Chapter 16

Knock knock

The gentle rapping on his office door was enough to bring Stewart out of his thoughts. Not that he'd been terribly busy – the day at the office had been quiet for the most part. In fact, he'd just been considering calling it a day and going for a nice lunch out at the country club, but by the look of things his lunch might have to wait a little longer.

"Come in!" he said, stretching in his chair (an ergonomic wonder that had been gifted to him by Noel last Christmas).

The door was soon pushed ajar and Patricia – Stewart's lifelong secretary – poked her head through the crack. He couldn't help the small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. He'd known and worked with Patricia for the better part of the last three decades and he had yet to find a more efficient and hardworking employee – the woman was an absolute lifesaver, in his mind. How she managed to keep track and somehow make his busy schedule work, he'd never know...

He'd often joke with her that she had better not retire, because otherwise he'd have to leave right behind her!

"Do I want to hear this?" he asked her, smirking. "Or will it have to wait until after I've had lunch?"

"You had better, if you don't want me to smack you over the back of your head," Patricia said. "It's C.C.. She's holding on line three."

Stewart chuckled. That was another thing about Patricia – the woman couldn't have been any more family oriented if she'd tried! Over the course of her employment with him, he'd seen her build a lovely little family of her own, complete with a loving husband, four kids and six grandchildren. She'd always insist on how important it was for him to try and bond with his own children. It wasn't much of a surprise, if he was being honest – she'd babysat for them countless times along the years, and while she adored all three of his children, Stewart knew for a fact she had a bit of a soft spot for C.C..

"No need to resort to violence, Pat," he replied, straightening his back and reaching for the landline. "Go ahead and transfer the call."

"Never hurts to put the fear of God in your heart, Stew," said the secretary with a wink before rushing back to her desk, presumably to tell his child he'd be on any minute from then.

And indeed, barely a minute went by between him lifting the phone to his ear and hearing the...strangely tired?...voice of his youngest daughter.

"Hello, Daddy."

"Kitten! Everything okay? You don't usually call me..." Stewart said, before realising how badly that had come out. "I mean...uh...you don't usually call me during office hours..."

"I can call you some other time if you are busy," came her dry reply. "I wouldn't want to inconvenience you."

Stewart could feel the beginnings of a headache creeping up on him. He hadn't meant it that way, goddamit! His girl was so much like her mother sometimes. Quick to anger and happy to push him away. Those were two of the reasons his marriage had broken down, back when C.C. had been a child – B.B. and him simply hadn't been able to see eye to eye about anything. Perhaps he should have tried harder; sought for help to try and make things work between them, if not for them as a couple but for their kids...

But, as the saying went, hindsight was twenty-twenty. The best he could do now was try and not make the same mistakes with C.C. (even if part of him suspected he might already be too late in that department, as it was).

"You aren't, honey!" he practically cried out. "I was just surprised by your call, that's all. So, tell me, what can your old man help you with?"

Stewart once again felt his heart give a jolt as he was hit by the notion that perhaps she didn't need anything. Perhaps she just wanted to talk, as odd as that would be.

Damn him and his stupid piehole! So much for thinking before he spoke!

"Unless...uh...you...ah...just want to talk? In which case I'd love to!" he quickly added, dabbing at his sweaty forehead with his sleeve.

"Daddy, it's fine..." replied his daughter.

The businessman had a feeling she had just rolled her eyes.

"I...well...I was calling you because I'm...uh...not entirely okay," said the producer. "I haven't been for quite some time, as a matter of fact."

"What do you mean you aren't okay?!" Stewart couldn't help crying out, a sinking feeling bursting in his chest. "What's wrong? Actually, no, scratch that – where are you? Do you need me to take a flight to New York? Has something happened at work? To Maxwell or––"

"Would you shut up for a second?!" his daughter snapped, and indeed that was all it took for him to zip it up. "Max and the family are okay and you don't need to fly to New York. I'm in Chicago."

"Chicago...? Has something happened to your brother?" Stewart asked, panic (and probably his blood pressure) beginning to rise again.

"No, Daddy, he's okay. He's actually been a great help recently. He got me my spot at the...uh...clinic I'm currently in..."

If that had been her best attempt at soothing the older businessman, it had failed miserably. Stewart would have told her so, had he not been feeling like his heart was about to burst. Why the hell was she at a clinic?! What on Earth had happene––

"I...I have cancer. Have had it for a few months now..."

The word slammed into Stewart's ears with the same force as hands pushing him out of a plane. And then he was falling. Falling in an endless midair with no hope of being caught or stopped – not even by hitting the ground. It was dizzying; his ears rang, his eyes dimmed, and even the sweat froze against his skin as his beaten and broken heart threatened to explode once and for all.

