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Her hand lifts up to touch my face, only to drop away again. “Relief,” she confesses.
We let silence encapsulate us for minutes, our gaze set on the stormy flow of the river.
“Talk to me,” I plead gently.
“I’m confused.” Her fingers reach up, massaging at her right earlobe. Annoyed at the hoop threaded through it, she removes it without thought, dropping it into the pocket of her dress. “Confused that I’m upset. Confused. . . that I’m not as sad as I should be?”
I stare at her profile, cataloging her freckles like I’ve done a million times before. I don’t stop my hand from moving, letting it lift to brush her hair back over her ear so I can see her better. “Unresolved issues and feelings?” I question, but she only shrugs.
“Did you go to the service?”
“I came straight here. I came straight to you.”
Turning her face, she meets my gaze, shifting closer. “I couldn’t stomach going,” she tells me unnecessarily. “What if someone asked me how I was coping? What if I lost my cool and screamed at them that he betrayed me?”
I know that, deep down, Henley would never have reacted that way, but I’m glad she didn’t go. I would’ve hated her having to swallow the pain of others' words.
“It wasn’t my fault my mom lied,” she argues.
“Baby, I know.”
“But it wasn’t his either?” She frames it as a question, begging me to agree with her. Or to disagree. I can’t be sure.
“I guess you’re right,” I admit reluctantly, being as honest as I can be.
Her head nods up and down. “I’m sad because if he chose to accept me as his daughter, even if I wasn’t biologically his, maybe my life would be different. Maybe I wouldn’t be so afraid of love.” Her eyes graze over my face intimately when she declares this. Wanting the world to understand why she’s so jaded. Or maybe not the world, maybe just me. “Why didn’t he want me, Brooks?” The crack in her voice stabs at my heart, and the only thing I can do is reach out and cup her cheek. To touch her. To stroke my thumb along her skin andlisten.“All those years ago, was it just his pride?” She struggles to speak, her words breaking over her cries. “Was his pride more important than the welfare of a teenage girl? I have so many questions that he’ll never be forced to answer, and I’m relieved,” she confesses quietly. “I’m sad, but I’m relieved, and I don’t know how to process that.”
The side of her face presses more heavily against her palm, and I lean forward, placing a kiss on her forehead.
I hate that I don’t know how to rid this pain for her. I hate that even in death, Derrick is causing her harm.
But more than any of that, I hate that time and time again I’ve abandoned her in the same way Derrick did. I held onto my selfishness like armor, and when she wouldn’t serve my purpose, I left her. The way he did. I taught her that I loved herwithcondition and had the audacity to blame her for us failing when she’d shown me it wasn’t good enough.
“I don’t even know why I’m dressed like this.” She picks at the loose material of her black dress. “It symbolizes mourning. I should’ve done that at seventeen when I actually lost him. When heabandonedme.”
I feel the frown on my face as it forms. “Hen, baby, you’re allowed to grieve him even though he hurt you.”
“No,” she denies my statement vehemently.
“Yes,” I push just as fervently.
She closes her eyes, dropping her head in shame. “I feel so stupid.”
“For what?”
Her head lifts instinctively, eyes opening with a spray of contempt. “He didn’t want me, Brooks. Why should I care that he’s dead?” she asks me, begging me to give her logic. “He just cut me out as if I was nothing.” Her breathing stutters, her words coming out like shards of glass; broken and fragile.
I wrap an arm around her, pulling her into my side, and she comes willingly.
“You care because as shitty as he was, he was the only father you knew, Squirrel. Derrick professed to love you once upon a time. You’re allowed to hold on to that, even if it hurts to do so.”
She sniffs. “He left me everything.” She pauses, pulling in a breath large enough to push her frame upward. “His fortune. He left every last cent of it to me.”
Her small voice is warped in confusion. “He was sick formonthsand didn’t bother reaching out to mend our relationship, but then he leaves me his estate.” She stops, looking at me for understanding. “With what I can only assume is a pitiful collection of words trying to explain himself.”
It’s then that I notice the crumpled envelope in her hand.
“You haven’t read it?”
