“You do?” I say.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you all this, but I’ve had some wine. Plus, you’re almost an adult now. Heck, you’re already an adult, the stuff you’ve gone through.” Shelley starts walking, so now I’m the one following her.
“Yeah, he calls me a few times a month, sometimes more. He has ever since he left Tuscaloosa. And after Sam vanished he called a lot. He was a wreck. I hate to say it, but he sort of became a bad drunk again. He’s better now, I think. But during that stretch, he’d call me, a mess. He always said it was his fault that Sam went missing. If he’d only been there, this would never have happened.”
Would that have made a difference? If he had stayed? Probably. It would have altered the entire future.
“But he didn’t worry about me. He hardly called,” I say.
“He wanted to. But he was . . . I don’t know, afraid. Ashamed. Like I said, he felt like it was his fault. And your mother had Earl. She didn’t need him.”
“I needed him.”
“I know you did. I’m not excusing him. But he . . . I guess he couldn’t face you. He couldn’t face your disappointment in him. He should have gone to see you. But he kept staying away, kept putting it off.”
Hearing all this, I don’t know what to think. All these years I pictured my dad barely thinking of me. A stranger.
“Sometimes I couldn’t knock sense into him. He’s not a perfect man, Lord knows. He’s got his problems. We all do. But I just thought you should know that he’s never stopped being your father.”
We walk on. It’s completely dark out now, the streetlamps casting crescents of light on the street. I can see inside the houses we pass—dining rooms full of people, or people camped out in front of the TV, scenes of togetherness. We used to run around this neighborhood on summer nights, playing kick the can and elaborate hide-and-seek-type games. Hiding in backyards, in pool sheds, under cars in garages. Running around alone in the dark. Back when we thought bad things happened to other people. Back when the worst thing was having to come in at night, having to brush our teeth and take a bath and go to bed.
“We really do have so much to be thankful for, you know?” Shelley says. Our neighborhood is a big circle, and we come to the base of the second, steeper hill that will lead us back to our house. When we reach the top I see that Dad’s car is gone. I’ve spent weeks dreading this visit, and now I want to run down the street, call out to him, beg him to come back.
===
I wake at the crack of dawn, the light from the sun barely poking through the curtains of the living room. All the theatrics from last night come flooding back to me and for a minute I feel frozen under the covers. But then I think of Dad. He’s not coming for breakfast anymore—all because of me. I realize with a stabbing sensation that I can’t leave things broken between us. I have to see him before he leaves town.
I crack the living room door open and smell coffee. I walk to the den and see Shelley on the couch, with an afghan over her legs. The TV is on, the volume so low it might as well be on mute. A mug rests on the coffee table.
“They’re already showing Christmas movies, can you believe it? Even at this hour,” she says.
I sit down next to her and she puts her arm around me and starts rubbing my shoulder. It will be Christmas in a month. Another occasion to mark—Sam’s first Christmas back at home. Presents and tidings of good cheer.
Unless I’ve ruined everything.
“I want to see Dad,” I say. “Will you take me to his hotel? Will you go with me?”
Shelley grabs her coffee, takes a sip. “Your mom would kill me.”
“If we go soon, we could get back before anyone wakes up. We can say we went for doughnuts. I need to see him. If you don’t take me, I’ll just go by myself.”
She sighs and looks at the ceiling as if asking for divine assistance. “Okay,” she says. “Just let me get some decent clothes on.”
===
We drive down Skyland, toward the Hampton Inn near the interstate. The sun casts a pink glow in the sky, peeking through the morning clouds. Hardly any other cars are on the roads at this hour. It’s a quick drive. When we pull up I say, “Can you stay in the car? I think I want to see him alone.”
“Sure, honey,” she says.
I walk into the small lobby. There’s a skinny guy in glasses behind the counter. “Can I help you?”
“Can you tell me what room Hank Walsh is in?”
He hesitates, like maybe he’s not supposed to tell me that information. I push my hair behind my ear and smile. “I’m his daughter.”
“Oh, okay.” He types information into the computer. “Room Three fifteen.”
“Thanks.” I head down a dimly lit hallway to the elevator and take it up to the third floor. I knock. No response. He must be asleep. Or maybe he’s gone. Maybe I’ve missed him. I knock again, louder. Please be there. And soon I hear feet shuffling toward the door, and finally he opens it. He’s in a T-shirt and jeans, his eyes tired from sleep, his hair flattened. But when he registers me he looks shocked, and then his shock turns into a genuine, gentle look of happiness, like he can’t believe his eyes and doesn’t want to make a move or I might vanish like a dream.
“Beth. What—what are you doing here? What time is it?”
“It’s early, I know. But I wanted to say good-bye.”
“Here, come in.” He stands aside and I walk in the room, which has two queen-size beds. It’s sort of a mess. Clothes strewn on the floor. A few empty beer bottles resting on the bedside table. And on one of the beds are all these papers. Newspaper clippings, magazine pages, some spilling out of envelopes, some resting on top of folders. I walk over and get a closer look.
Right away, I see pictures of Sam. And of him. Russell Hunnicutt. That mug shot. I look over at Dad, and he eyes me sheepishly, like I’ve caught him at something.
“What’s all this?” I say, even though it’s obvious. I remember Bud Walker telling Mom that he would save all the press, but Mom said she never wanted to see any of it. I’m shocked about how public our lives have become these past few weeks.
“Just stuff about the case. About Sam. I know it looks obsessive, but I had to keep track of everything. I wanted to know. . . . I thought knowing everything might help me understand. But it hasn’t really.”
I walk to the other bed and sit on its hard mattress.
He takes a chair from the little round table by the window, pulls it closer to the bed. He smiles at me, and his dimples are like Sam’s, and I almost want to reach out and hold his hands, but I don’t.
“I’m sorry for what I said yesterday,” I say.
Dad shakes his head. “You don’t owe me an apology. I owe you one. For . . . for being a terrible father.”
It feels good to hear him admit this, but also sad. “Aunt Shelley told me you always asked about us. About me.”
“It’s true.”
“But why,” I say, my voice catching. I swallow. Be strong. “But why didn’t you come see me?”