Chapter 64 Knox
KNOX
When Gwen stepped into the room, relief and joy twisted through my chest.
“Hey, Gwen!” Harper stood from her bed and gave her a quick hug. “I was just about to go get some bagels,” Harper claimed, grabbing her IV pole and dragging it behind her.
She wasn’t. She was just giving us time together. Harper gave me a smile and a wink before shutting the door behind her.
Gwen crossed toward me, but I caught it. Just for a second. The way her eyes flickered over the monitors, the bandages, the oxygen tube. The slight tightening around her mouth before she smoothed it over.
She was worried. And not just about my injuries.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said quietly. “Another violent situation. Another hospital bed.” I held her gaze. “You’re wondering if this is just who I am.”
Her expression flickered. Caught.
“I wasn’t—” She stopped. Took a breath. “Okay. Maybe a little.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture nervous. “When Harper called, after she assured me you were okay, my first thought was—”
“That your violent father became violent again.”
She didn’t insult me by pretending otherwise. “But then Harper told me everything. What he did to her. How you saved her. How you almost died, getting her out of that fire.” She swallowed. “She said you’re the reason she’s alive. And that you let him live.”
I held her gaze. Let her see the truth in it.
“That’s not nothing, Dad.” Her voice was softer now.
I smiled. “Well, I have no plans for any violent anythings anytime soon, so you can rest assured, as soon as I’m out of here, I will make sure you don’t get any more middle-of-the-night phone calls.”
She smiled, her shoulders dropping as the tension melted away.
“So …” She dropped into the chair beside my bed, then changed her mind and perched on the edge of the mattress instead. Close to me. Comfortable with me. “Is this your way of getting out of dinner with me this week?”
A rough laugh escaped me. We’d had dinner together every Wednesday since I got out. It had become the highlight of my week.
“I could be in the burn unit, and I’d refuse to miss dinner with you.”
“Good answer.” She smirked, but her eyes drifted to my bandages. The monitors. To the numbers tracking my heart rate, my oxygen levels, all the ways my body was still recovering. Her teeth caught her bottom lip.
“Hey.” I waited until she met my eyes. “I’m okay. I’m going to be okay.”
She nodded. Swallowed. Then lifted her chin with that stubborn set I recognized from the mirror.
“I heard you took another blow to the head.” She raised an eyebrow. “You’d better stop that. Concussions aren’t exactly a hobby, Dad.”
“Noted.”
“I’m serious.” She pointed at me. “No more head injuries. I just got you back. I’d like you to have a functioning brain for at least a little while.”
A smile tugged at my mouth. “I’ll do my best.”
“And no more fires. No more rock-wielding psychopaths.”
“I’ll add it to the list.”
“You’d better.” She folded her hands in her lap, and something in her expression shifted. Softer now. “So, how are you feeling? For real.”
“Like I inhaled a warehouse worth of smoke and got bashed in the head with a rock.”
“Poetic.”
“I’m a wordsmith.”
She snorted. “Clearly.”
I shifted my attention to the bag in her hand. Bright pink tissue paper peeking out the top.
“What’s that?” I asked.
She lifted it. “I was planning to give you this for Christmas. But then I spent the last few hours realizing you might not have made it that long, so …” She shrugged, but her voice wavered just slightly. “I decided I was done waiting.”
The words hit me like a punch to the chest. She’d spent hours replaying every worst-case scenario.
And her response was to bring me something.
“A gift? For me?” I was the one that should be giving her gifts.
“Life’s short, Dad. Last night proved that.” She held out the bag. “I don’t want to wait for the right moment anymore. I just want you to have this.”
She must have read my hesitation because she added, “I know in the prison visiting room, I was all angry daughter, filled with resentment and bitterness. But that wasn’t the full picture. I mean, yes, I felt bitter. Resentful. Sometimes, I called you bad names.”
A rough laugh escaped me. “I deserved it.”
But she shook her head, and her voice dipped lower.
Softer. “I also had these other memories of you. Really good ones. And I think some part of me knew you were a good dad.” She paused, swallowing.
“Even when the bitterness started to take root, I couldn’t completely kill the part of my heart that remembered you tucking me in at night. ”
My throat tightened. “You remember that?”
“I mean, I remember a few times.” She hedged, shrugging. “I was really young. But I also remember visiting you in prison. Those early years, before I wasn’t allowed to come anymore. And I just remember feeling so …” She searched for the word. “Loved. Whenever I saw you.”
I had to look at the ceiling. Had to blink hard.
Get it together.
“Anyway”—her tone shifted, lighter now—“the point is, I kept something through the years. I was building it more for me than anything else, but …” She pushed the bag toward me. “I think it just feels right to give this to you.”
I shifted carefully, ribs protesting, and pulled the glittery tissue paper out. Inside was a large photo album.
Hot pink.