And then the word landed heavily in his mind and the rest of him came crashing down with it, air leaving his lungs like he'd been flattened and the awful, dreadful knowledge of it kneeling down on his back. Keeping him pinned to the floor in his pain and horror.

Cancer. His little girl – his C.C. – had just said that she had cancer!

He hadn't…he hadn't thought she'd say…oh, what the fuck did that matter?! He didn't exactly ever pick up the phone to talk to her, either, so he didn't exactly have a clue what she could've been about to say! And nobody gave a damn what he'd thought she was going to say, either! Who gave a damn about anything when his little girl was sick?!

The world was spinning. And ending. And Stewart wanted it to stop doing one or the other and he didn't care which it decided to keep on doing!

But what did he say? If he could say anything? What could he possibly say about what she'd just said? His mind was racing, his lungs and heart were hurting too hard for him to breathe, and no one had ever told him what you were supposed to say or do when your own child came and told you their life was in danger and there was nothing you could do about it!

"What…?"

It wasn't at all the best thing he could've said. His instincts as a parent told him that just before they kicked him in the back of the kneecaps for being such a useless father. But it was the only thing that would come out – some part of him had to know. Was it really true? Was he really hearing that his Kitten had something so horrible?

"I said I have cancer, Daddy," C.C. replied, sounding even weaker and more resigned than ever. "It's Hodgkin's lymphoma, stage four…I've been getting treatment for it since September…"

Again, one particular word stuck out like a scratch on a record.

September. She'd been getting treatment since September? When she'd said she'd had it for months, he'd assumed she'd only just found out, and…and the doctors had told her it'd been that way for months! Not that she'd known since then and was only telling him now!

Why was she only telling him this now?! It was November, for crying out loud! How could she have kept something so huge from her own father for weeks, without apparently even thinking about it?!

"S…September?" he echoed hoarsely, lungs now desperate for air they couldn't take in. "Wh…what do you mean, September?! It's been months since September!"

"I know, Daddy," C.C. said as quickly as she could. "But I—"

"But nothing, Chastity-Claire!" Stewart bellowed. "You've had cancer for months and you haven't thought to tell me until now? Why didn't you tell me?! Does anybody else know?!"

The idea of everyone else knowing but him lingered on the horizon like the final Horseman of the Apocalypse. He turned away from it, refusing to watch it come.

The sound of hooves came anyway.

"Noel knows."

Stewart felt himself plummeting again.

"Noel knows?! And neither of you even considered giving me or your mother a damn call?!"

It burned him from the inside-out, knowing that that wasn't the only thing she hadn't told him! He hadn't had so much as a clue for the better part of three months that his own child had cancer! And all the while, his eldest had known and purposefully kept him in the dark! He'd spoken to Noel no more than two weeks ago! Why the hell hadn't he said anything?!

"Can we…can we please just focus on one thing at a time, Daddy?" she asked after taking a juddering breath. "If you calm down and listen, I'll explain everything. And I know it's a lot—"

"You're damn right it's a lot!" Stewart couldn't help snapping, head falling into his free hand and the pain in his chest worse than ever. He hated himself for sounding so angry, but he couldn't help it. "It's been months, C.C.! You could've told me this at the start! Me, your mother – we could've all known! What happened? Why didn't you tell us? Did…"

The hesitation choked him, the fear that what he had to say might've been true wrapping around his throat like a hand. He pushed his question out anyway.

"Did we do something wrong…?"

The phone went so silent so suddenly that, for one split second, Stewart thought they'd been cut off. Then he realised he could hear very gentle breathing, and the rustle of some kind of fabric, coming from the other end.

C.C. was there, still. But she wasn't saying anything.

She wasn't denying it. Telling him that no, he hadn't done anything wrong – none of them had done anything wrong. It just wasn't something she knew how to deal with, she'd gotten scared, she'd run away without thinking about it and had only started calling people now…

She wasn't saying any of that at all.

So that meant…that meant it was because of him, didn't it? Something he'd done. But narrowing down what that "something" from the list of all the ways he'd been the worst parent anyone would ever wish on a child was an impossible task! Heck, why did he only have to stop at one thing? Why couldn't it be a handful, several, all of the things combining to make him such an awful father that no one would ever come to him in their time of need?

His own sick daughter hadn't come to him in hers. She knew she couldn't rely on him – all of those times he'd been too late home to see her, all of those moments and milestones he'd missed in her life, the fact that they could go for months without a single word passing between them! It had all added up!

