used to watch it all the time growing up," Luke said. "I think I have the whole movie memorized by now."

"Well Simba spent his whole life running away from his problems after his dad died, and while he was gone Pride Rock became a wasteland. He was living the carefree life, but his family was back home and they needed him to go back to make things right. Luke, we have Alex going off to school soon, four cars to keep in repair, a mortgage to pay. Claire can't handle that all by herself, and what do you think will happen to your sisters if they can't afford the house?"

"Dad had a really good point there," Luke says, "but I was really feeling stubborn, and I just sat there thinking of ways to prove him wrong. Then something actually did come to me."

"Dad, why doesn't she just go back to whoever that guy was that might have been Haley's father?" Luke asked. "He could step up and take care of the family he should have taken care of a long time ago."

"No way in hell," Phil said. "I love you and my daughters way too much to let some sleaze move into our house and raise you in my place. That's absolutely out of the question." With that, Phil stopped the car in the middle of the road. They were on the outskirts of town, where there was very little traffic.

"What are you doing?" Luke asked.

"We're going back to my dad's," Phil said, "and we're driving back home. Sorry if you don't like it, but I'm going to do whatever it takes to get my family back, whether you like it or not."

"At first I was really angry at him," Luke explains, "and on the ride back to Grandpa's house I just sat there sulking. But then I realized that my dad wanted to fight for our family, and he wasn't gonna let anything tear it apart, and I realized then how much he cared about us. I had to apologize when I realized that."

"I'm sorry, Dad," Luke said. "You're right about trying to go back home. I'm really glad you're fighting so hard to keep us together as a family."

"You don't have to apologize, Luke," Phil said. "I know why you were upset, and I know how much teenagers rebel against their parents. But I'm glad you've come around, and I'm glad I've come around too, to be honest."

"So we're gonna go home right away?" Luke asked.

"I can't wait anymore, I've been gone too long and there's too much work to do. Here, let's throw on some music to get us pumped up on the ride back." Phil turned the radio on, and he found a station with an upbeat song to put him in an energized mood.

When they arrived back at Frank's house, Phil rolled the top back up on the car, and he and Luke hustled inside.

"Luke, why don't you get your stuff packed," Phil said as they went into the house. "I'm gonna call Claire and tell her to be expecting us to come back home."

Frank came up to Phil, beaming and offering a hug, which Phil accepted.

"You're doing the right thing," Frank said. "I'm so proud of you."

"I have a family to fight for," Phil said, "and I'm not about to give it up that easily. I have to call Claire."

"Go ahead, I won't get in the way," Frank said. Phil found his cell phone charging in the living room and dialed the number.

"I was really nervous making that phone call," Phil recalls. "I had so much to say to Claire, and I had no idea how I was going to say it. I was so jittery that I decided to save the details for when I got back home, and just tell her that I was on my way."

"The phone rang," Claire says, "and when I saw Phil's name I nearly jumped out of my skin. I was afraid he was gonna lay into me again, so I was really scared to pick up the phone at first."

"Who's calling?" Alex asked.

"It's your father," Claire said.

"What are you waiting for? Answer it!"

"Okay, okay!" Claire said, receiving the call and putting the phone to her ear. "H-hi, Phil."

"Claire, I'm coming home," Phil said.

Claire started to shake and tears immediately began to well up in her eyes. "That's great, Phil. I can't wait to see you and Luke again."

"Dad's coming home?" Alex asked, rushing over to Claire's side to try to listen in on the conversation.

"Claire, I'm going to take you up on that family therapy as well," Phil said. "I was wrong before, it's absolutely the right step and it was really thoughtful of you to set it up."

"You will? You're actually coming home and doing therapy with us?"

"What's going on?" Haley asked, walking slowly into the kitchen.

"Dad's coming back," Alex said. Haley's eyes opened wide and she started to tremble.

"He is?" she asked timidly.

"He's doing family therapy as well," Alex said. "Isn't this great?"

"Yeah, it is," Haley said, almost as if in a trance. "I think I need to sit down." Haley walked away, leaving Alex in the kitchen with Claire.

"Phil, believe me, I am so sorry about everything I've done. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to be honest with you from the start."

"Claire, let's just set this aside for now. We'll talk about it in therapy. Just because I'm coming back doesn't mean I'm ready to forgive you. There's still a lot we need to talk about."

"Yes, I understand," Claire said, "but it's really great that you're coming back home."

"I feel good about it, too," Phil said. "Look, I wanna head out so we can beat traffic. See you in a bit."

