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I suddenly urgently wish Desi was here with me. We could help each other through this. There isn’t anyone else on the planet who could understand what this feels like, what this is bringing up for me.
I’m not sure how long we sit there in silence before he finally breaks it. “Rosalind.” That’s all he says, just my name.
I nod. “Yes.”
“What are you doing here? You shouldn’t have come.” His voice is still oddly emotionless.
I huff a humorless laugh and shake my head. “You’re probably right. I mean, you’ve never once tried to reach out to me in the last ten years. Even though you could have left ages ago, according to Garza. It’s painfully obvious that you aren’t even remotely glad to see me, and I guess that makes sense, since you nearly killed me.”
He lets me talk, lets the words fall from my lips, and I finally see an emotion flicker to life in his eyes when I accuse him of nearly killing me.Guilt.Just for the briefest moment.
Since it’s clear he’s not interested, I keep talking. “I’m not here for a happy reunion. I’m here to get answers. Its come to my attention recently that… that the scars caused by you are actually a casting. I want to know what the spell is and what it does.”
My father’s lips twitch just the slightest bit. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you, lady bug?” My heart clenches in my chest at the nickname. My hand moves to the thick scar between my breasts and rubs more out of habit then that it soothes anything. He follows the movement, and another emotion flares to life.Fear. “How is your heart?”
“Fine. It’s fine. I have bigger things to worry about than that. What is the spell you were trying to do?”
He lets out a noise that could almost be a sigh, but doesn’t answer. Instead, he reaches for the box and flips open the lid, revealing row after row of fancy donuts. His face softens. Something in my heart clenches at that, but I force it away. He’s obviously not pleased to see me, and maybe I was a fool to think he might be.
Ten years is a long time and we’re totally different people. When I was a kid, it felt like me and Desi were his entire world. He worked, sure, but every spare minute he had was spent with us, playing, teaching, just being with us.
I’d always thought he did what he did out of love, because he didn’t want me to die, that he was trying to force the doctor’s hands to heal me, when the insurance company didn’t want to.
But now? Maybe I was a sacrifice. Maybe the incomplete spell on my chest didn’t give him what he wanted. Maybe he’s angry I survived. Maybe-
“I can practically hear your brain working from here, lady bug. What has you so agitated?” He grabs a chocolate covered donut with what looks like Oreos crumbled on top and takes a bite.
“I’m not agitated. Disappointed would be a better word.” I prop my elbows on the arms of my chair and lift my chin. “I guess I thought you’d at least be happy to see me on some level. But it’s pretty obvious you’re not. I mean, you’re not even surprised to see me, are you? You have no interest in what me and Desi have been doing for the last ten years? You don’t have anything you want to say to me?”
My dad frowns down at the donut, like he’s not happy with it or with me or with the conversation. But then he reaches for the sketchpad on his lap and flips it over. And there on the page is me. Looking exactly as I am now, with my hair in braids and circles under my eyes, the top of my surgery scars poking up from the collar of my v-neck t-shirt. I blink at the image.
“You knew I was coming.”
A small smile curls his lips before it’s gone entirely. “Yes, Ro, I knew you were coming. I’ve known what you’ve been up to for almost the entire time we’ve been apart. My…abilitieshave let me.” One of his fingers strokes over the tattoo on his arm, and I blink when the tiger and the wolf both move, mouths closing, faces turning toward me.
“You have a shadow,” I say, feeling oddly numb.
“I have five,” he corrects. “I send them to check on you and Desi every so often. As soon as you arrived here yesterday, I knew. I wanted to see you right away, but there are rules.” He eyes me. “I take it you also have a shadow?”
I nod. “Yes. He’s not here at the moment. Well, he’s in the car. He wanted to give me the chance to talk to you alone.”
He leans forward. The only physical sign of interest from him. “What else have you discovered about yourself, Rosalind?”
I shake my head. “Nuh-uh, you’re not the one asking questions here. Tell me what spell you were trying to do on me. Tell me why you did it. I deserve to know.”
He takes another huge bite of the donut and chews and swallows, no doubt trying to buy himself some time before he has to actually answer. Finally, he sighs and shakes his head. “It’s a long story.”
I nod. “I figured. We have three hours until visiting hours are over.” I motion with my hand for him to continue.
He looks down at the charcoal sketch on his lap, traces a finger along the drawn curve of my jaw.
“I never got the chance to tell you, but I was adopted by your grammie and papa. They told me when I turned thirteen and I spent a long time trying to find out who my real parents were. But my records were sealed and they wouldn’t release anything to me. I tried for years to get some inkling, some iota of information about who I was. But nothing I did worked. Eventually I gave up on the idea of knowing anything, and I focused on what I did have, two parents who loved me unconditionally despite that I wasn’t their own flesh and blood. And then your mom, and then Desi and you, my two perfect little angels.”
He gives me a small soft smile that is as close to how he used to look at me as anything he’s done since I got here. “You and your sister were my whole world, Ro. I loved you so damn much. And the issue with your heart… well, it made it all the more clear how much I was willing to do for you. It was your heart condition that helped me find my biological family. It’s genetic. And rare. Once we knew that, it wasn’t at all hard to do a little digging and find the family in the area where I was born that had the same genetic heart condition.”
He pauses here, and grabs another donut from the box, before nudging it over to me. I pick an old-fashioned and take a small bite, more to get him to keep talking than anything else.
“What I found was that they were all dead. Every last one of my biological family was dead, either by sickness,” he motions at his chest like he’s indicating his heart. “Or accidents. Or… well, my mother was murdered.”
