He flinched. Good. He should flinch. He should feel some fraction of what I’d felt, of what I’d gone through during all those years of wondering why my father had left and why he didn’t love me enough to stay.
“I decided the best way to protect you was to remove myself from the equation,” he said. His voice shook a little, and he waited for a second before he went on. “I needed to put distance between us so that anyone who came after me wouldn’t find you at the end of the trail. It wasn’t — ” The words broke off there, and I watched him swallow as he stopped to gather himself once again. “It wasn’t what I wanted, Sidney. It was never what I wanted.”
“And yet you did it anyway.”
“Yes.” He met my gaze at last, and I saw the weight of those seventeen lost years in his gaze. “I did it anyway. Because keeping you safe mattered more than keeping you close.”
The coffee maker beeped, signaling that the pot was ready, but none of us moved to get up. The kitchen felt very quiet, very still, like the whole house was holding its breath.
“The birthday cards,” I said. “You sent them for a few years after you left, and then they stopped. Why?”
His mouth tightened. “Emily asked me to stop. She said they were confusing you, making you think I might come back. She thought a clean break would be easier.”
“Easier for whom?” Right then, a little spasm of anger went through me. Not at my father this time, but at my grandmother, for thinking she knew best.
“For you.” He paused. “At least, that’s what she said. I think…I think it was hard for her, too. Seeing your face every time one of those cards arrived, I mean. She told me that you’d wait by the mailbox for days afterward, hoping there might be something else.”
I remembered that all too well, the hope that would bloom inside me every time I saw my father’s handwriting on an envelope, followed by the crushing disappointment that swooped in when there was nothing else, no letter explaining why he’d left or when he was coming back. Eventually, I’d learned to stop hoping.
“You could have fought her on it,” I said. “You could have kept sending them anyway.”
“I could have.” His shoulders lifted, and he added, “But Emily was here with you and your mother, and I wasn’t. She knew what was best for you in ways I couldn’t, from hundreds of miles away. So I deferred to her judgment.” A twist of his mouth. “Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe I should have fought harder. But at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Part of me wanted to rage at him, to tell him that nothing he’d done had been the right thing, that he’d made choice after choice that had left me feeling abandoned and unloved. But another part of me — the part that had spent the last eight months learning just how complicated the world really was — could almost understand the impossible position he’d been in.
Almost.
“The money stopped about five years ago,” I said. “The checks from Grandma. I found records going back a decade…more than that, actually, to even before you left.”
Finn nodded. “Emily cut me off about five years ago. She said the precursor signs I’d been tracking had stabilized and that whatever I’d been worried about wasn’t materializing.” He paused. “She was wrong, obviously. But by then, I’d built up enough independent resources to keep the perimeter running on my own.”
“Independent resources?” I asked, even though I thought I knew the answer. Maybe most people thought being an accountant was kind of a boring occupation, but being certified in that field meant you could pick up work almost anywhere.
“Consulting work. Nothing illegal,” he added, as if that was supposed to reassure me. “But lucrative enough to fund the operation without Emily’s support.”
Ben, who’d been silent this whole time, as though he knew he needed to let my father and me hash things out, finally shifted in his chair beside me. “You mentioned DAPI earlier. You said they’d flagged me as a potential asset. How did you get access to their database?”
“I have contacts in various agencies,” my father said in a careful tone that let me know he wasn’t about to reveal any sensitive information. “DAPI isn’t the only organization interested in what’s happening in places like Silver Hollow. They’re just the most aggressive.”
Ben frowned. “And you’ve been feeding information to these contacts? About me? About Sidney?”
“Only what was necessary to keep them pointed in the wrong direction.” My father’s voice was calm, but I saw the tension in his shoulders. “My goal was always to protect this family, Ben. Sometimes that meant giving people just enough information to satisfy their curiosity without leading them here.”
I was about to ask another question when the sound of tires on gravel cut through the morning quiet. All three of us turned toward the window, and I felt my senses reaching outward automatically, trying to identify whoever had just pulled into the driveway.
The bioelectric signature was familiar, sharp and controlled like a tightly coiled spring, and I relaxed slightly.
“It’s Rebecca,” I said.
Ben was already on his feet, heading toward the front door. I followed him, with Finn trailing behind us, and we reached the hallway just as the door swung open.
Rebecca Morse stepped inside, and for a moment, I barely recognized her. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt and sneakers, and had been all business. Now she was also casual, but in slim jeans and low boots and a wine-colored sweater that I thought might be cashmere. Her blonde hair lay loose on her shoulders, and her amazingly long, dark lashes had been brushed with mascara. I’d never been able to guess her age, had thought it could be anywhere between thirty-five and forty-five, but now she looked years younger.
Apparently, being shacked up with Eric Hargrove agreed with her.
She took in the scene in front of her with a single sweep of her gaze — me in my flannel shirt with a nose I guessed was still pink from the bloody nose I’d suffered earlier that morning, Ben and his defensive posture, and my father standing a few feet behind us like he wasn’t sure if he was welcome.
Her expression hardened as soon as she caught sight of him.