“It’s all right,” she says, her voice soft. She squeezes my upper arm gently. “I’m sorry too.” She looks at me, faint lines around the corners of her mouth, and there’s something sad about the way she regards me. “I know I was pushy, with the things I said about your father, about getting to know him again, but I realized—you know a version of him that I don’t. And I think, well, I found it concerning. He’s always been honest about what happened, about his regrets—and he does regret it, Neelu. Deeply.” She pauses. “I don’t know if you two have had a chance to talk about it, and it’s all right if—it’s not my place—”
“We did,” I tell her. “A little.”
She lets out a breath, some of the tension on her face relaxing. “Good,” she says. “I’m glad.” She goes quiet again for a moment. “I think…even though I knew about it, even though Ajit had told me everything, it was different hearing it from you. When you said—when you talked about how you felt like he’d left you, all I could think, all I could see, was James. He—” She stops, blinking quickly. “I saw him as a child. Broken. Wondering why his father had left him. Why he’d left us. And I’d stood there with no answers, no way of making it better. And it was—”
She clears her throat, her voice thick, and my heart cracks in two.
“Maggie, I’m so sorry. I never meant to—”
“No,” she says. “None of it was—it made me think.” She blinks again and offers a small smile. “I know Ajit is different now, that he’s not the same person he was then. I know that, but in that moment, I panicked. And I kept thinking about James, and how he felt, and how he wasn’t here, and I thought about you. How you must have felt then, how you feelnow,and none of it felt right. The wedding. It was all too much.”
“I understand,” I say. “And Jacob told me a little about James’s dad, and—” I think about my father buying me chocolate when I was a kid, never missing an important graduation, trying to be there for the big life moments, showing up even when things were strained and awkward, watching my show. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what I needed from him. But it wassomething. James’s dad completely disappeared, but at least, in some small way, mine somewhat tried. “And I know they’re not the same,” I tell her. “That my father—” My throat tightens. “He loves you, Maggie. I don’t know everything, but I’m sure of that.”
She blinks again, her eyes shining, and leans toward me, wrapping me in a hug.
“Thank you,” she says, pulling back. “And I do not want to overstep. I know last time we spoke, I did, and it doesn’t excuse anything he’s done, or anything he hasn’t made right, but he loves you too, Neelu. So much.”
And now my eyes prick, tears forming, blurring my vision.
“Yeah,” I say, a little stunned that I’m agreeing. A little stunned that I believe it. “I know.”
—
My father sends us a sheepish look when Maggie and I return to the table.
“Sorry,” he says. His expression shifts, becoming almost apprehensive when he looks at me. “We ordered without you.”
Maggie waves a hand, settling back into her seat beside him. “We can forgive that,” she says. “But it depends on what you ordered.”
I sit back down next to Jacob. Under the table, I feel his knee press against mine.
Our eyes catch.You okay?he seems to ask, and I nod just the tiniest bit.
“Yes,” I say, looking back at my father. “What did you order?”
“Well, Jacob ordered—”
“Cranachan,” Maggie says with a smile.
Jacob laughs, and my chest warms. I bump his knee softly.
He bumps mine back.
“And Ajit ordered—” Jacob pauses for a long moment, waiting for Maggie to answer.
She glances at my father. “You usually never order dessert.”
“No,” he says. He rounds his shoulders a bit as the waiter stops by, dropping off a plate and a parfait glass. The glass is filled with layers of cream and raspberries. The plate is—
“Chocolate cake?” I ask.
“Yes.” My father glances at me, uncertain. “For you. I don’t know if you want it. I just thought, you like chocolate, so—”
My throat grows tight. “No. I mean, yes. I do.” I reach for a fork, and he pushes the plate toward me.
I take a bite, savoring the rich, deep taste. “It’s good,” I say, swallowing, my throat still tight, and my father smiles wide.
I didn’t understand it before. I still don’t, really. Why my father can’t simply talk to me, tell me how he feels. But I know him a littlebetter now. I understand that this is some kind of gesture, the same way him handing me chocolate when I was a kid was.
