Chapter 22: The Old Man's Last Clause

Tobias's POV

My father was awake when we got there, and he had a request.

"Philippa," he said.

Linnea stood at the foot of the bed with her coat still on.

She looked at me.

I watched her decide.

"He asked," she said quietly. "Go and get her."

I found my sister in the waiting room at the end of the hall.

She sat alone on a plastic chair in the black dress, with her handbag on her lap.

Nobody had told her to leave.

Nobody had told her to stay.

"Father is asking for you," I said.

She stood.

She smoothed the front of her dress and touched her bare earlobes, and for a second I thought she would refuse.

"Who gave permission?" she said.

"Linnea."

My sister's face did something complicated.

"Of course she did," Philippa said.

We walked down the corridor together without speaking.

At the door, she stopped.

"Toby."

"Yes."

"If I'm sorry, does it count?"

I thought about it honestly, because she deserved that.

"It counts for something," I said. "It doesn't undo anything."

"No."

She went in.

My father lay propped against pillows with the oxygen line under his nose.

Behind him the monitor drew a slow green line.

He held out his hand, and she took it.

I stood back against the wall beside Linnea.

I heard everything.

"I said a cruel thing to you when you were twenty-six," my father said.

"I said it was a pity. Then I said it again, in different ways, for six years."

"Father."

"Let me finish. I have not got long."

He breathed.

"I measured you by a clause. You are my daughter, and I was wrong. I should have said so before you ever went to that clinic."

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