I slice off a hunk and stick it in the toaster oven, then heat his soup in the microwave.
“I haven’t been fair to you, Addie.”
Dad’s voice comes from the table behind me, low and defeated. I feel the press of tears behind my eyes so I don’t turn to look at him as I prepare his meal.
“It’s been a rough few years for us, hasn’t it?” he continues. “And I’ve done everything possible to make it rougher.”
“None of it’s your fault, Dad,” I say past the lump in my throat as I pour him a glass of ice water.
“All of it’s my fault,” he says.
Finally, I turn to face him and lean against the counter, but I can’t find words, because he’s wrong. The numbness in his eyes has been replaced with anguish. They search my face for forgiveness, but it’s me who should be begging him for that.
“After your mother’s funeral…I should have been there for you. I just…” He trails off and shakes his head. “Did Mom ever tell you how we met?”
“At a book signing, I think?”
He nods. “More than a book signing. Comic Con.” A smile ghosts over his ashen face, illuminating it with some internal light. “I was dressed as Mr. Spock, from Star Trek, and I walked by her publisher’s booth, where she was signing books. She put her hand in the air,” he says, holding up his hand with a split between his middle and ring fingers, “and yelled ‘Live long and prosper!’ I answered and that night we were having dinner together.”
Dad’s always got Star Trek reruns on the TV, especially when he’s drunk. Now I think I get why. “Was she different then?”
His distant gaze focuses on my face. “You mean, did she lose herself in her stories back then?” His mouth quirks as he nods pensively. “She’s always straddled worlds, but for Maggie, it wasn’t really to escape this one, it was to escape one that there was no escape from.”
The microwave beeps, but I’ve forgotten what it’s for. I search Dad’s eyes. They’re tired, but lucid. And his train of thought doesn’t seem to be splintering like it does when he’s been drinking.
“I don’t get what that means.”
He leans back in his chair and shoves a hand through his disheveled salt and pepper hair. “Maggie’s father…wasn’t a good person.”
Dad’s parents live in South Carolina. When I was young, we’d go to out there in the summers to see them. But Mom never talked about her parents. No pictures or anything. I just assumed they’d died when she was little or something. “What do you mean?”
“Your mother was abused as a child.” His face crumbles into a grimace. “Her father…” He trails off again with a shake of his head. “She ran away from home when she was only sixteen and lived on the streets for a while until she ended up in a shelter.”
“So…” I say, trying to absorb everything. “You think she lost herself in her stories to escape her past?”
“I think it started out as her coping mechanism,” he says with a nod. “In her stories, she was in charge. She had total control there when everything in her real life was out of her control.”
I sit on my hands when I feel them start to shake. “But why did she seem to get worse, then? It seemed like the older I got, the more of her went away.”
He shrugs. “Part of it was that you didn’t need her as much, I suppose. But…I don’t think the kind of trauma she experienced ever goes away.”
“Do you think…was she ever happy? With us?”
“She loved you, Addie,” he says, reading the meaning behind my question. “And she loved me, in her way.”
“In her way?”
“As much as she was able to love a man.” His face pulls into a pained grimace. “She was my world, but unfortunately, I was never able to return the favor.”
I wish I’d known these things while she was alive. I might not have expected so much and been so disappointed that it never came. I might not have fought with her all the time.
I might not have killed her.
A stone sinks into the pit of my stomach. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this?”
He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “You were young, Addie. I think she planned to tell you someday, but…” He shrugs. “I guess someday never came.”
I stare at the table for a really long time, all the ‘what ifs’ cycling through my mind.
“Do you want to go back to therapy, Addie?” Dad asks, pulling me from my head, and I realize everything I was just thinking shone clear from my face. “It seemed like it might have been helping you.”
“I’m fine,” I say and hope he doesn’t hear the bead of panic sprouting in my chest with the thought.
“You’re sure?” he asks. “If I’m getting help, I think you should too.”
My gaze snaps to his weary face. “You’re getting help?”