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I raise my glass to the photo of Arthur and down the hard liquor.
We lost Arthur to a car crash a few years ago. Out of the blue. It’s hard to imagine how one guy – so full of life, vigor, and spirit – could be extinguished soinstantaneously.
We all miss him. I miss him. His loss has caused a hole to form in the middle of our family: a hole that will take a hell of a long time to heal.
I place the empty glass down on the counter and head over to the pull-up bar I had installed by the open-plan kitchen when I bought the place. I commence doing fifty pull-ups, bringing my head over the bar every single time.
Forty-eight.
Forty-nine.
Fifty.
I relish experiencing my shoulder and back muscles strain to lift my weight. It’s a good exercise, and it’s a good, satisfying feeling to know I’ve still gotit.
I never dared contact Emma or her mother since that day at Crystal River airport - my own mother forbade me from ever talking to our former maid and her daughter. I stupidly obeyed her like a loyal lap dog.
How I’ve missed Emma Tucker...
I was so in love with her, and I threw that love away.
I’ve tried to find her since, but she’s completely disappeared off the face of the earth. The trail ran cold, even for the kind of investigators a Penmayne like me can hire. But maybe I was actually scared of finding her again, of having to face my actions as a thoughtless teenage boy – a boy I’ve tried hard to leave behind in the dust. Maybe I never wanted to see her again and come to terms with who I once was.
And it’s pretty clear that Emma doesn’t want to get in contact with me. She could’ve done. Very easily. A Penmayne is not hard to find.
She doesn’t want me in her life. She never wanted to seek me out.
I sigh.
She can’t be here, not in this city, and especially not at the hospital. It’s not right. This is not how things are supposed to go. I wasn’t prepared for this.
I wonder what’ll happen when she figures out we’re both working under the same roof...
I stagger across the massive penthouse and go to bed in my pitch-black room completely in the nude, dreaming of the girl I saw freely dancing with a smile on her face.
31
EMMA
I’m so tired after taking Diana’s night shift but, like seemingly every single day of my life, I don’t have the luxury to skip merrily back home and rest because I’ve actually got shit to do. And today, that’s escorting Faith on her walk to school.
Yep, always something to do... the perks of being a poor working woman.
But I never have a bad thing to say about Faith. She is the most gorgeous little girl I have ever met. It’s always a joy to walk her to school.
“So, you’re going to learn a lot today at school, I hope,” I tell the girl as we cross the road with her holding my hand.
Faith nods at me.
“Yep. A lot.”
“Good, I don’t want this walk to amount to nothing,” I say. “So, what are you looking forward to most today?”
“We’ve got Math,” Faith replies.
“And you’re good at it, aren’t you? You were saying that the other day.”
“My teacher says I’m the best in the class,” she informs me proudly.
