She looked at me. Read my face. Decided not to fight it.
I drive to Ronan's. Twenty-two minutes. I know the route the way I know my own address. Every turn. Every light. I've driven it a thousand times. Sunday dinners. Poker nights. The night Claire died.
Then I get out and walk to his door and knock.
He opens it and I know. He knows.
"Come in," he says.
Not warm. Not cold. The voice of a man who's been waiting for someone to arrive and explain something.
The kitchen. Same kitchen. The smell of thirty years of Sunday evenings baked into the walls. The chair I've sat in a thousand times. The counter where his daughter stood three weeks ago with a glass of wine.
He sits at the table. I sit across from him. Four feet apart. The widest distance this table has ever held.
"How long," he says.
"Six weeks."
He nods. Slowly. Setting the number down.
"Six weeks." A pause. "My daughter."
"Yes."
"My daughter, Declan."
"Yes."
"My twenty-one-year-old daughter."
I don't flinch. I don't look away. He deserves my face for this.
"Yes."
Long silence. He's looking at me the way I've seen him look at people who've disappointed him in ways he didn't think were possible. Ronan is a warm man. Patient. The disappointment on his face is worse than anger because it's quiet and it's real and I put it there.
"You've been in my house," he says. "Every Sunday. Sitting in that chair. Eating my food. Shaking my hand at the door." His voice is even. Controlled. Ronan doesn't raise his voice. Never has. "How many Sundays, Dec."
"Three."
"Three Sundays you sat across from me knowing."
"Yes."
"And before that. The watching."
"Seven months. Online. Before I knew it was her."
"Seven months." Weighing it. "You watched my daughter online for seven months."
"I didn't know it was her."
"But you knew eventually."
"Since the dress. Since May."
"May." His hands are flat on the table. "You've been sitting at my table since May. And you've been—" He stops. Closes his eyes. Opens them. "She was a child in this house, Declan." His voice is different now. Lower. The voice of a father, not a friend. "She sat on your lap at Christmas. You picked her up from school when I couldn't. When did she stop being a child to you."
