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“Dad?”
His hair looked as if he’d had fingers running through it for hours.
“I didn’t know where else to go.” His voice was strained.
Trish appeared with a cardboard box and started when she saw my dad. “I thought we were meeting at our house. Everything okay?”
“Ella’s fine,” he quickly reassured her.
Her brows pinched when she took in my father’s distressed state, but she said nothing.
Her look asked me if everything was all right as Dad picked Ella up.Not sure, I conveyed with my return look.
“We had a good day, didn’t we, little flower?”
Trish smiled at the two of them together and then turned her attention to Officer Wilson. “Here’s your dinner.”
“Thanks. I’m going to take off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
We said our goodbyes, and then it was just the four of us.
“Mills, can I get you something to drink?”
“No, love. I’m fine, thank you.” He’d relaxed a fraction now that Ella was in his arms. The girl seemed to have that effect on people.
“Then I’ll let you two have some privacy while I pack up the truck.”
“Stay,” Dad said as she started to leave.
Trish remained in the doorway.
“Your mother came to see me.”
I braced on the side of the truck. Trish caught my hand with hers. Some of her calm infused my fury. She tugged a little and I slid an arm around her.
“She seems to be slithering back into our lives,” I said bitterly. “Has she been after Marlow too?”
“I don’t know.” He held my gaze as he spoke the words. They spiraled into my depths.
“She came by to apologize.”
“A little late for that,” I said.
“I-It was like old times. Like the years apart had been erased. Like it was when we’d first moved into the apartment.”
He had the decency to flinch. His head dropped. He stroked Ella’s cheek, avoiding my gaze.
“Let me get this straight. The woman who left you—left all of us—shows up, says she sorry, and you forgave her?”
“I didn’t forgive her.” He looked like he’d been slapped. “Maybe I was a little dazed at first. It’s been thirty-four years. I just—”
Trish, standing by my side, had soothed my irritation into something manageable. My mother just wouldn’t go away and now she appeared to be after my father again. “Dad, it wasn’t that long ago that I mentioned her and you took off.”
“I know.” Apprehension etched his features. “She wanted my blessing to have a relationship with all of you again.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“I said it was up to the three of you. Not me.”
