I Left Him by Text, and He Kept Paying for My Father's Care novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Fireworks Over Birchwood
On New Year's Eve Hannah sees the man she left by text ten feet away, and her father asks him whether he has told her yet.
At five to midnight on New Year's Eve, I pushed my father's wheelchair out into the frozen courtyard of Birchwood.
The night nurse had propped the door open for us.
"Fireworks start over the river in a minute," she said. "He'll want the blanket up to his chin."
I tucked the blue fleece around Dad's knees and wheeled him to the brick wall, where the city skyline showed over the roofs.
His breath rose in small clouds.
He was sixty-three and he weighed less than I did.
Two years ago he had run a crew of forty men.
Now some nights he asked me who I was, and I told him I was his daughter, and he said that was nice.
"Hanny," he said tonight, which meant it was a good hour.
"I'm here, Dad."
"Cold."
"Ten more minutes. I brought your tin."
I put the red tin of butterscotch discs in his lap, and he held it with both hands.
The first firework went up gold and broke over the river.
The sound came a second later, flat against the cold.
Behind me, the courtyard door opened again.
The night nurse said, "Evening," in the voice she used for people she saw every week.
I didn't turn around.
I was watching Dad's face light up green.
"Look at that one," he said.
Then a girl's voice said, quietly, "Oh. It's him."
I turned my head.
There was a girl about twenty standing by the door, with a soft round face and a blunt brown bob.
She was looking straight at my father, and she was smiling.
Next to her, holding a paper bag from the expensive grocer on Maple Street, was Eli Garvey.
Ten feet away.
Two years, and he had not changed enough.
The scar was still through his left eyebrow.
The charcoal coat was new.
He saw me, and his face went completely still.
The last thing I ever sent him was a text.
I met someone else. Please don't contact me.
There was no someone else.
There was a fund, and his father's promise that it would pay for this building for as long as my father lived, if I stopped being a problem for the Garvey family by the end of that day.
I sent the text from the pharmacy break room.
Eli blocked me before my shift ended.
I never found out whether he was angry or relieved.
I had decided, a long time ago, that it didn't matter.
The second firework went up, red this time.
Nobody in the courtyard looked at it.
My legs wanted to take the chair and go.
I walked toward him instead.
"Hello, Eli."
My voice came out steadier than I felt.
He looked at me for a long moment.
"Hannah."
He didn't say anything else, and that was worse than if he had shouted.
"You're a long way from the city," I said. "Did you lose a delivery?"
"I'm visiting someone."
"Here?"
"Here."
"There's nobody here you know."
"Isn't there."
It wasn't a question, and he didn't look away.
The girl stepped between us, bright and awkward.
"I'm Willa," she said. "I know your dad. I mean, I knew him. He used to carry me on his shoulders at the company picnic. I was tiny."
I looked at her face again and found the child in it.
Garvey Development held a picnic every August, and Dad ran the grill.
"You're Gordon's daughter," I said.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry. You were four."
"I remember the hat," Willa said. "He wore a hat with a fish on it."
Behind me, Dad made a sound.
Not a word, only a sound, high and glad.
I turned around.
He had lifted his head off the headrest.
His eyes were clear, completely clear, in a way I hadn't seen in a month.
He was looking past me at Eli.
"There he is," my father said. "Eli."
Eli crossed the courtyard and went down on one knee beside the chair.
He set the grocery bag down on the stones and forgot it.
"Hi, Martin," he said. "Happy New Year."
"You're late."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"The girl's been waiting."
I stood absolutely still.
Overhead, a white firework opened wide and lit all three of their faces.
My father put his hand, shaking, on Eli's sleeve.
"Eli," he said. "Did you tell her yet?"
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