“You didn’t even try,” Emily accused him.
“I tried,” Roy said, the pleading in his tone irking Emily even more. “So many times. I came back to the house on a number of occasions but every time the guilt of what I had done overwhelmed me. There were too many memories. Too many ghosts.”
“Don’t say that,” Emily snapped, her mind immediately going to images of Charlotte haunting the house. “Don’t you dare.”
“I’m sorry,” Roy repeated, gasping with anguish.
He looked down into his lap where his old hands were trembling.
On the table in front of them, the undrunk mugs of coffee were turning cold.
Emily took a long, deep breath. She knew her father had been depressed – she’d found the pill prescription amongst his belongings – and that he wasn’t himself, that the grief was making him behave in unforgivable ways. She shouldn’t blame him for that, and yet she couldn’t help it. He’d let her down so badly. Left her with her grief. With her mother. There was so much brewing anger inside of Emily’s heart even if she knew that blame had no place there.
“What can I do to make it up to you, Emily Jane?” Roy said, his hands in a prayer position. “How can I even begin to heal the damage I caused?”
“Why don’t you start by filling in the blanks,” Emily replied. “Tell me what happened. Where you went. What you’ve been doing all these years.”
Roy blinked, as though surprised by Emily’s line of questioning.
“It was the wondering that killed me,” Emily explained, sadly. “If I’d just known you were safe somewhere, I could have dealt with it. You have no idea how many scenarios I cooked up in my mind, how many different lives I imagined you were living. I spent years not being able to sleep because of it. It was like my mind wouldn’t stop conjuring up options until it found the correct one, even though there was no way for it to do so. It was an impossible, futile task, but I couldn’t stop. So that’s how you can help. Start by giving me the truth, by telling me what I didn’t know for all those years. Where were you?”
Roy’s tears finally slowed. He snuffled, dabbing his eyes with his sleeve. Then he cleared his throat.
“I split my time between Greece and England. I made a home for myself in Falmouth, Cornwall, on the coast of England. It’s a beautiful place. Cliffs and wonderful scenery. There’s a fantastic artists’ scene there.”
How fitting, Emily thought, remembering his obsession with Toni’s artwork, the way in which he’d hung one of her lighthouse paintings up in the New York City home he’d shared with Patricia, and how angry Emily herself had felt when she’d realized how brazen he’d been, how disrespectful.
“How did you afford it?” Emily challenged. “The police said there’d been no activity in your bank accounts. It was one of the reasons I thought you were dead.”
Roy winced at the word. Emily could tell how bad he felt to be confronted by the pain he’d put her through. But he needed to hear this. And she needed to say it. It was the only way they could move forward.
“I didn’t sell any of my antiques, if that’s what you mean,” he began. “I left all of that for you.”
“Am I supposed to thank you?” Emily asked bitterly. “It’s not like a diamond can make up for years of neglect.”
Roy nodded sadly, taking the brunt of her angry words. Emily began to accept that he was acknowledging her, that he was no longer trying to explain his actions but to listen instead to the hurt they had caused her.
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to imply that it could.”
Emily tensed her jaw. “Well go on, then,” she said. “Tell me what happened after you left. How you supported yourself.”
“At first I lived from one day to the next,” Roy explained. “I made money doing whatever I could. Odd jobs. Car and bike repairs. Tinkering. I found my feet making and repairing clocks. I still do that now. I’m a horologist. I make ornate clocks with hidden keys and secret compartments.”
“Of course you do,” Emily said, bitterly.
The look of shame returned to Roy’s face.
“What about love?” Emily asked. “Did you ever settle down?”
“I live alone,” Roy replied sadly. “I have since I left. I didn’t want to cause anyone any more pain. I couldn’t bear to be around people.”
For the first time, Emily began to feel sympathy for her father, imagining him lonely, living like a hermit. She started to feel as though she had released as much pain as she needed to, that she had blamed him enough to finally be able to hear his story. A cathartic wave washed over her.
“It’s why I don’t really use any modern technology,” Roy continued. “There’s a phone booth in town that I use to make my calls, which are few and far between. The local post office lets me know if anyone’s responded to my horologist ad. When I’m feeling strong enough, I go to the local library and check my emails to see whether you’ve been in touch.”
Emily paused, frowned. This was surprising to her. “You do?”
Roy nodded. “I’ve been leaving clues for you, Emily Jane. Every time I came back to the house I left another crumb for you to find. The email address was the biggest step I took because I knew as soon as you found it, it would provide a direct line from you to me. But the anticipation, the waiting, it was unbearable. So I limited myself to only a few checks a year. When I got your email I flew right here.”
Emily realized then that this was the reason for those additional months of anguish he’d put her through after she’d learned he was still alive and then had contacted him. He hadn’t been ignoring her or avoiding her, he simply hadn’t seen her email.
“Is that true?” she asked, her voice straining as tears filled her eyes. “Did you really come here as soon as you saw I’d been in touch?”
“Yes,” Roy replied, his voice barely a whisper. His own tears had begun to fall again. “I’ve been hoping and wishing and dreaming for you to get in contact. I figured that one day you would come back to this place, when you were ready. But I also knew you’d be angry with me. I wanted the ball to be in your court. I wanted you to be the one to make contact with me because I didn’t want to intrude on your life. If you’d moved on without me I thought it would be best to keep it that way.”
“Oh, Dad,” Emily gasped.
Something, finally, was released from within Emily. Something about this last, final, heartbreaking admission from her father was what she’d been needing to know all along. That he was waiting on her to make the move. He hadn’t been avoiding her, keeping himself hidden, he’d been dropping crumbs for her, trusting that once she put all the pieces together she’d make her own decision about whether or not she could forgive him and allow him back into her life.
She stood and hurried to the opposite couch, throwing her arms around her neck. She sobbed against his shoulder, deep sobs racking through her body. Roy clung to her, shaking too from the outpouring of grief.
“I’m so sorry,” he choked, his voice muffled by her hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”
They stayed like that for a long time, holding each other, shedding every tear they needed to, squeezing out every last drop of pain. Finally the crying ceased. Everything became silent.
“Do you have any more questions?” Roy finally said quietly. “I’m not going to keep secrets from you anymore. I’m not going to hide anything.”
Emily felt exhausted, spent with emotion. Her father’s chest rose and fell with each deep breath he took. She was so tired she felt as if she could fall asleep right here in his arms. But at the same time, she still had a million