Chapter 7 - Seventeen Missing Years
My father pulled out a chair.
I didn't sit.
He looked at Ana, then back at me.
"Does your mother know you're here?"
The question was so unexpected that I almost laughed.
"She's dead."
His hand tightened around the edge of the workbench.
"What?"
"Eighteen months ago. Cancer."
He lowered himself into the chair.
For several seconds, he stared at the floor.
Then he covered his face.
I had imagined this meeting a hundred different ways during the drive.
In some versions, I threw my arms around him.
In others, I screamed.
I never imagined I'd be the one telling him his wife was dead.
"She was sick for almost a year," I said.
He nodded without looking up.
"I didn't know."
"That's what happens when you disappear."
Ana moved quietly toward the front door.
"I'll wait outside."
When we were alone, my father looked at the bruise on my cheek.
"Who hurt you?"
I folded my arms.
"That's not why I'm here."
"Emma—"
"Why did you leave?"
He stared at me for a long time.
Then he said, "I was afraid."
"Of what?"
"Prison. Losing the business. Losing you and your mother."
"You lost us anyway."
"I know."
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the workbench.
The old scar was still there.
"Your mother and I were having serious financial trouble. Charles Crane offered to help us purchase equipment through his supplier network. I signed agreements I didn't understand well enough."
"What agreements?"
"Short-term financing. Receivables assignments. Advance payments for equipment that hadn't arrived."
"The Crownline invoices?"
His head lifted.
"You know about Crownline?"
"I found Mom's notebook."
He closed his eyes.
"Then you know I lied to her."
I waited.
"Charles said the invoices were part of a temporary financing arrangement. I helped approve them. When I realized some shipments didn't exist, he told me the accounts would be corrected."
"And you believed him?"
"I wanted to. By then, I'd signed enough documents that I was afraid I'd be blamed for the entire thing."
"What happened at the warehouse?"
"There was a fire. Electrical, according to the investigators. I wasn't there when it started."
I stared at him.
"Then where were you?"
"At a motel outside Albany."
"You ran."
"Yes."
He didn't try to soften it.
"I had packed a bag the day before. I thought Charles would turn the accounting problems into a criminal accusation against me. I panicked."
"So you let us think you died."
He looked at his hands.
"At first, I told myself I'd come back once I understood what to do."
"And then?"
"Then days became weeks. There was a memorial service. I read about it in a newspaper."
I felt physically sick.
"You knew about the funeral?"
"Yes."
"You knew Mom was raising me alone?"
"Yes."
"And you still didn't come back?"
"No."
I stepped away from him.
For years, I'd imagined my father dying while trying to escape a burning building.
I'd pictured him trapped behind smoke and falling beams.
I'd imagined him calling our names.
Now I knew he had been sitting in a motel room.
Alive.
Making the decision to leave us.
"Did you ever contact Mom?"
"Once. I wrote her a letter a few months later."
"Did she answer?"
"No."
"Did you ever try again?"
He swallowed.
"No."
My anger suddenly became very quiet.
"You don't get to call that protection."
"I know."
"You don't get to say you did it for us."
"I won't."
I stared at him.
"Then tell me why Crane Capital sent forty-eight thousand dollars to this shop."
His expression changed.
"How do you know about that?"
"I have the statement."
He stood slowly and walked toward a metal filing cabinet.
From the bottom drawer, he removed a cardboard folder.
"Charles found me about six years ago," he said.
"He hired me to restore some old tools and authenticate antique equipment. I refused at first."
"Why did you change your mind?"
"Because he promised he'd stop threatening to expose the old accounts if I cooperated."
I felt a cold wave of anger.
"So he was still controlling you."
"Not completely. But enough."
He opened the folder.
Inside were invoices, letters, and an agreement bearing Charles Crane's signature.
"I kept copies," my father said.
"Of everything."
I reached for the papers.
He stopped me gently.
"Emma, there's something you need to understand."
"What?"
"Charles didn't find me by accident."
May you like
He looked toward the front window.
"Nathan came here first."
