Chapter 22: What He Owed

Justin took my father's blood pressure in a coat room behind the ballroom.

Two paramedics had come, and my father had waved them off.

Justin had said quietly, "Let me, Mr. Daugherty," and Hugh had let him.

I stood in the doorway with my zipper pulled back up and Justin's jacket around my shoulders.

My mother sat on a folding chair with her tissue in a ball, staring at the floor.

"One sixty over a hundred," Justin said, taking the cuff off.

"That's high, but you're not in danger. Breathe slowly. Don't stand up fast."

"You're Cosima's doctor," my father said hoarsely.

"I was."

"You knew. All of it."

"Yes."

"And you stood there and let me say..." He stopped.

"It was her call, sir. Not mine."

My father looked at his hands.

Then he looked at me, and I held very still.

"Cosima," he said. "Come in. Please."

I came in and stood a few feet from his chair.

I did not sit, and I did not take Justin's hand, though I felt where it would have been.

My father's mouth worked.

"I called you a disgrace," he said.

"You did."

"I said it to your face, in my own kitchen. I said it in a hospital."

"I said you were no daughter of mine."

He was breathing slowly, as Justin had told him.

"You'd already been cut open for her. And I called you a coward."

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