Loving Him Was My Punishment novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Her Father's Hands
My father came to Pell Street on the third morning, alone, in the navy blazer he wore to funerals.
Finbar had told him the address.
He stood on the front step with his hat in both hands and waited to be asked in.
I let him come as far as the kitchen table and no farther.
Up close he looked older than I remembered, grey in the face, and the hands that held the hat were not steady.
"Hazel," he said. "I don't know what I'm allowed to say."
"Sit down, Dad."
He sat.
Finbar leaned in the doorway with his arms folded, and the kettle ticked on the stove.
"You signed the forms," I said.
"Yes."
"Which forms?"
"The admission. Then every renewal, each spring." His throat moved. "Marguerite brought them in a folder. She said the doctors insisted you needed longer and that visiting would set you back. She said it was the only way you'd stop hurting yourself."
"Hurting myself how?"
"She said you'd stopped eating. That you'd gone to his office at night."
"Did you ever see that?"
"No." He looked at the table. "I never saw any of it. She told me, and I believed her because it was easier than going to look."
It was the most honest thing he had said to me in my life.
I put my left arm on the table and pushed back my sleeve.
The scar was thin and pale and went almost all the way around.
"They strapped me down," I said. "I can't tell you what came next, but I know my body does not forget it. Did they tell you that?"
His face did something terrible and slow.
"They told me you were calm," he said. "They sent photographs of the garden."
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