50 Billion Reasons to Leave You novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: What a Father Owes

Kathleen's POV

By nine the next morning my father could sit up against two pillows.

The doctor said it was a good hour and not to count on another.

Donovan had gone out to the lobby shop without being asked.

He came back with a bunch of yellow roses wrapped in cellophane, a little crushed, and stood in the doorway holding them against his chest.

"They only had two colors," he said. "I didn't think you'd want the red ones."

I took the roses out of his hands and our fingers touched.

Neither of us mentioned it.

I put them in a water pitcher on the tray table, where my father could see them.

He looked at them for a long time.

"She'd have said they were too much," he said.

"She'd have been right. She'd have kept them anyway."

The corner of his mouth moved.

"I want to tell you something about last night," Emmett said.

"You don't have to."

"The girl in white sat in that chair for an hour."

He tipped his head at the one beside the bed.

"She didn't ask me for anything. She told me what Lowell paid her to do, and what it did to her. Then she said she was sorry. To me. She thought I was the one who'd been wronged."

"You were, a little."

"I let her think so." He drew a breath that rattled. "Then my lungs stopped, and she put the mask on my face and held it there."

"She has very steady hands for someone who isn't steady."

"I'm not asking you to forgive her."

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