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“Oh honey—” His voice was rough. “You were mine from the moment you were born. Screaming your lungs out, by the way. If I’d wanted to give you away or back out, that would have been the time to do it but I didn’t because I loved you. I never believed in love at first sight until you came along. And maybe I should have told you how I felt more often, but I’m a guy and we don’t always get it right. If you’re going to be a journalist, and I know you’ll be a great one, you need to learn to examine the facts. And there is a ton of evidence if you look for it.”
“I don’t—”
“Maybe I didn’t yell ‘I love you’ every time I walked through the door, but I showed you, Izzy. I showed you all the time. Let’s do some fact-checking. Remember when you were nine years old and were crazy about dinosaurs?”
“You took me to the American Museum of Natural History.”
“And then we came home and I spent two days making you Jurassic scenery, complete with a papier-mâché volcano.”
Remembering it made her smile. “It was cool. Until you got red paint on a chair. Mom was furious.”
“She was, and I didn’t care. Do you know why I didn’t care? Because you had the best time. The smile on your face stretched all the way from Brooklyn to Connecticut. You played with your dinosaur world for two months.”
“Until Molly crawled on top of it and it collapsed.”
“That’s right. The perils of having a baby sister.” He looped his arm round her shoulders. “I didn’t spend hours building it because I thought it would be a fun project, although it was a fun project. I did it because I loved you. Then there was the time you decided you wanted to do a trip to the top of the Empire State Building for your eleventh birthday. I took you. Remember that?”
“Yeah. You almost crushed my hand.”
“That’s because I’m not good with heights and I was scared out of my mind.”
She snorted. “You were not.”
“Terrified. I was jelly. But I did it because it was what you wanted. Love got me up there and love got me down again. Do you believe I love you yet, or do I need to keep going?”
“I guess I believe you.”
“You guess?”
“I—I believe you. But—”
“No ‘buts.’ I love you. You’re my girl and I’ll always love you. Nothing is ever going to change that. Nothing you do. Nothing your mom did. And now it’s time to talk about that.” He glanced along the platform to where the three people were still waiting. “I was going to suggest going somewhere private, but this is pretty private. It will do. Clare tells me you know your mom was having an affair. That she was leaving.”
Panic threatened to strangle her.
Izzy stared down the track, willing the train to come right now but there was nothing but trees, and fresh air, and this conversation she didn’t want to have.
“I know this is difficult and you don’t have to say anything, sweetheart.” Jack’s voice was gentle. “I’ll do the talking.”
Where was the train?
“I can’t imagine what this past year must have been like for you and I’m gutted that you didn’t feel able to talk to me about it, but I understand why you didn’t. You didn’t want to hurt me. You love me. And I didn’t mention it to you because I didn’t want to hurt you. I loved you too much. More evidence right there. If she hadn’t died then I guess we would have had that difficult conversation back then, but she did and so there didn’t seem any value in raising it. Except of course I didn’t know that you knew. Which either makes us both caring, or a pair of idiots. Not sure which.”
He knew? All this time she’d been protecting him and he knew?
“I heard her on the phone. We had a terrible, terrible fight before she went out that night. I thought there’d be time to talk about it again—” She felt the tears rush to her eyes and fought to hold them back, but this time her body refused to cooperate. They fell, poured, and with the tears came the sobs and she couldn’t stop any of it. It was all too much. Something inside her had burst.
She felt him pull her against him, was dimly aware of being held, of his voice soothing and calming her, telling her everything was going to be okay, that she had no need to feel guilty and still she cried, soaking his shirt. She cried until she was empty, and even when her sobs eventually stopped she stayed where she was, utterly drained and exhausted.
“There.” He stroked her hair. “This is my fault, sweetheart, not yours. After she died, it was chaos. And we were all dealing with it, and maybe if we hadn’t been I would have noticed something was worrying you. But every time I saw you behave differently, I assumed it was grief. Bad judgment on my part.”
“No!” Why had they never talked like this before? She didn’t want the train to come, not quite yet. She wanted to have this conversation. “I’m sorry she cheated on you.”
“Oh honey—” He kept his arms wrapped around her. “You don’t have to be sorry. Her decisions weren’t yours. My love for you wasn’t, and isn’t, tied up with my feelings for her.”
She sniffed. “You’re so forgiving.”
“I’m not forgiving.” He paused. “I’m mad with her, if you must know. And that’s been difficult. Grieving someone, and being mad with them—it’s a weird feeling.”
