“Yes,” I said. “I want to go with my father.”
Dad closed his eyes briefly.
Later, when the nurses dimmed the lights and left us alone, he sat beside me without speaking. Outside the window, Chicago glowed in the distance, its lights blurred by winter mist.
“I should have known,” he said.
“No.”
“I heard it in your voice.”
“Dad, please.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I trained soldiers to recognize fear. I taught men and women to read silence, hesitation, the thing a person says when they can’t say what they mean.” His voice broke. “And I missed it in my own daughter.”
I reached for his hand. “You didn’t miss me. You came.”
He looked at our joined hands for a long time. “I almost didn’t.”
That confession surprised me.
“I told myself not to interfere,” he continued. “I told myself you were grown, married, building your own family. I didn’t want to be the father who barges in and treats his daughter like she can’t make her own choices.”
