“You know,” he started to say.
It was right then I could see the glisten in his eyes.
“Had I walked past him going down the street, I doubt he would have recognized me. Maybe I wouldn’t have recognized him . . .” He shook his head and heaved a sigh. “He was a lousy father to me. I could handle that. I had to, there was no choice. But to my mother . . .”
“It’s okay to be upset. Sawyer—”
“Did you know he went out with his friends? The night she died?” his voice wavered. “He left me alone with her. She was the sickest she had ever been. Instead of being with us, he went to the bar.”
I closed my eyes and put my hands on his shoulders.
“I was a little boy. I was left alone to watch my mother die.”
His lower jaw trembled and he turned away, pressing both hands to his temples. His elbows jutted out and he nearly growled.
“I hated him for that.”
He threw his arms down and I let him just breathe. We stood in silence, listening to the swallows as they dived in and out of the trees.
“When I found out he was gone, I didn’t expect to feel anything. I didn’t want to give him that. He wasn’t owed anything else from me.”
The tension in his face softened, and his wet eyes grew clear.
“And then I thought of you.”
His hand reached out and touched the ends of my hair.
“I didn’t want anyone else but you.”
When he bent down toward me, our mouths went warm and soft. I let him pull my head in, his fingers digging in gently. I tucked so perfectly under him as we wrapped around each other, pulling one another in more and more.
He watched me later in his room as I pulled the sweater over my head. I had never felt someone’s eyes look over my body with such wonder. I felt his hands run over my skin and I remember holding my breath when he slid on top of me. His head burrowed in my neck.
“Isla,” he said just once.
We closed our eyes together and, in the morning, I pulled the blanket up tight to my chin. I looked over to find him gone.
CHAPTER 31
ISLA
2006
It always begins with a phone call.
When the ordinary suddenly seems such a precious gift, you would willingly have a hundred of those moments over anything past that phone call.
I was in a bathrobe when I got the phone call. Fresh out of a college dorm shower, my feet in flip-flops a size too big for me. The landline in my room rang. I hadn’t gotten a single call from that phone until then. Only my parents had that number. You know, in case of an emergency, I had said, jotting it down for them.
In case of an emergency.
“Isla?” Dad’s voice asked. A question that made no sense.
“Yes?”
“It’s Dad.”
“What’s wrong?” I immediately asked.
He paused, which made it worse. I wish he had spit it out, like a spoonful of soup that was too hot.
“Dad. What happened? Is it Marlow?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
He sounded so shaky, even in the few words he’d spoken. I wanted to hang up on him. I wanted to mute his fragility and the way it made the bottom of my throat expand and tighten.
“It’s Moni.”
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Huh?” He was taken off guard.
“Where did they take her?”
Dad didn’t answer right away. When he did, I felt a slight hope, even relief. “The hospital. ICU.”
