Page 45 of The Bookshop By the Loch

Dad’s face dropped. “That’s the last thing I want to do, believe me.” His gaze levelled with mine. “Lexie, this might well be the last chance I have to apologise for what I did to you and your mother.”

“Oh, stop being so melodramatic!”

“I’m not. I’m serious.”

I frowned, swiping at my eyes with the back of my hand. His words made me draw up. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

Dad sucked in a mouthful of air. Behind him, life was playing out in Bracken Way, with its busy little shops and the traffic idling past. Bikes on top of car roofs glittered in the late afternoon sun. Agony reared up in his eyes. “I didn’t want to tell you. Not like this. I’d planned to tell you and your mother together.”

I sniffed. “Tell us what? Are you finally getting remarried, Dad? Tired of shagging your way around the newsrooms of the world?”

The atmosphere inside Book Ends was like a giant bubble preparing to burst. There was an electrified silence. He rubbed hard at his lined forehead, before staring down at the polished shop floor. He jerked his head back up to meet my gaze. “I’m ill, Lexie. Seriously ill.”

I drank him in, trying to process what he was saying. “What on earth are you talking about?”

And for the first time I saw my father, normally so self-assured and confident, look agonised and lost. He set his shoulders.

“I’ve got dementia.”

Chapter Fifteen

Tobias made his way to lock the front door before moving back into my shocked line of sight. “Lexie? Lexie. Do you want me to stay?”

I stared past him for a few seconds, struggling to comprehend what was happening. Today had been delightful, with enthusiastic sales and customers wreathed in smiles. Book Ends had been relaunched with a fanfare. Today was supposed to have ended on such a high.

It seemed a world away now.

A swirl of emotions whirled through me like a tornado. Dementia?

I refocused on Tobias’s broad shoulders and the silhouette of his wild dark curls standing in front of me.

Dad’s words rang around my head, like clanging church bells on a Sunday morning. He didn’t feel like a father to me, but nevertheless, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

I tried to unscramble my head. Come on Lexie. Speak! My voice sounded like a faint echo. “Yes, please could you stay, Tobias.”

He nodded and gave me a flicker of a supportive smile. “Sure.”

Dad’s face was pleading. “I’m sorry, Lexie. Like I said, I didn’t want you to find out like this. I didn’t plan on blurting it out.”

I straightened my dress, before my hands started to tumble over each other again. “Dementia?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“My doctor confirmed it.”

My thoughts jostled, as I tried to make sense of the news. Snatched, brief memories of my father from my childhood, shimmered in front of my eyes. His handsome silhouette reflected in the computer screen as he bashed out urgent copy for the local newspaper; his frustration that he couldn’t land a post on one of the bigger publications; Mum’s tears as he delivered a whole raft of excuses why he was walking out on us. I blinked across at my dad, struggling to focus. “But… but you’re only sixty.”

“Coming up for sixty-one now.” He gave a shrug, fighting to look accepting of it. “Unlucky, I guess.”

My thoughts were running in every direction.

I made my way to the counter and leant against it, my head bursting with so many sudden questions it felt as though it was about to explode. I cleared my throat. “When did you find out? About the dementia?”

“Two months ago.” He opened and closed his tanned hands. “I noticed I was beginning to forget why I was going into a particular room a few months prior to that. At first, I thought it was just me getting on.” An echo of a wry smile toyed at the corners of his mouth. “Then I found I was beginning to forget my lines when I was reporting; even the names of the guys who I’ve worked with for a few years now.”

Dad gathered himself, as he described the battery of tests and examinations he had to go through – everything from mental capacity to blood tests and scans. “I was like a sodding pincushion.” Dad gripped tighter to the jacket he had draped over one arm. “I had a lingering fear at the back of my mind that it might be dementia. But I convinced myself that it was just stress-related and me overdoing it.”