Page 116 of Free to Fall

Since we left Connecticut (a four-letter word, according to my brother), I willingly gave up my capability to communicate with anyone. I needed to distance myself from all but a select few. Although I find myself needing to tell you a few things. This is the only way how.

It’s the only place I feel safe.

Right now, I love you and never want to set eyes on you again. How is that possible when it wasn’t two weeks ago, we were laughing in your kitchen as I made too many meatballs—again. Making Bailey laugh while doing her PT on a weekend. Loving each other as the moon followed us across the sky?

Your words shattered my heart. How could you make love to me that morning, tell me you loved me, then hurl such debasement at me? After I did my best to protect Bailey?

I’d have died for her, and you know it. Or maybe you don’t. After all, you never knew about my stalker.

It wasn’t a choice, but advice from my father that led to that decision. And while the excuse of “But Daddy said not to” wouldn’t fly in most circumstances, we both understand who and what my father is—to us both.

Late at night, while lying here in Peter’s guest room, I still accept the blame for not telling you. Even if my father is considered one of the best investigators in the world, you’re a father. You deserved to know, to make your own decisions.

Because I found out my father hid pertinent details from me—details that when I found them out, absolutely changed my mind about sharing what was happening with you. In the end, he? Me? We endangered your daughter. I can never forgive myself for that.

Maybe you can’t either.

Chapter

Sixty-Four

The room is lit by only a little table lamp when I pour a small snifter of liquor. Tossing back the cognac, I grimace as the taste hits the back of my throat.

It reminds me of her. Everything does.

At dinner tonight, I had to let Bailey know that Laura wouldn’t be returning. Her plaintive “Why?” is seared on my soul almost as much as the despair when I told her I’d said and done things to hurt Laura when she was in the ER.

“But, Daddy, you love Laura.”

“I know.” The words were torn from me.

“Then apologize.” Her logic was simple. It’s what all the adults in her life taught her—you do something wrong, you say you’re sorry. How in the hell do you explain to a seven-year-old that some things are so awful, an apology just won’t cut it?

I tried. Lifting Bailey’s hand, I placed it against my chest—where my whole heart should have been beating. “When I did what I did, Buttercup, I hurt this.” Hurt? You apparently destroyed her, you jackass, I berate myself.

My daughter glares at me before yanking her hand away. “Why?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Daddy? Laura loves me, right?”

“Oh, baby. She absolutely loves you. She didn’t leave your side.” She wouldn’t have left mine either. She’d still be here except for me making her.

Her eyes dulled. I recognize it because I’ve seen it in every reflective surface I’ve passed over the last forty-eight hours. “I’m sad by what you did, Daddy.” Then she teetered out of her room, down the hall, and closed the door.

Closed me out.

So am I, Buttercup, I think now, more than a healthy mixture of self-disgust and loathing pouring through me.

It isn’t just the silence in the room where, for weeks, there was none. It’s the knowledge I drove away any chance of Laura using her key to open that door. I slide my hand into my pocket and finger her keys. My fist closes around them as I recall how they were hurled at my feet.

As if I was nothing—apparently the same way I treated his daughter.

I sink onto the couch, haunted by the realization I drove her away. And now, Bailey’s refusal to speak with me—even after I let her know it was time for dinner—intensifies the silence permeating the room.

I reach for my phone and pull up the text string with the photos Bailey’s been sending me since the beginning of summer. Laura had no idea how often my daughter had taken random photos of her as her love for her grew. I can’t prevent the pain-laced chuckle as I stare at her “oops” face Bailey captured as Laura dipped her spoon into the cookie batter. Or the time they were sewing my pillows and Laura scowled down at her stitches. When I asked about that one, Laura laughed and reminded me, “I’m much more proficient on humans.”

Which had me scrolling through the photos I had on my own camera from the night of the hospital gala. Laura’s graciousness as she greeted one donor after another and finally the picture that bleeds my heart—one her father took just before Brendan Blake sung to her. Laura was wrapped in my arms as if it was the only place she wanted to be. Even then, I knew it was a moment out of time I never wanted to let go of.

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