"Okay, bye Phil," Claire said. Phil hung up, and Claire shortly followed.

"He's coming back," she said to Alex. Alex hugged her, and Claire held her close and kissed her head. "I missed him so much."

"We all did," Alex said.

"Where's Haley?" Claire asked. Alex led her into the living room, where Haley seemed to be staring into space.

"Your father is coming home," Claire told her. Haley blinked a few times and turned back to Claire.

"I almost don't want to believe it," Haley said, "in case something happens that takes him away again." She suddenly stood up off the couch and glared at Claire. "You're not hiding anything else from us that could make him leave again, are you?"

"Haley, I swear to God, this is the only secret I've ever kept from Phil."

"You'd better be telling the truth, or I'll be following Dad right out the door and you'll never see either of us again, you hear me?" Her voice cracked a bit at the end of her proclamation, and she raised a hand to her mouth and sat back down, starting to tremble again.

"Haley, I know it's hard," Claire said as Alex sat down next to Haley to comfort her. "Believe me, I recognize that I've been given a second chance, and there's no way in hell I'm going to let that slip away. Phil is the love of my life, he's the one I chose to be your father, and I'm gonna fight like hell to keep him in our lives. I never want to go through the pain of these last few days ever again, not knowing if he or Luke are ever going to come back."

"I don't either," Haley said, turning her face away to look out the window as if expecting Phil and Luke to drive up at any moment.

"Well, we can't just sit around waiting for them," Claire said. "They're going to be a while coming home. I have to add a bit more to tonight's dinner, and Alex I'm sure you have some studying to do."

"Yeah, you're right about that, Mom," Alex said. "Haley, what are you gonna do?"

"I know exactly what I want to do," Haley said, pulling out her cell phone.

"I wanted to make a phone call to Andy to keep him up to date on what's been going on," Haley tells me. "He's been so supportive these past few days, especially during our date a week ago, that I wanted to let him know if anything big happened. Well, having Dad and Luke come home is a big deal, so the choice was obvious."

"Hey, Andy?" Haley asked.

"Haley? Everything okay?" Andy asked in response.

"Yeah, things are good. Dad and Luke are coming home."

Andy and Haley both smiled wide. "That's great news, Haley! You must be super excited for him to come back."

"Yeah, I don't think we've been apart this long since I went to college. You know, it's kinda funny."

"What's funny?"

Haley started twirling her hair. "I guess I didn't realize how much I missed him until now, when I know he's coming back."

"I think I can relate," Andy said. "I miss my dad every day, but sometimes it's more than others. Are you expecting him back anytime soon or is it still gonna be a while?"

"Probably not that much longer. Grandpa Frank lives kinda close."

"Well, I don't want to hold you up," Andy said.

"No, no, don't hang up," Haley implored him. "I kinda need to pass the time until he gets back."

"Well, I guess I should tell you then that I'm at your other grandfather's house watching Joe," Andy said. "I don't really want to get so distracted that the little guy hurts himself, you know?"

"Damn," Haley said. "You're right, though. I didn't realize. I assumed you didn't have anything going on, sorry."

"No need to apologize," Andy said. "You know I'd stay on the phone for hours if I could. Now's just a bad time. Hey, how about we talk tonight once you've had a chance to catch back up with your dad and brother?"

Haley smiled. "That sounds great."

"Perfect. You can call me whenever you get a free moment. Talk to you then. Bye."

"Bye, Andy," Haley said, hanging up feeling relieved of a tension she hadn't noticed was there while she was talking to Andy.

"I guess I thought he was avoiding me, for some stupid reason," Haley says. "So when he told me he wanted to catch up tonight, I was glad that he wasn't completely blowing me off. I don't even know why I thought he was blowing me off, I guess I'm just feeling...insecure? That's really weird for me. I'm like always super confident so I don't know where the hell I got the idea...you know what? I guess it's not important."

Haley was left sitting on the couch scrolling through her Facebook account passively, barely looking at the various status updates her friends were posting. Intermittently she looked out the window to see if Phil and Luke were coming down the street, but then she returned to her phone, stuck in a limbo between the two activities.

"Everything okay in there?" Claire called from the kitchen. "You're awfully quiet."

"I'm fine, Mom," Haley said, rolling her eyes. "Just nervous about Dad and Luke coming home."

"Me too, Haley," Claire said, "but I think we're excited for two different reasons." She stepped into the living room. "You sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine, Mom, really," Haley said. "I think I'd rather be left alone now, okay?"

