Any trace of make-up I had on this morning has been washed away by the brush of my hand against my face to scoop away the tears that had fallen down my cheeks as I gazed out the window in the taxi earlier on my way to Times Square.
The dress I'm wearing is wrinkled and there's a stain on the skirt that I picked up when I sat in a pool of brown liquid at Penn Station. I'd tried desperately to wipe it off with a piece of paper I found crumbled at the bottom of my purse. What it lacked in absorbency, it made up for in mayhem. The ink from the paper mixed with the liquid to create a spot I doubt will ever come out. It was my own fault for sitting so close to the remnants of an overturned can of soda.
"I had no idea," I admit without any reservation. "I didn't know my father was capable of those things."
"You never really know someone." He taps his fingers on his knee. "I thought my dad was a stand-up guy until a month ago. Now, I hope I never see the bastard's face again."
***
I type out a quick text message on my phone to Ivy once I'm in bed. I tell her not to worry about me and that I'll call her in the morning. I had been tempted to dial her number after I said goodbye to Dane at the café, but talking about my father again today will take every ounce of strength I have left.
I feel completely spent after sitting with Dane. After he repeated that he never wanted to see his father again, he talked about Landon. He spoke of the pain that he had been in after his dad's drowning.
Landon had shouldered the blame for his father's death. He felt responsible because he'd let his hand go as they'd bobbed in the water. Their mother, Anja, had only added to the burden, Dane explained. She'd asked her oldest son repeatedly if he could go back to that day on the water if he would have held on longer.
It was her grief that fueled the questions, Dane said, but Landon absorbed the pain in his mother's voice the way any teenage boy would. He blamed himself solely for his father's death. He closed himself off from the world and his family. When he was finally able to leave home, he'd gone to college and then became a pilot, telling his brother that it provided an escape nothing else could. In the air, he needed such trained focus that everything else melted away and those memories of that day in the water didn't exist until he landed again.
I close the message app on my phone and scroll to the photos I've saved. I swipe my thumb across the screen as I glance through them quickly, searching for the one that I want to look at as I drift to sleep.
My eyes well with tears as my thumb stops and the picture I coerced my father into posing for comes into view. I took it when he was saying goodbye to me at LAX the last time I saw him. My hair is pulled tightly into a bun on my head. I look almost identical to the way I did when we took a picture together at my high school graduation.
I gaze at my father. He's beaming. His eyes lit with joy and his smile a reflection of the happiness he feels. I touch my fingers to my lips before I hold them to the screen, over his face.
My dad, the man proudly holding his arm around my shoulders in the picture, would never let me fight a battle alone. He'd push through his own pain to stand tall next to me. I owe him the same.
As I feel the tug of sleep overtake me, I hold my phone to my chest. Tomorrow I'm going to do whatever it takes to help my father. He needs me. Nothing else matters.
Chapter 5
––––––––
The piercing ring of my smartphone wrenches me from a forgettable dream. I'd silenced my phone before I fell asleep, hoping that it would give me the break I needed to rest my body and my mind.
I'd woken with a start in the middle of the night, worried that my mother would finally ring me back only to have the call go to my voicemail. After checking my phone's screen and realizing that the only thing I'd missed was a lengthy text message from Ansel asking if I needed him, I blocked his number, turned up the volume, rolled over and fell back asleep.
I run my fingers over my eyes trying to chase away the trails of sleep that are still there, coaxing me to fall back onto the pillow. I try to focus on the number but I can't. I close my eyes as I swipe my finger over the screen, before I clear my throat.
"Hello?" I whisper into the darkness knowing that I'm not trying to shelter anyone from my voice. I live alone. I sleep alone.
"Tess?" His voice is deep and melodic. "Are you at home?"
I squint as I pull the phone from my face, staring down at the corner of the screen I take note of the time. "Landon, it's six. What time is it there?"
"It's six," he repeats back. "Are you at home?"
I swing my bare legs over the side of my bed. I reach forward to grab hold of the water bottle I placed on my bedside table when I was undressing last night. My plan was to take one of the ibuprofen tablets that I kept in the top drawer but the headache I had then, hadn't kept me from sleeping. I prop the bottle against my side as I try to wrestle the lid off.