Run To Me

Ghosts...

"I'm just popping into town love, I'm meeting Luke at 11 but I should be back for, oh, maybe 2?" Tom called to her as she finished showering.

"Ok, see you then!" Her cheery response gladdened his heart. 

He'd been worried that she might slip into a real downward spiral. Not that he thought she was weak, far from it, but even the strongest have their moments and her father, turning up out of the blue? Well, that was going to be a moment if there ever was one.

Molly came down into the kitchen and popped some bread in the toaster.  She tried to think of other things, she read the paper, she listened to the news - wishing as always she hadn't it was so full of doom and gloom and dishonest politicians - but nothing worked.  Every time her mind wasn't fully occupied, he came back to her.  The grey man with the sad, yellowing eyes.

Her father.

Tom had listened to her as she ranted, cried, talked and got precisely nowhere with her demons. She'd decided to let her Dad come to her, and last night, it had seemed the ideal solution in a less than ideal world.  This morning?  Not so much. 

Despite her cheery answer, despite her resolve to keep calm and carry on, she wanted to know.  She wanted to know everything.  Why.  Who.  What.  For nearly thirty years her life had been dominated by that one moment.  James and her had spent a lifetime trying to deal with it as best they could.  Now, she had a chance to end the speculation, end the mystery.  Move on.  With or without him, only time would tell that.

Around an hour later, she was sitting in the small corner of her living room she called her "office" when the doorbell rang.  Assuming it was Rita, she set aside her laptop and smiled, be nice to see her again and thank her for everything properly, not through a haze of shock and tears.  Maybe she had time to go for lunch?  

She was pondering where to go locally as she opened the door.  It wasn't Rita.  

"Hello Molly" 

"Dad"

"Can - can we talk?"

"Yes."

"Can - can I come in?"

"No.  Wait there." she closed the door and leaned on it, breathing hard. Seeing him again, so soon, made her more nervous than she could ever have imagined.  Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, then gathered her keys and her handbag and opened the door.

"Come with me," she said quietly, calmly, "There's a cafe up the road.  We can talk there."  She walked out and locked the door.  Instinctively she checked she still had her mobile in her pocket.  She would make an excuse to go to the loo, text Tom.  She waited for him to follow her.  

They walked in silence the few hundred yards.  Opening the door for her, he smiled and she returned it thinly.  Be polite, she kept telling herself, give him a chance to explain.  She also heard her inner voice saying 'I told you to be careful what you wished for'.

Her Dad sat at a table and she went to the counter.  Angela had been managing that cafe for as long as anyone in the neighbourhood could remember.  Maybe she came with the fixtures and fittings.  Anyway, this morning, she was the one face Molly knew she could count on till Tom appeared.  "Hi." she said and paused, looking at Angela intently.

"Hi Molly." Angela waited.  And waited. "Molly?  Is everything ok?" 

"Do - do you know the man sitting at the table behind me?" she asked in a low voice "make it look like you're telling me what cakes you've got please?"

Angela briefly glanced over Molly's shoulder and turned every shade of white. "Oh my GOD it's ...it's George.  It's your DAD!" she looked at the display case without turning a hair.  She was an even better actress than she was a cafe manager. "What the hell girl?  Are you ok? Did you know?"