Page 55 of Forbidden Dark Vows

By the time we disembark the aircraft, the stewardess aiming her wide well-practiced smile our way, I feel as if I left my future behind in New York City. Perhaps it was never my future tosnatch hold of. Perhaps my time spent with Harry was nothing more than a pleasant interlude, something for me to look back on when I’m older with a wistful smile and a sad shake of my head.

I take a deep breath and try to arm myself to see my dad again.

Dad smilesat us with half his face, the other half drooping lazily like plastic warmed too long in the sun. He is sitting up in the hospital bed, looking frail and vulnerable in the cotton hospital gown.

“Hello, Dad.” I deliberately refuse to acknowledge the wires attaching him to the monitors beside the bed.

Last time I was here, I was playing cards with Harry and Ronnie, the imprint of Harry’s lips lingering on mine. Now… Now, I’m worried that my dad will not be my dad anymore, that we won’t sit in the den in the evenings chatting about our favorite sitcoms,TheCosby ShowandCheers, dunking cookies in hot chocolate while he talks about the birds he spotted in the backyard during the day.

I lean across the bed and kiss his cheek. It feels cold and clammy, not like my dad’s cheek at all as if the hospital has given him a mask to wear and told him not to remove it until they send him home.

“How are you feeling?” I keep my smile in place, just like the airline stewardess, and remind myself not to judge them next time I fly. They’re only doing their job.

“Never better.” The words sneak out of the corner of his mouth, sounding clumsy, strained.

“Glad to hear it.” I perch on the edge of the bed—just like I did in Harry’s room—while my mom air-kisses his other cheek.

“We came as soon as I got the call.” She sits on the visitor’s seat and crosses her legs neatly at the ankle. “You gave us quite a scare. Terrible timing.”

Like there’s ever a good time to suffer a stroke.

“Harry wanted to come,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “But he had work issues to resolve, so I told him to stay.”

The atmosphere has altered with the mention of Harry, like my mom has sucked all the goodness out of it and replaced it with something stiff and toxic, and I feel like I need to get it back on track.

“Sokay.” Dad smiles at me with one eye. “Don’t wanna … cause trouble.” His words don’t sound right, slurring into one another as if he’s drunk.

“Oh, Dad, you could never cause us any trouble.”

I throw my arms around him, telling myself that he won’t be wired up to these machines like a laboratory experiment forever. He’ll get better. He will.

He rubs my back, clings to me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear again if he lets me go, and another wave of guilt explodes inside me.

“Where have you … been?” he asks when he pulls away.

“We don’t need to talk about that right now, Graham.” Mom’s voice reaches us from the plastic seat. “She’s back now. That’s all that matters.”

She says it like she knows she’s the one at the steering wheel again, telling me what to do, where to go, how to be.

“I want to know.” Dad’s eyes are on me, and I see a glimmer of the man who has always spent hours talking to me about his favorite books and movies and food. He’s still there. He hasn’t gone away and left me behind and the rush of love in my chest goes partway to easing the guilt.

I tell him about Edinburgh. “It was like we’d traveled back in time, Dad, the streets were so old and narrow and winding. We saw someone playing bagpipes on the sidewalk wearing a kilt, and we explored the underground city, and climbed Arthur’s Seat.”

The more I talk, the deeper the barrier between us and my mom seems to grow. It’s as if the room is expanding, her seat sliding away from us, while the bond between Dad and I strengthens, solidifies, knots my heart to his, excluding her from this part of my life in which she has no interest. She hasn’t even asked where we’ve been, like she can pretend it didn’t happen if she knows nothing about it.

“Sounds … great.” Dad’s half-smile is back, trying so desperately to lift the side of his face that’s still functioning as it should.

“It was, Dad.” I instinctively rub my fingers across the diamond on my left hand.

“Ruby!” The word snaps me back to reality like a firecracker being set off. My mom is trying to close the distance, trying to rein me in before I slip so far away from her that she can’t reach me. “Do we have to do this now?”

Dad’s eyebrow rises and drops again like the movement has sapped the last of his strength. He doesn’t react, but I know that he’s waiting to hear from me whether we should do this now or not.

I know my mom thinks that she has won but, for me at least, this isn’t over. I could hide the ring, say no more about it, call Harry when I get home and tell him that it’s over. Or I could show my dad the diamond, tell him that Harry chose it himself, that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, and hear what he has to say.

There’s no contest. My dad’s opinion means the world to me.

I raise my hand so that he doesn’t have to move. His eyes flicker between me and the engagement ring, back and forth, like he has no control over them until finally, his smile shines from them, lighting up his sickly gray face.

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