Chapter 10: The Lobby

Hallie's POV

My father woke at four in the morning and asked for water.

I held the cup to his mouth, and he drank.

"The news says I made a scene," he said.

"The news says you collapsed on your daughter's big day."

"Good. That's better." His voice was a thread. "Was it the video that did it?"

"Mostly the cough."

He almost laughed.

Zane had gone out to get coffee at midnight and had not come back, and I kept looking at the door.

"Sit," Bernard said. "I have to tell you something, and I'd like to do it before the next nurse."

I pulled the chair closer.

"I met your mother at a sales conference in Columbus," he said. "I was thirty-six. I was married. She was twenty-seven, with pearls too big for her."

"You never told me that."

"I never told you any of it."

"Were you in love with her?"

"For about a month." He looked at the ceiling. "I was a coward. I told her I'd leave my wife. I didn't."

I said nothing.

"She left town. I thought she'd gone home to her family. I sent a few letters and a check, and they all came back unopened."

"You never wondered why?"

"I wondered whether she was angry." His mouth twisted. "I wasn't a man who wondered much."

"She was pregnant."

"I know that now."

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