Page 45 of Forbidden Daddy

“I’ll try to stop getting attacked.”

“Good,” I murmured, and closed the gap between us.

Just feeling her solidly underneath me was helping ease the nerves that were still fraught and screaming that there was danger.

“What are youdoing?”

I pulled away from Evelyn to see Hannah standing in the doorway with two cups of coffee.

My heart constricted.

I had already thought I’d lost Evelyn in one day, and now I could see in Hannah’s eyes that I was losing her.

“Hannah—” I tried to say, but what could I say?

That I loved her? That it had only been a matter of weeks since we’d started dating? That I had wanted to tell her from the moment I met Evelyn in a dark alleyway that I thought I might finally be able to feel something similar to what I’d had with her mother? No. None of that would work. Namely because Hannah was already gone, and when I tried to follow her, I couldn’t find her. I didn’t know how someone could leave that fast, but she’d managed it. I turned back to Evelyn, but she shrugged in her bed.

“Go after her. I’ll get discharged, and I’ll get a cab home. I’ll be right behind you.”

I shook my head.

“I’m leaving Tony with the car.”

She shrugged in acceptance, knowing it wasn’t a time to argue.

I ran after Hannah. I had no idea where I could go. After all those years of avoiding bringing my daughter into my personal life, I had failed to realize that she’d grown up, that she could find her way around the city and go anywhere. I asked people if they’d seen her as I left the hospital, but no one had. I pulled at my hair, hailed a cab, and gave them my address.

Home seemed quiet. It was all dark, and all the staff had gone to bed. I tried Hannah’s phone, no answer. I tried again, straight to voicemail. I tried texting, and calling, and screaming at the sky while I stood in the foyer. None of it would bring my daughter back to me, so I headed up to her rooms, figuring I could find a way to contact one of her friends, ask if she was with them, but when I reached the landing, there was a dim glow coming from the den. I strode into the den, and on the TV was a home video. I didn’t even know she had copies.

“Hannah! Hannah!” I was crooning at the baby on the bed.

She was about one, and her eyes were bright and curious, her tuft of jet-black hair sticking in all directions. She had clearly just woken up. Ruthie was kneeling over her, blowing raspberries on her belly and laughing along with Hannah’s joyful giggle.

I sat down next to Hannah, but she didn’t acknowledge me. She just kept staring at the screen, and I thought I saw her eyes shining suspiciously.

“She will never replace your mother, Hannah,” I said quietly, “No one couldeverreplace your mother in my heart or in my life.”

Hannah looked at me, flicked off the television and clapped her hands to bring the lights up. Her eyes were furious.

“I never thought shewould!” she hissed, standing up.

She tried to leave the room, but I caught her.

“Hannah, talk to me! I’m your father!”

“Are you?” she shouted, “Because last time I checked, you didn’t care! You never asked about school or what I was doing, we never did anything as a family after Mom died, you never eventried! You suddenly changed, and I thought ‘hey, maybe he’s actually interested in what’s happening in my life’, but I guess not! It was all because you were boning mybest friend!”

“You’re not angry that I’m with her then, but because you think I don’t care?”

“Ofcourse,I’m angry you’re with her! She’s my best friend, and the fact that you’re sleeping together is wrong on so many levels! But I’ve gotta tell you, it sucks a whole lot more that you love her more than me!”

Tears actually began falling, and I couldn’t help but pull her into a hug. She resisted at first, but then she was just crying against me, and I wondered how I’d screwed it all up. We had been so worried that she would be angry at us for being together, I neglected the bigger problem: our father-daughter relationship. It would be impossible to tell her how much I loved her, how in those months after her mother died, I stayed late and worked hard just to make sure she’d have a good future. How the reason I never cried about her mother with her was because I was scared of putting that emotional burden on a five-year-old girl. The family days stopped when the work came pouring in, and I thought I was giving her the best of everything. I separated myself from her and I thought money would be the answer to her sadness.

“I was wrong,” I said into her hair, “I thought I could solve everything by being successful. I thought if we didn’t have anything to worry about, we could move on with our lives.”

“I was always worried,” she answered, “I was worried you only liked me when Mom was around, and then I was worried that you couldn’t look at me without seeing her, and eventually, when all that built up, I was worried that the one parent I had left didn’t love me, and believing I was unloved was just about the hardest thing for me.”

“I loved you so much, Hannah, and I really believed I was doing the right thing by letting you be independent, I never thought that I was leaving you alone too much. I still love you, you’re my daughter, you are such an amazing young woman, and I regularly talk to your mom and tell her about you. I know how proud she’d be of you.”

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