“Sometimes when I see a little girl with red hair, for a split second, I feel hopeful that it’s you, but then I realize that you wouldn’t be that little girl anymore.”
“I used to sneak out of windows in the middle of the night when I went into foster care. You told me about Carnegie the last day we were together. I used to think that if I walked far enough to find a forest, you’d be there.”
My tears blend with the mist that collects on my face and trickles down my cheeks as we speak.
He turns to me, his hands running down my arms, and his eyes fill with years of inconsolable pain that I know too well.
“I am so sorry, princess. I have so many regrets in my life, but none bigger than losing you.”
I see his tears too.
“I was careless.”
“No, Dad.”
“I was. I should’ve never gotten involved with the people I worked for.”
I look into my father’s reddened eyes as blades nick my heartstrings.
“I will never be able to make up for all my wrongs, for leaving you fatherless, for causing you so much heartache,” he chokes out in shame.
“I don’t blame you, Dad.”
“You should.”
“But I don’t,” I tell him, and he pulls me into his loving arms that I’ve craved since I was five years old. “All I ever wanted was this. You holding me. I’ve needed your arms so badly,” I say, the words wrapping around my throat, making it hard to speak.
“I need you to listen to me,” he says insistently, and I look up at him. “I need you to know how much I love you. I need you to know that without you, my heart is incapable of ever being complete. You . . . you are the very fibers of my being.”
I rest my head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat as he continues, “I remember the day you were born. The nurse placed you in my arms, and I was forever changed. You softened my heart instantly, and I knew I would never be the same. I’ve never been so in love like I’ve been with you. I need you to never forget that.”
“I won’t.”
“Let me look at you,” he requests when he takes my face and cranes it up to him. He shakes his head, saying, “I just can’t believe how beautiful you are. My baby, you’re all grown up.”
Reaching my hand up, I run it along his jaw where his beard used to be. “I can’t believe I found you.”
“You did. And I will forever be thankful for that. To see you, and to know you’re okay.”
He leans down, pushes the hood of my raincoat back, and kisses the top of my head. His back shudders against my hands in sadness as he continues to plant kisses in my hair.
“You and I,” he eventually says. “We’re unbreakable even when we’ve been broken.”
“I’ve never let you die, even when I believed you were dead.”
We stand here, together in the misty rain, and we’re tear-stained souls who’ve finally united when the world has kept us apart for so long.
“I can’t believe I have you back,” I weep.
He wipes my face with his hands. “No more tears, okay?”
I nod and inhale deeply to soothe myself.
When he turns his head to look up where our cars are parked, he says, “That man up there . . . He’s a good one.”
I watch Declan, who’s talking on the phone, and smile. “He’s really good to me, Dad. I don’t deserve him.”
“You do. You deserve each other. I see how he looks at you, as if it’s the last time he’ll ever look at you.” He moves to stand in front of my view of Declan. “That’s the look of a man who’s desperately in love,” he says. “Even though I love you in a very different way, it’s the same way I look at you.”
His words comfort in ways I can’t explain, and I smile up at him.
“There’s that gorgeous light,” he adulates, and then kisses my forehead. “I love your smile.”
“I love you, Dad. So much.”
“I love you too, princess.”
When he looks at his watch, he groans. “I’ve gotta run.”
He takes my hand and leads me back up to the car, and when he opens my door, he leans down and looks to Declan, giving him a nod. Declan returns the gesture without any words spoken.
“Thanks, Dad,” I tell him. “I needed this.”
“I did too, sweetheart.”
He leans in and kisses my cheek, and I kiss his before he runs his hand down the length of my face.
“Drive safe, okay?”
“You too.”
“I will never love anyone the way I love you,” he tells me before he closes my door.
Declan then takes my hand and pulls it into his lap after we pull out of the parking lot and start heading back to the hotel. I reflect on the words my dad said to me, words I’ve been longing to hear, to know that I was never disposed of. To know that he’s hurt for me like I’ve hurt for him dissolves all resentment. And he’s right, even when we were apart, we were still together as one because neither of us let the other fade from our souls. No one can break us.
Walking through the door of our hotel room, a wave of unease hits me out of the blue.
We forgot to make plans to see each other again.
“Declan, did my dad say when he was coming back?”