LITMIR.BIZ

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really amazed by the work you’ve done here,” Roy said. “It can’t have been easy getting all these en suites in.”

      “It wasn’t,” Emily replied. “We only had about twenty-four hours to do it as well. Which is a long story.”

      “I have time.” Roy smiled.

      Emily didn’t even know how to respond to that. Time was not something she could take for granted with him. She couldn’t trust his sentiments.

      “Let’s head to the living room,” she said, stiffly. “Have something to drink?” Then, realizing her slip-up in suggesting alcohol to an alcoholic, she added quickly, “Coffee.”

      With each step down the staircase, Emily felt her anger growing stronger. She hated the feeling. She wanted this reunion to be a joyful one, but how could it be, really, when she had all this resentment inside? Her father had to hear about the pain he had caused her.

      They reached the downstairs hallway. Daniel headed to the kitchen to make the coffee as Chantelle showed Roy into the living room. He gasped when he saw the renovations, the way Emily had blended new styles and old styles, the way she’d incorporated modern art and Kandinsky glassware.

      “Is that my old piano?” he asked.

      Emily nodded. “I had it restored. The guy who did it, Owen, he plays here sometimes. He’ll be playing at our wedding, actually.”

      For the first time, Emily felt a sense of triumph. Having not lived in Sunset Harbor long, Owen wasn’t someone her father had known before her, for longer than her, or knew better than her. There were people here who were her own, who weren’t tainted by the unpleasantness of that shared past.

      “Owen helps me with my singing,” Chantelle said.

      “Oh, you sing?” Roy replied. “Can I hear a bit?”

      “Maybe later,” Emily cut in. “Chantelle promised me she’d tidy up all of her toys today.”

      “Can’t I do it later?” Chantelle wailed.

      She clearly wanted to spend more time with Papa Roy and Emily couldn’t blame her. On the surface he was like a gentle giant, a Santa Claus of a man. But Emily couldn’t keep plastering a pretend smile on her face forever just for Chantelle’s sake. It was time for her and her father to talk like grown-ups.

      Emily shook her head. “Why don’t you get it done right now, then you’ll have the whole day to play with Papa Roy, okay?”

      Chantelle relented and left the room with a stomp in her step.

      “You’ve opened up the speakeasy,” Roy noted, looking at the sparklingly renovated bar. He seemed impressed by the way Emily had kept the period of the place in the same way he had, an homage to a time gone by. “You know it’s original.”

      She nodded. “I figured as much. Except the liquor bottles.”

      Without Chantelle to buffer the situation, a tenseness rose between them. Emily gestured to the sofa.

      “Will you sit?”

      Roy nodded and settled himself in. His face had blanched of color as though sensing that the moment of reckoning was upon them.

      But before Emily had a chance, Daniel appeared with a tray containing the coffee pot, cream, sugar, and mugs. He set it down on the coffee table. Silence swelled as he poured the drinks.

      Roy cleared his throat. “Emily Jane, if you have questions to ask me, you can.”

      Emily’s ability to remain polite and cordial broke. “Why did you leave me?” she blurted out.

      Daniel’s head snapped up with surprise. His eyes were as wide as saucers. He probably hadn’t realized Emily’s joy at having Roy back had dragged up her anger as well, that she’d been carrying her emotion with her throughout the whole tour of the house. He stood then.

      “I should give you both some time,” he said politely.

      Emily turned her eyes up to him. He looked so awkward standing there, as though suddenly encroaching on a private matter, and Emily felt a little guilty to have turned the conversation sour so quickly in his presence, without giving him the chance to excuse himself in a more polite manner.

      “Thank you,” she said as he hurried out of the room.

      She turned her gaze back to her father. Roy seemed hurt by her evident pain but he breathed calmly and looked at her with gentle eyes.

      “I was broken, Emily Jane,” he began. “After losing Charlotte I was a broken man. I drank. I had affairs. I alienated my friends in New York City until I couldn’t bear to be there anymore. Your mom and I split, though that was a long time coming. I came here to put my life back together.”

      “Only you didn’t,” Emily replied, hotly. “You ran away. You left me.”

      She could feel tears prickling in her eyes. Her father’s were growing red and misty too. He looked down into his lap, his expression one of shame.

      “I was ignoring things,” he said sadly. “I thought I could pretend everything was okay. Even though it had been years since Charlotte had died, I hadn’t really let myself feel anything. I never went in the room you shared, moving you to a different one if you recall.”

      Emily nodded. She remembered vividly her father blocking access to parts of the house, making certain areas out of bounds for her during her summer visits – the widow’s walk, the third floor, the garages, his study, the basement – until she’d all but forgotten they ever existed or what they contained. She remembered his increasingly erratic behavior, his obsession with collecting antiques that seemed to her like less of a hobby and more of a compulsion, his hoarding behavior. But moreover she remembered the diminishing contact, the way she’d spend less and less time with him in Maine until she reached fifteen and, one summer, he just never turned up to collect her. That had been the last time she’d seen him.

      Emily wanted to be understanding toward her father’s actions. But though one part of her understood he was a broken man who had one day cracked, the torment his actions had caused her could not just be explained away.

      “Why didn’t you say goodbye?” Emily said, the tears falling down her cheeks in torrents. “How could you just leave like that?”

      Roy, too, seemed to be becoming overwhelmed with emotion. Emily noted that his hands were shaking. His lips trembled as he spoke. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been haunted by that decision.”

      “You were haunted?” Emily cried. “I didn’t know if you were dead or alive! You left me wondering, not knowing. Do you have any idea what that does to a person? My whole life was on pause because of you! Because you were too much of a coward to say goodbye!”

      Roy took her words like repeated punches to the face. His expression looked as pained as if they really had been physical blows she’d laid upon him.

      “It was inexcusable,” he said, barely more than a whisper. “So I won’t try to excuse it.”

      Emily felt her heart racing wildly in her chest. She was so furious she couldn’t even see straight. All those years of emotions were flooding out of her with the force of a tsunami.

      “Did you even think about how it would hurt me?” she cried, her voice rising in pitch and volume even more.

      Roy seemed gripped with anguish, his whole body tensing, his face contorted with regret. Emily was glad to see him that way. She wanted him to hurt just as much as she had.

      “Not at first,” he confessed. “Because I wasn’t in my right mind. I couldn’t think of anything or anyone but myself, my own pain. I thought you’d be better off without me.”

      He broke down then, sobs juddering through his body until he was shaking from the emotion. Watching him like that was like a stab to the heart. Emily didn’t want to see her father crack and crumble before her eyes, but he needed to know. There would be no moving on, no reparation without getting this all out in the open.

      “So you thought

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