"Honestly, I couldn't tell you why I was shutting her out," Haley explains. "Maybe I'm still bitter about what she did and that she's the reason Dad stormed out of here with Luke. But she looked like she was at least trying to fix what was wrong, so I couldn't have been too mad at her...could I?" She looks at me as if expecting an answer. "Neutral observer, ugh. Whatever, it doesn't matter, I can figure this shit out in family therapy. That's the whole reason we're going, right?"

"I had to expect a total shutout from Haley," Claire says. "Honestly, that shouldn't come as a surprise at this point. But it still hurt being given the cold shoulder from my daughter, and even worse knowing that it was totally my fault." Claire groans and pulls at her hair. "I'm sick of the self-pity I'm giving myself. I thought I was above that. But that's why I'm in therapy, and that's why we were going to go to family therapy in the first place."

"Okay, I'll be in the kitchen if you change your mind," Claire said, stepping back awkwardly.

Haley went back to her phone. Part of her just wanted to leave the house, but then she wouldn't be there to greet Phil and Luke when they came back home. Alex was busy with her work, so she couldn't go up to talk to her either. The thought to call Phil and Luke crossed her mind but only filled her with more anxiety, so that was out of the question as well.

"I had nothing to do," Haley recalls "It was either talk to Mom or do nothing. Yeah, I mean, in retrospect I could have maybe called Manny or something, but he put off a real creepy vibe last time I talked to him, so I guess that would have been a bad idea, too. So I decided to go to the kitchen and try to talk to Mom."

"Hi, Mom," Haley said.

Claire was busy carving extra chicken for the first full dinner with the entire Dunphy household in over a week, but she still smiled at Haley while working. "Out of options?" she joked.

"It's not like that," Haley said with a sigh.

"You don't have to pretend, Haley," Claire said. "I know you don't want to talk to me. You know, things are gonna be uneasy when Phil and Luke come back home, and I'm nervous about that."

"I just want to see them again. I miss them."

"Me, too," Claire said, beginning to bread the chicken in breadcrumbs. "I'm not sure what the dinner table's gonna be like tonight."

"Hopefully we can just eat like a normal family," Haley said. "You go to therapy on Thursdays, right?"

"Yeah, so tomorrow's the day you'd be coming in. I have to call Dr. Sampson and tell him to expect all of us for tomorrow."

"Yeah," Haley said. "I'm really nervous about that, too."

"I know, honey," Claire said. "There's so much that's up in the air around all this. But with the three of you kids on summer break, we've got nothing but time to start figuring this out, and I think we can really pull together here and get past this."

"Ugh, could you stop being a mom for like two seconds?" Haley asked. "I'm not a teenager anymore. We should be able to talk like adults."

"Wow, I didn't expect to hear that coming from Haley," Claire says. "Look, I don't want to say she's immature, but it still caught me by surprise that she said something that, well...grown-up. I was wondering if the past couple of days has really made her start thinking about how she faces life, and if this ends up being the thing she needed to really come into her own as an adult, then maybe that's something positive that came out of this." Claire looks out the window and sighs. "Or maybe that's just my wishful thinking."

"Haley, you're right," Claire said, going to chop extra potatoes. "Talking like two adults is something I've always wanted the two of us to do ever since you turned eighteen. But with what happened when you went to school and how you've struggled since then, it's been kinda hard to do that."

Haley's nostrils flared, but she took a breath and calmed down. "I guess I see your point," she said, "all the shit I've had to go through the past couple years. Hey, do you remember I was trying to write my college essay and was bitching that I hadn't faced any adversity?"

"I abandoned you on the side of the road," Claire said with a grimace. "Not my finest hour as a mom."

"Well, I think I understand why you did it now," Haley said. "Life sometimes ditches you on the side of the road with no options, and you just have to make it up as you go along trying to deal with whatever it throws at you."

"That's very insightful," Claire said. "I could have used that reminder when I was growing up, but your grandpa wasn't around and Nana, well...I think you're old enough to hear this now...she never really grew up, so she couldn't really teach me how to do that."

"I always thought Nana was a little off," Haley said with a small chuckle. Suddenly they both heard the doorbell ring. Haley and Claire both scrambled out of the kitchen and went to look through the window on the door to see who it was. Alex ran down the stairs as well and almost fell down the stairs when she tripped on the broken step.

"Oh my God, Alex, are you okay?" Claire asked. She and Haley turned away before they got a chance to see who was at the door.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine," Alex said. "Is that Dad and Luke?"

"We were just going to find out," Claire said, turning back to the door. She took a deep breath and opened it.

End of Chapter 10