She could see all the doors. And she could see what was behind all the doors.
She could see herself behind all the doors.
She saw herself talk to Booker in the skies above New York, her face haggard and her spirit broken.
She saw herself lead Daisy to Comstock's door and watched her stab him twice, once in the heart, once in the throat. Sometimes he fought. Sometimes he just waited for it to happen. All the while, she would stand over him, watching. Silent.
She saw herself dancing alone in her tower and she would marvel at how naive she was then. All the books in all the world couldn't have ever taught her what she needed to know to be her.
She watched herself, all of herself, drown Booker in that river on that day. The memory of cloth clinging to her fingers underwater gave her nightmares sometimes.
But her favorite door, the one she would peer through more often than she knew she should, was where she was happy.
Here, she was just Anna. There had been no deal, there had been no struggle. Booker still drank more than he probably should, but there was always a time when he pushed the bottle away. He still had a broken nose from a debt gone wrong, but he had burned the cards in the stove one winter. She was six and he was at peace.
She called him Daddy.
He got frustrated when she asked him "why" too many times, and she was still herself, so she asked it plenty. He made her coffee when he made his, though it was really just a cup of milk with three spoonfuls of sugar. He scrimped and saved to buy her a proper china doll for Christmas, for which he then built her a shelf when she insisted that she wanted to be able to look at it all the time. She ran away once, and got all the way to the street outside of their building, where she sat on the curb and cried for ten minutes while he watched from just inside the doorway with the doorman before heading back to the apartment and sitting at his desk so she wouldn't know he'd followed her when she finally came trudging back in. Then he wiped her nose and let her sit on his lap while he did paperwork.
He read to her at night. He washed her mouth out with soap when she tried to swear at him one time. He let her win when they arm wrestled.
He called her Banana when he wanted to make her laugh.
She could see all the days beyond as well. She could see the fights they would have as she grew up, him giving her away at her wedding, him getting old, his grandchildren coming to visit. She didn't like to watch those days, no matter how happy she stayed. As he aged, he began to look more and more like Comstock. And though the man behind the door was nothing the man that had forced all the doors on her, just the sight of his white hair and the lines around his eyes – these from laughing instead of exposure – made her nervous in a way she couldn't shake off.
He would die in his sleep of a heart attack, she knew. He didn't have much money to leave, but there would be a letter in his desk to her, addressed and stamped, but never sent, that would tell her how proud he was of her. How much he loved her.
He would tell her he loved her every night. During the day too, of course, but at night, when he had tucked her into her little cot, he would kiss her gently on her forehead. His arms were warm and strong when he hugged her. And she would hug him back.
She could see all the doors. And she could see what was behind all the doors.
She could see herself behind all the doors.
But her favorite door, the one she would peer through more often than she knew she should, was where she was happy.
"Good night, Anna. I love you."
"I love you too, Daddy."