Chapter 6

The nurse looked up and smiled. "Come this way sweetheart."

She lookedanxiously over her shoulderat Jack.

"I'll be right here." He smiled encouragingly as she followed the nurse down the hallway.

Before they got to the door, Samantha hung back and asked the nurse,

"Um, look I haven't seen him in a long time. What exactly is wrong with him?"

The nurse nodded and said, "He had a heart attack about a week ago. He's stable again but obviously it was a warning for him to start taking better care of himself. He should be free to go in another week. The doctor wants to monitor his progress closely in the mean time."

Samantha nodded taking deep breaths. The nurse put her arm around her briefly.

"Don't worry dear. He'll be fine." She gestured to the door and walked back down the hallway again.

Samantha put her hand to the door and felt like she was going to be sick. As she slowly opened it she could hear the constant beep of his heart monitor. Jack watched her as she disappeared into the room and he took a seat in the waiting area. He could feel his heart being tugged on as he could only imagine what it must have taken for her to come here.

She was taken aback as she looked around at all the machinery that surrounded her father. She was no stranger to this kind of scene but somehow when it was someone she knew she was more affected by it. She stayed at the end of his bed and laid eyes on her father. It was the first time she had seen him since she had watched him wave to her as he had driven to the store for milk and never came back. She had just turned eight.

He looked just the same, she thought. His hair now had little speckles of grey and white through it and he had lost some weight butit was him alright. As his eyes opened she recognised them too. They were hers.

He focused on her and stared at her for a few moments before whispering,

"Samantha?" His voice was cracked and he put his hand to his throat.

She walked forward and poured him a glass of water. Handing it to him she stepped back as he drank. Her face was blank. She had no idea what to say to this man. She kept her mouth shut. She was afraid to open it and yell at him.

"Samantha, you're beautiful. Your mother showed me a picture of you but it was taken a few years ago. I always imagined you'd be tall like me." He smiled, looking her up and down, unable to take her in.

She looked at the floor, unsure how to respond. Sensing her anxiety he sat up a little and said,

"Please come and sit down, I know this is very hard for you."

"That's an understatement." She said, finally speaking.

"Wow, the look you just gave me was straight from your mother." He said smiling nervously.

She raised her eyebrows and looked up at him.

"So, yourmother didn't tell me much. What are you doing with yourself?"

"I'm with the FBI, the missing persons unit."

He sat back and looked impressed. He searched her face for something deeper than just small talk but she didn't have the strength for that just yet.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'd like a cigarette but I think I've seen the last of them." He said, trying to lighten the mood.

She remembered him smoking on the porch. The way he held it and the way he used to blow smoke rings into the air.

"I guess you have questions." He sighed, looking anywhere but her face.

"Just a few; well, just the one really."

He nodded and took another sip of his water.

"Ah, you mean the sixty four thousand dollar question." He said as he looked around the room.

"If you're going to just give me an excuse then don't bother. I didn't come here for that."

She got up and went over to the window looking out on everyone going about their lives below.

"You're so grown up. I'm sorry but they're all I have. A million of them I've conjured in my mind over the years to escape the one simple fact."

"Which is?" She said crossing her arms.

"I have no real reason for leaving or staying away. That to me is shameful and sounds completely absurd but it's the truth."

She looked at him, trying to figure him out. "I'm listening."

"Your mom and I grew up together, we were the same. We got married and worked hard. We bought a house and then you came along. We had everything we ever wanted. Everything our parents never had at our age and we spent everyday making plans for you."

He shook his head.

"Day after day was the same. I should have been happy, God knows I tried to tell myself I was. I don't know I just found it so hard to breathe for some reason. That night that I left, your mother asked me to go to the store for milk and I drove away from the house. As I drove to the store I found myself driving past it and out of town. I drove until I ran out of gas and I felt free."

A tear slid down her cheek and she wiped it away quickly.

"That's pathetic. Where have you been?" She said, her face turning to stone.

"I've been all over. I came to New York a year ago. I was working construction until I got sick."

"You have insurance then?"

He appeared to get insulted by that.

"That's what you think? I want your money? I want your mother's money?"

"Well what the hell else am I supposed to think? You leave us without a word. We get a letter consisting of about three lines a week later after mom had filed a missing person's report. You humiliated and devastated us and now you're talking to us because you're sick and you feel bad? You make me sick."

She was crying now but she didn't care. She had been waiting a lifetime to tell him this and he was going to listen.

"I have built myself a life in New York and mom has built herself a life that doesn't include you. Now you're back to screw around with us. Don't you have any shame?"

She fished the photograph out of her pocket and handed it to him. As she walked to the door she turned and said,

"You see that? Those people in that photograph are dead. I used to look at that and make myself believe that there was a perfectly logical reason why you had left and you'd be back for me someday. I built you up to be beyond everyone else on this earth. All the birthday wishes I wasted praying that one of the cards I'd get would be from you. When all the time you were somewhere else trying your best to forget about me."

She shook her head and gripped the door handle. Turning back to see tears falling down his cheeks she said bitterly,

"You know what Dad? The dream was so much better than the reality."