Page 69 of Harper

“Where is she?” I repeat through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know for sure,” she whispers.

“Where the fuck is my daughter?” I scream at her, spittle collecting at the corners of my mouth and tears streaming down my blood-red cheeks.

“I don’t know!” she says. “I’m in touch with her adoptive mother via an adoption registry—”

“I want that information.”

“Joe, she has a life. She has parents who love her.”

“Damn right she does. One parent who loves her. One,” I say, my voice lethal. “And he’s sitting right here.”

“You don’t understand. I cared about her. I did. I made the decision I thought was best for her.”

“No, Harper,” I say, clasping my hands together so I don’t reach over and shake her, or—god forbid—something worse. “You made the decision that was best for you. Not her. And not me.”

She sucks in a sharp breath. “That’s not true. You have no idea how hard—”

“You’re right!” I thunder, competing with the pounding rain. “I had no idea! Because you never told me anything!”

She stands up and leans against the entrance of the shed. “I’m going to go.”

“There she is.”

“I told you,” she says softly, looking at me over her shoulder. “I told you that you’d hate me.”

Her words hurt. They fucking hurt me. Because there’s more truth in them than I want to admit. Right this minute, I fucking hate her. I hate Harper Stewart. And I never, ever thought that was possible.

“I thought I could forgive you anything,” I say, staring down at the concrete floor. My stomach flips over again, but nothing comes up because it’s empty. My heart’s empty, too, or feels that way anyway. I’m so angry at her, I want to be mean. I want to hurt her as much as this conversation is hurting me. “I was wrong.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I always knew you wouldn’t be able to forgive me for this. It’s why I stayed away. It’s why I left you alone. It’s why I always said we didn’t have a second chance in the cards.”

Why isn’t she falling apart? Why isn’t she on her knees, crying and screaming, like I want to? Why is she so fucking calm?

“We could’ve had a f-family,” I say, my voice breaking on a sob. I don’t fucking care if I’m crying like a baby. How the fuck am I supposed to act? “All these years, Harp. We could’ve been together with—with our d-daughter. Our little girl.”

“Only in your head, Joe,” she says. Her voice is level and gentle; she’s not trying to be mean, even though her words slice painfully through my soul. “I was just a kid. I wasn’t ready to be a mom, to be a wife. I just wasn’t. I loved you. God knows I did. But the timing was wrong for me back then…and no matter how hard I tried to tell you that—how hard I tried to make you understand that I wasn’t ready to be married or be a mom or settle down in Skagway right out of college—you didn’t want to hear it. You only wanted what you wanted, and I—”

“I think you need to leave.”

I can’t listen to this anymore. I’ve heard all I can bear for now.

“I’m going,” she says. She steps out in the rain. It pelts her hair, crushing the blonde strands against her scalp. She starts walking away, then turns around to face me. It’s hard to hear her clearly through the rain, so I strain forward and half-listen, half-lip read. “I meant what I said at your house, Joe. I loved you then. I love you now. I always will.”

Her words make me so furious, I see white.

“This is not how you treat someone you fucking love!” I jump up from my seat and scream at her. “Go! Just fucking go!”

She turns around and walks away, into the wet, windy night.

***

“Joe? Joe! We’re closing. You gotta go home.”

The voice is fuzzy, like I’m underwater. The woodgrain of the table I’m sitting at is so close to my eyeballs, it’s blurry. Am I lying on this table? Huh. Okay.

“Joe. Can you get up? Can you walk?”

---