Though she knew he would hate it, she leaped for him, throwing her arms around his neck and locking herself onto him. Samantha was a lot of things to many people, but right now, she was a heartbroken girl who needed her father to tell her everything was going to be all right.
“Dad, I messed up. I ruined it.” She sobbed, staining his shirt, clinging tighter to him than she ever had before. The torturous pain of failure—not just to get what she wanted, but moral failings—ripped through her like fire through a piece of nitrate film. “I’m so sorry.”
“Calm— Uh—” Her father slowly relaxed into her shaking embrace. To her surprise, he did not try to push her away. “Calm down, what’s happened?”
“I didn’t get in. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. They were never going to let me in. And I lost… I lost…”
She couldn’t bring herself to say his name. He was too good for her. And thinking of him and his suddenly cynical eyes brought on a fresh wave of sobs.
“It’s…” Her father’s hand hesitated over her back, but soon enough, he held her close and whispered, sort of like a father would. “It’s okay… It’s okay…”
But Sam knew it wasn’t okay. Not now. And probably not ever.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When Sam fell into bed that night with a puffy face and the ghost of her father’s comforting arms around her shoulders, she wanted nothing more than to dissolve into her sheets and never resurface. It wouldn’t have bothered her if the ceiling caved in and buried her beneath the rubble. Instead, she slipped into a dreamless sleep she didn’t deserve and woke in the morning to shouting so loud it rattled the walls.
This was a quiet house. An ancestral house of dignity. These walls held secrets. They simplydidn’tshake.
Against her better judgment, which told her to bury herself in the sheets and her shame and never resurface, Sam followed the noise, her bare feet padding along the chilly floors as the voice got louder and louder and pulled her toward the half-open door of her father’s office. The noise hadn’t been clear enough to understand—or maybe she didn’t want to understand—until she caught the shadow of him in the sliver of open door. He paced the length of his office, still in his wrinkled clothes from the night before, telephone pressed to his ear, the fireplace poker in his other hand, which he swung haphazardly, punctuating his every deafening sentence.
At first, it was the clothes that shook her to her very shattered core. She’d never seen the man in the same shirt twiceever, much less twice in a row.
But then, the world came into focus and she was no longer caught by the fact that her father was yelling.Whathe was yelling completely disarmed her.
“Do you understand what you’ve done to her, what you’ve done to ourfamily? Do you think I will ever forget the way you’ve treated my daughter?”
There was more to the argument, not that she heard it. All she heard was the music of those words.Our family. My daughter.And he meant them. She didn’t resurface from that revelation until he slammed the phone into the receiver, spooking her. It took a moment of heavy breathing for the haze of red rage to subside from his eyes, but when it did, he nodded in greeting.
“Samantha. Good morning.”
“Morning,” she managed, staring at the man as he attempted to force her to unsee what she’d seen, shuffling papers and straightening his sweater and glasses, returning the poker to its stand near the fireplace. When the attempts clearly fell short, he looked at her from over the brim of his crooked glasses and for the first time, Sam spotted the ghosts of his son in his face; there was a softness in their father she’d never before seen in him.
“We’re through with the Animos Society. If they think they can treatmy daughterlike that, they have…” He paused mid-sentence. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
What was the point in lying now? What would it get her? “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you call me your daughter to someone that mattered.”
“What?” he asked, confusion knitting a wrinkle across his forehead. The authenticity of the moment made it all the more painful. He hadn’t realized how cruel he was to her. “No. Don’t be silly.” A far-off look took over his eyes, as if he were searching through fragments of dream-memories. “I’m sure I’ve done it before.”
She waited for him to meet her eyes. For weeks now, he’d avoided even glancing in her direction. Now, she would force him to see her. “No. You haven’t.”
Silence prevailed. Even the crackling fireplace halted in reverence. And her father, the man who regularly slept in a chair to maintain his posture, slumped down in his seat.
“No. I suppose I haven’t.”
…
A week passed. Daniel survived. Survived was a generous way to describe it. Daniel existed. He went through the motions of living, dragging himself from place to place, doing his work, generally breathing at a normal pace. They always said one required a beating heart to keep living, but Daniel wasn’t sure the doctors were right. Because from the moment their crown sank upon his head, his stopped. And it hadn’t restarted. He didn’t want it to. Turning it back on would mean embracing his hurt, all of his anger, all of theeverythingdrowning him if he so much as recognized its existence.
When he first mether, he couldn’t wrap his head around why someone would fight to remain so closed off and hidden from the world, why anyone would choose the mask of indifference and dignity over actuallyliving.He understood now.
It was the only damn thing he understood about her, but it was a start. At least it was an improvement on a week ago when his world collapsed, and everything was a mystery. Especially her.
When Angie finally came to check up on him, he was in his back garden, wearing an oversize bathrobe and boxers. The limited clothing helped preserve him from the heat of the rising flames in front of him. The crunch of leaves alerted him to a visitor. He did not turn around to greet them or acknowledge their presence. Any visitor right now was an unwelcome one.
“Hey, kiddo.”
Silence. Nothing but the crackling of flames growing in the rubbish bin in front of him. Then, more crunching leaves and a tentative, female hand on his shoulder.