It had all added up to this: this non-confirmation that was as good as a definite yes. That he'd fucked up so badly as a father that his own child would rather practically be dying alone than tell him that something was wrong! How many parents in the world who claimed to love their children could have that massive black stain on them?

Had he…had he never loved her as much as he thought he had…? No, that was ridiculous! Obviously he'd loved her; he'd just…what? Loved other things more? Been more attached to his business than to the baby – babies – he'd helped to create? And then found it more important to stick it to B.B. than to actually step up and do what was right for any of them?

Stewart thought he could throw up. How had anybody ever let him have children?! All he'd ever done was take them for granted!

And now…now he could be about to lose one for good. His Kitten.

A picture of how she'd been, back when she'd been small – five or six at the most – flashed in his mind. She'd been tugging on his jacket, asking in that way that kids do for him to play with her, or to watch her do something…but he'd brushed her back off to Nanny Bobo, or to Patricia, or to…just someone who wasn't him. He'd probably been on the phone, or reading something he'd felt in that moment was more important, but how could any of that actually have been more important than his own little girl?

Tears welled up in the corner of his eyes, spilling over and rolling hotly down his cheeks. The pain in his chest was unbearable, and if the world hadn't ended yet Stewart prayed to God that it would soon.

"Oh, Kitten…I'm so sorry…! I can't even begin to—"

"Daddy, please," C.C. interrupted him far more calmly than he deserved. She should've been snapping at him. Yelling, even. But she wasn't. "This isn't something we should be talking about over the phone."

Stewart felt what was left of his heart tearing itself to shreds. She couldn't want to end the call already, could she…?!

"But Kitten, I—"

"No," she said, just as firmly as she had always said anything when it was an order. But also as tiredly as only cancer could be making her. "There's too much to say, here. Too much to talk about…"

Stewart wanted to argue back. To rage and shout like he'd done before – to assert his right in any capacity to make her stay. But he had no right; she was right, and he hadn't earned it, and he was only getting this way because he was terrified this would be the last time either one of them ever picked up the phone.

He'd just have to make sure it wasn't.

"Alright," he said after some time, taking a breath to try and calm himself. "You're…you're right, I'm sorry…"

"You can come and visit me instead," C.C. said quietly. "We…we can talk about it properly, i-in person…"

Stewart's ears pricked up, and his heart lifted itself up a little to grab hold of what he'd just heard and hang onto it.

She…she wanted him to visit...! After he'd been so sure that she'd want nothing to do with him from now on because she'd realised just how terrible he'd been to her! She would have been well within her rights to tell him where to stick it and to never contact her again, but she hadn't!

She hadn't. This wasn't the end. There was light at the end of this tunnel, maybe, if they just kept walking.

"Y-yes…yes! Absolutely!" his voice got stronger the more he spoke, and he wiped his eyes and scraped around on his desk for a pen and a scrap of paper. "I'll…I'll take the first flight out! Where are you? You said Chicago?"

"I'm at the New Eden Clinic," C.C. replied. "It's at 600 Westley Road, in Glencoe."

Stewart finished writing that down and looked at it one more time before he tucked it into his jacket pocket.

"Good. I've got that," he said. "I'll be there in no time, Kitten, I promise."

He wouldn't have blamed her if she didn't believe him; he'd broken enough promises like that over the years. But he was going to keep this one, and the one after, and the one after that. He wasn't ever going to miss time that could be spent with his daughter again – not for anything in the world!

"Alright. I'll see you when you get here…"

Whether she did believe him or not was unclear. Stewart was going to leave no room for doubt.

"You certainly will," he got up out of his seat, almost cradling the phone in his hands. "I love you, C.C.. We're gonna get through this, okay?"

A small pause hinted at her worries and fears around that, but eventually she answered him.

"I…I love you too," she sounded almost taken aback by her own words. "And okay."

Stewart wanted to smile, but couldn't quite bring himself to.

"Okay. See you soon."

C.C. sniffed down the other end of the line, "Bye, Daddy."

She hung up first, but Stewart lingered a moment longer before he managed it himself. That was the longest phone call he'd had with his own daughter in…in far too long. And it had all happened for the worst reason he could possibly imagine…

But he was going to take this as the cold, hard slap in the face that he needed. All of this had been a great big flashing neon sign of how much he'd failed her, but he was determined to switch it off. To make things better. To make things right.

He'd never let his Kitten go without her father again. And she'd hear just how much he loved her – every day, if need be, to make sure that she knew it.

He might not be able to turn back the clock and give that little girl the time she'd deserved, but he could make sure the woman she'd become had her family by her side when she needed them most.