had been harder still for his daughter. Harder than he knew, or cared, or wanted to consider.
“When can I see you?” she asked bluntly.
“I…” He hadn't expected her to ask that, and wondered if she wanted money from him. His career hadn't been brilliant, but moderately successful, in investment banking. “Are you sure that's a good idea?” He sounded uncertain.
“I'd like that very much,” she said, feeling very nervous. He hadn't sounded as excited to hear from her as she'd hoped he would. But fourteen years was a long time not to see someone, and she hadn't warned him she'd be calling. She wondered if she should have just walked into his office and surprised him. “Could I come today?” She still had some of the exuberance of her childhood, and hearing him made her feel the same age she had been when she last saw him. It was hard to remember suddenly that she was a grown-up.
Again, he hesitated, and at his end, he was looking pained. He had no idea what to say to her. And then finally, she got what she wanted from him. “Why don't you come and see me in the office this afternoon?” He wanted to get it over with. It was going to be painful for both of them. There was no point postponing it any longer. “Three o'clock?”
“I'll be there.” She was beaming as she set the phone down.
She was a nervous wreck all afternoon, thinking about him, wondering how he would look, what he would say, how he would explain all that had happened. She needed to ask him. She knew it was her mothers fault, but she wanted to hear from him now why it had happened, and why he had let it.
She put on her best navy blue linen suit, which she wore to work sometimes, and treated herself to a taxi to go to Park Avenue and Fifty-third to his office. It was a distinguished-looking office building, and when she got upstairs, an impressive-looking office. He worked for a small firm, with an excellent reputation.
His secretary said he was expecting her, and at exactly 3:01, Gabriella was led down a long hall to a corner office, grinning broadly. She was so happy to see him she could hardly stand it, and as nervous as she was, she knew that her terrors would be dispelled the moment she saw him.
The door was opened very deliberately by the secretary, who then stood aside as Gabriella stepped into a room with a view, and standing there, behind the desk, she saw him. At first she thought he had hardly changed, he was as handsome as ever, and when she looked more carefully, she saw that there were a few lines in his face, and gray in his hair now. She could calculate easily that he had just turned fifty.
“Hello, Gabriella,” he said, watching her intently, surprised by how beautiful she was, and how graceful. She looked nothing like her mother though, but much more like him. She had his blond good looks, and his eyes were exactly the same color hers were. And as he looked at her, he made no move to come toward her. “Sit down,” he said uneasily, pointing to a chair on the other side of his desk. She was desperate to come around the desk and hug him, and kiss him and touch him, but the surroundings seemed suddenly very daunting. She sat down in the chair then, and assumed he would come around to kiss her later, after they had caught up with each other and he knew her a little better.
She saw that there were photographs of several children on the desk, four of them, all in silver frames, two girls about her age, or perhaps a little older, and two boys who were much younger, and were obviously still children. The photographs looked recent. And there was a large photograph of a woman in a red dress, she looked a little stern, and not terribly happy. And Gabriella noticed immediately that there were no photographs of her from her childhood, but that was understandable, from what she could remember, there had been none.
“How have you been?” he asked formally, looking slightly pained, and she imagined that he must have felt guilty. He had left them, after all. It had to have been hard for him, or at least she imagined it was, and then she couldn't resist asking him a question,