Chapter 12
My father is fine.
By the time we make it to his room on the third floor, he’s awake and talking. Pale, tired, hooked up to more machines than I care to count, but awake. My mother sits at his bedside, looking exhausted but happy. Her smile widens when she sees me like she wasn’t sure I’d come.
She’s been trying lately. Trying to be a part of my life. Trying to make up for the past. I’ve let her, to an extent. But it is hard to forget things once you finally name them.
On my wedding day, she pulled me aside just before the ceremony.
She said it was hurtful that my father wasn’t walking me down the aisle.
She asked how it would look to the rest of the family.
I remember just staring at her, holding my bouquet with shaking hands, and asking, “Do you even know the name of my first boyfriend?”
She didn’t.
That is the thing about my childhood. There was no one moment that broke my heart. It was the accumulation of small, invisible wounds. Little things that seemed like nothing on their own, but together they formed a bruise I’ve carried for years.
When it was just the three of us, my parents and me, there were no dinner tables, no family meals.
Most nights, I would heat up leftovers, eat by myself while they were out or working or locked behind doors I wasn’t allowed to knock on.
But when my siblings visited? Suddenly it was a celebration.
The table was set. Favourite dishes filled every inch.
Stories from their childhood spilled out like confetti.
Apparently, my father opened the door for my sister’s prom date holding a gun.
He laughed when he told the story. They all laughed.
I smiled too, because I had learned to pretend.
But inside, I couldn’t stop thinking, he didn’t even ask who I was going to the winter dance with, just a month prior to his retelling of ‘she’s my baby girl’.
When Aiden proposed, he asked my grandmother for permission. Not out of tradition, but because he didn’t know my father. They’d never met, never even talked.
That is why I said no. That is why I refused to let him walk me down the aisle. Because it isn’t a performance. It’s not a photo opportunity. It’s a symbol. A father saying: I know you, and I believe in who you’ve chosen. And mine couldn’t say that. Because he never knew me. Because he never tried.
Now, watching him joke with the nurse like nothing happened, I feel something sharp press behind my ribs.
Not anger. Not guilt. Something more hollow.
Something harder to name. He loves my siblings.
That has never been in question. I have seen the way he talks about them, the way he lights up when they walk into a room.
He was their protector, their guide, their hero.
But with me…
It’s always been different.
He was never cruel. Not outright. But absence has its own sharpness. And when it slices again and again over the years, the wound keeps reopening.
He is a good father. Just not to me.
And in moments like this, I find myself wondering: What is wrong with me? What didn’t I do right? What part of me made it so easy for him to forget I was there?
I know I’m not supposed to think this way.
I know I’m grown now, with a family of my own.
But pain has a way of shrinking you. In this room, I am not Kate the mother.
Not Kate the wife. Not even Kate the grown woman who held this family together during lockdown and every storm since.
I am just the girl who waited at the table for a father who never showed up. And I still don’t know why.
Jack and Alex step forward first. They go to him easily, like none of the past matters. Like this is just their grandpa, and they’re glad he’s still here. I hang back, near the door. My mother glances at me. She mouths, Thank you. I nod not trusting myself to speak.
There are things I may never say. And things they may never understand. But I showed up. Sometimes, that’s all I can do.
Watching my parents treat my boys with love, my father assuring Alex it wasn’t his fault, praising Jack for staying calm makes me jealous. I’m jealous of my own fucking kids because of him. Goddammit.
Stepping forward, I say. “I have to run an errand. I’ll be back in an hour or two to pick you guys up, ok?”
My father looks at me for the first time since I walked in, “Can’t you stay, I have to talk to you.”
I'm too raw right now, “When I come back.”
Aiden follows me out asking where I'm going.
“I have an appointment at Orange Cove, can I have the keys?”
He hesitates, “Don’t you think you should talk to your dad?”
I repeat quietly but inside I'm raging, “Give me the fucking keys.”
Finally, he hands them over and I pivot on my feet. Without looking back, I walk away. I can’t with him. The number of times I've tried to make Aiden see my side, understand my pain and he just... God, maybe this marriage is over.
When I reach the car, I grip the steering wheel with both hands, just to steady myself. The keys jingle as I shove them into the ignition, but I don’t start the engine. Not yet.
I stare straight ahead.
My father and Aiden.
Two different men. Different lives. Different stories. And yet, somehow, they blur into the same shape.
I spent my entire childhood chasing crumbs from my father’s table.
Every report card I brought home, every medal, every perfectly ironed dress, I did it all in the hope he might finally see me.
That he’d nod with approval, say something kind, ask me a question about my day.
I even got an MBA, thinking maybe that would earn a seat at his table.
He worked at a Fortune 500 company. I thought maybe, just maybe, he’d see that I followed the path he respected. That I was valuable. That I mattered.
Spoiler alert: It did nothing.
Not a flicker of recognition in his eyes. Not even when I told him I got promoted. He nodded once and went back outside to play with the boys.
And then there’s Aiden.
God. With Aiden, it was the same ache but better disguised.
I just wanted to be the woman he would never leave.
So I made myself perfect. Supportive. Sexy.
Smart. Always grateful, always giving. I made sure dinner was made, the house was clean, the bills were paid.
I learned to fold his T-shirts the way he liked.
I stayed quiet when I should’ve spoken up. I stayed loyal .
And he still left me. Maybe not with his feet, but in the worst way. In the way that rewrites your whole history together.
It wasn’t just the cheating. It was the fact that he never told me. That he married me with that lie in his pocket. That he looked me in the eyes on our wedding day and let me promise forever, knowing he’d already betrayed it.
What if I’ve spent my whole life trying to earn love from men who never had it to give?
What if I never stopped being that little girl at the empty dinner table, waiting for someone to notice she’d grown up?
I open my eyes, start the car, and pull out of the hospital parking lot.
Orange Cove is fifteen minutes away. Not a long drive.
But today, I feel every single mile.
Dr. Brett told me I could come in any time. “Just show up,” he’d said. “If I’m here, I’ll find space for you.” I don’t know if he meant it out of genuine compassion or because business is slow. Doesn’t matter. I need someone trained to hold the mess I’m carrying before it smothers me completely.
The parking lot is mostly empty, the sky grey enough to match my mood. I slam the car door shut harder than I mean to and walk through the double glass. A woman at the front desk glances up, her smile soft but rehearsed.
“Hi,” I say, already feeling frayed. “I don’t have an appointment, but Dr. Brett said I could drop in?”
She checks the screen. “He’s with a patient right now, but I can put you in the next available slot.”
“Okay,” I nod, then pause. “Would you mind doing me one more favour?”
Her eyebrows lift slightly.
“That music,” I say, waving toward the ceiling. “The one that’s supposed to be calming? Can you turn it off? Or at least down?”
She blinks, surprised, but then she nods and taps a few buttons on the tablet next to her keyboard. The faint plinking sound of some watered-down instrumental version of Coldplay finally fades.
“Thank you,” I breathe, sinking into one of the chairs. “That thing was driving me insane.”
“You’re not the first to say that,” she says gently, then turns back to her screen.
I sit in the silence, grateful for the quiet.
My hands are shaking, just slightly. Enough that I keep them folded in my lap so I won’t have to see it. I can still hear my father asking me to stay. Still hear Aiden asking me to talk to him, to listen. Still see Alex’s heartbroken face.
I don’t know how to forgive a man who broke my heart before I even knew what a heart really was. Or another who waited until I built my life around him before he shattered it.
I stare at the floor and wait for my name. I don’t know what I’ll say when I walk into that office. Maybe nothing at all.
But at least I’ll be heard.