And on the front, in the handwriting of a child who’d clearly taken her time making each letter perfect, were the words:
For My Dad.
“It’s a scrapbook,” she explained. “I know hot pink is probably the worst color in the world to pick, but I was, like, eight when I started it, so …” Another shrug. “Pink was my favorite color back then.”
The scrapbook sat heavy on my lap. Heavier than any weight I’d ever lifted.
“Open it,” she encouraged quietly.
So, I did.
The first page was a picture of an eight-year-old Gwen in a Girl Scout uniform, holding up boxes of cookies like she’d conquered the world. Sun-kissed highlights even then. That wide, gap-toothed grin.
Next to it was a handwritten note. Careful letters. A few backward. The handwriting of a child who was trying so hard.
Dear Dad,
I sold 23 boxes of Girl Scout cookies! That was the second highest in our group!
Love,
Gwen
My vision blurred.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and turned the page.
She looked a few months older in this one. Standing on a dock, a little pink fishing pole in the water, pigtails I remembered so vividly bouncing in the breeze. Her smile was pure joy.
The note beside it read:
Dear Dad,
Today, I learned how to fish! I don’t like touching the worms. Worms are gross. And I feel sorry for them that they die. But the fishing was fun! I caught a fish all by myself! I can’t wait to go fishing with you.
Love,
Gwen
Fucking hell.
My throat was closing up. I had to keep swiping at my eyes like they were some kind of broken faucet.
Page after page. Memory after memory.
Her first dance recital. She stood on stage in a purple tutu, frozen mid-twirl, her arms stretched wide, like she was trying to hug the whole audience. The note beside it read:
Dear Dad,
I was so nervous that I almost threw up. But I didn’t! I pretended you were in the front row, and that made me brave. I hope you would have clapped the loudest.
Love,
Gwen
Her tenth birthday. A candid shot of her mid-laugh, frosting on her nose, surrounded by a blur of friends in party hats. Ten candles glowed on a lopsided cake.
Dear Dad,
I’m double digits now! That feels really grown up. I made a wish, but I can’t tell you what it was, or it won’t come true. (But you can probably guess.)
Love,
Gwen
Middle-school graduation. She wore a white dress, her hair in two French braids, clutching a rolled-up certificate like a trophy.
Dear Dad,
I walked across the stage today. I pretended you were watching from somewhere I couldn’t see. It helped.
Love,
Gwen
Her first car. A beat-up Honda she was clearly proud of. She leaned against the hood, keys dangling from one finger, grinning.
Dear Dad,
I got a car! It makes a weird noise when I turn left, but I love it anyway. I know you would’ve taught me to drive if you could.
Love,
Gwen
Every single milestone. Every moment that mattered to her. She’d come home, printed a picture, and written me a note.
She’d included me.
Even when I wasn’t there. Even when she was angry. Even when she’d started to believe I was never coming back.
She’d included me.
I was with her all along.
“This is …” I couldn’t find the words. My voice came out wrecked. Destroyed. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
“Deep down, I think I knew I’d see you again someday, Dad.
” Her eyes were bright now. Glassy. But she held it together.
“And I didn’t want you to miss out on anything.
I wanted us to have those moments together.
” She smiled, trembling just slightly. “This was my way of making that happen. Of including you in my life.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
You’re six foot four. Covered in tattoos. A convicted killer. A badass motherfucker who made grown men back down with a look.
Get your shit together.
“Oh, and in your email, you asked about this.” She reached into the bag and set a ratty, pale-pink elephant on my lap. “Of course I kept it, Dad. I kept everything you ever gave me.”
The air left my lungs.
I picked it up with both hands. One ear was nearly detached. The pink had faded to something closer to gray, the fabric worn thin in patches. Rubbed smooth over years, like she’d loved the color right out of it.
I’d been so worried she’d thrown it away. But she’d kept it this whole time. By the looks of it, slept with it every night for years.
My throat locked. I pressed my thumb into the worn patch once, twice, the texture burning itself into my fingerprint like something I needed to memorize and keep.
“Gwen …”
“I love you, Dad.”
Four words. Simple. Devastating.
They unlocked something in my chest that I’d kept chained for fourteen years.
“And I got you one more thing,” she added.
She pulled out another scrapbook.
Yellow.
Blank.
“Yellow’s my new favorite color,” she explained. “I thought we could fill this one together. Wednesday dinners. Holidays. All of it. No more waiting for the right moment.”
And that was it.
Six foot four. Two hundred forty pounds of muscle. Tattoos crawling up my neck. A man who’d survived prison without breaking.
I cried like a little boy.
Gwen leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me, careful of the wires and the monitors and all the ways I was held together by medical tape and stubbornness.
“It’s okay, Dad,” she whispered. “We have time now.”
I held on to her like she was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth. I had time now. Time to share memories and create scrapbooks and learn all the things I’d missed.
Time to be her dad.