Chapter 65
Miles
Friday
My dad knew my name.
Of course he knows my name. But hearing him say it made me realize it’s real. Some part of me still thinks it can’t be, that it was all a crazy coincidence. Too crazy to be true.
The first few minutes are marked with speeding hearts, static bodies, and teary eyes.
Then, he asks me how old I am now, where I live, what I do for a living, and how I know Ella.
He is slowly getting to know my surface-level self. I answer everything, still in shock, aware of the faint emotion in my voice.
I ask him if he has always lived in Verryn. Could this be where he was all these years I thought he had vanished?
But no. Valecrest. That’s where he had been.
When I ask him about the reason he’s in a wheelchair, he explains it briefly. Not dramatically, not angrily, and not in too much detail.
“You’re confused,” he says, after I remain silent.
Ella sits in silence too, on the chair near the window, further away from us, a quiet observer in our conversation. I had seen her move toward the door the moment my dad asked me his first question, but I reached out, wordlessly asking her to stay.
“How long have you been living with it?” I ask, referring to his illness. None of it makes sense to me.
He looks at me with tenderness in his eyes, eyes I don’t really know. And yet, strangely, they feel familiar… comforting. “Since you were really young.”
“Then why did you leave us? I could have helped you.”
His soft smile doesn’t fade. “How’s your mother?” he asks instead.
I pause before answering his change of subject. “She’s fine. She’s happy.”
My dad nods, his gaze dropping to the floor, his smile still faintly there.
“Did you already know you were sick when you left us?” I ask lightly, my voice carrying hurt and worry. “Why did you want to go through this alone?”
“I didn’t, son.” His voice remains calm, even. “I didn’t choose to go through this alone. But I want you to remember that we all have our own limitations. You should talk to your mother before you and I talk about the past.”
Is he implying that he didn’t leave us — that we left him?
“I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes. I did,” he says. “And my biggest regret in life was not looking for you around the whole world while I still had the mobility to do so.”
I watch his eyes meet Ella’s in a quiet exchange of understanding.
“We’re never prepared for life-changing news like this,” he says, glancing down at his wheelchair. “But I want you to talk to her with patience. And I’d love it if you came back to see me after today.”
“Did my mom leave you after finding out you were sick?” I ask directly.
“It was too much to take,” he says, defending her. “It took me a while to understand it, but I do now.”
My hands clench into fists. How could she do this to him? She let me grow up assuming another reality.
Suddenly, my mind flashes back to my stepfather Ben leaving our house in Evermere, ten years ago. How he looked skinnier, different, shrunken… sick. Neurons in my brain made the connection. She also left him.
“Ask her about your grandparents, her parents,” my dad says, sensing the heat rising inside me. “Some people are slaves to their own history.”
I exhale slowly, letting his calmness steady me. His acceptance, his empathy, they sneak their way in, barely noticeable, but there. They manage to find a tiny space in me, somehow.
I look into my dad’s eyes. Warm, familiar and unknown.
Right now, I’m here.
Next to a dad who’s becoming real to me.
“Of course I’ll come see you after today,” I say, meaning it, responding to what he said minutes ago.
He smiles fully. “Now, if you have the time, would you sit here and tell me more about yourself? And Ella,” his eyes turn toward Ella, inviting her to get closer to us, “can you help me get to know this boy?”