In Search of Tomorrow ✓

Twenty-Nine

I stood numbly, disbelievingly, glancing once more at Clare's lifeless figure before I followed the nurse outside the door. Even as I was walking, I somehow knew what she was saying wasn't true. My father, who had abandoned my sisters and me for half a year, wouldn't come back now. How would he even have found out about the accident?

Then I stepped around the doorframe, and my heart stopped for what felt like the millionth time that day.

My dad was standing, leaning against the painted white wall, his arms crossed and his face lined with worry. He was unshaven, a beard growing on his chin, and he was sporting a dirty white t-shirt and equally unclean blue jeans. But he was still my daddy, and I was seeing him again when I never thought I would.

"Evelyn," he croaked, his voice strained—but I could still hear the hint of the tone he used to use when he talked to me. "Are you okay?"

I was still standing frozen, unprepared to see my dad and much less talk to him. He stepped away from the wall and began walking towards me, arms outstretched. I immediately cowered.

"Evelyn?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

Was there any way I could ever tell him what was wrong, or how much he had scarred me by the awful things he had done?

The only words I could manage to get out were accusatory. "Where have you been these past six months?" I demanded, pressing my palm against the wall to steady myself.

He stopped advancing on me, his face falling. He looked so much older than I'd remembered him being. "I'm sorry, Evelyn," he said, running his hands through his hair and messing it up even more than it already was. I resisted the urge to fiddle with my own hair, not wanting to seem anything like him. "I've made a lot of mistakes. I love you and your sisters, though, and I regret leaving you so much."

I noticed the nurse was frowning, but she was scribbling on her clipboard and clearly trying to look like she wasn't eavesdropping.

"I heard about the crash on the radio," he continued. "Then I looked it up online because the broadcast talked about a teenage girl and her two little sisters being in the crash. I found out it was you and I rushed to the hospital as soon as I could."

So he'd been in the area, then, for the past six months. And he'd never thought to check in on us or call us once?

"You never cared about us before," I said, glaring at him through narrowed eyes. "Why are you so concerned now?"

"I love you and your sisters, Evelyn. I don't know what came over me. Maybe it was grieving, you know? Your mom's death was hard on me, too."

His hand came down on my shoulder, but I violently shrugged it away. "Don't you dare talk about that," I shot back, my back pressed against the wall. "You don't know. You have no idea. All you did after she died was sit on the couch and ignore your daughters. Then you up and left us without so much as a note. Now you come back with apologies and expect me to treat you like my father again?"

"Don't disrespect me, Evelyn," he said evenly.

"I can disrespect you if I want," I snapped back. "You're not my father anymore. You don't deserve my respect."

I noticed what I said hit home with him, because his eyes closed for the briefest of seconds, and when he opened them again, he looked even more tired than before. For the smallest of seconds, I felt a twinge of regret in my chest at what I'd said, but I pushed it away.