pulling back. “I’ll make you your favourite. Ember will be there, and Lily, too. I’m sure you’ve missed them. Invite Jem and come with Charlotte and Penny. We’ll be a family again –”
“Slow down, Ma,” he cut in, chuckling. “I really am in no rush.”
“But everyone wants to see you.”
“They will, but…” He looked back at Charlotte and let out a sigh. “I have my family, too. I haven’t seen Penny and…I mean, I just saw her asleep in bed and…It’s all an adjustment for me. I don’t…”
He didn’t want to be in a crowded room, he wanted to say. His head was still spinning from yesterday. First the party at Holden’s, then Jem’s bar, and then Locke’s club. All those people. The thought of going back out there, in Blackwater, made him uneasy.
He didn’t trust himself just yet.
He also just wanted to see his daughter.
Megan looked depressed by that. She reluctantly nodded, whispering, “Of course, Conor. Can I at least stay to watch you with Penny?”
He nodded yes before turning to Charlotte. “What can I expect, Char? How do I do this?” Because he didn’t fucking know. Because he was sorta scared shitless. Because he didn’t want to fuck this up.
Charlotte smiled reassuringly at him. “Just be you, Conor.”
“What does that mean?” He was aware he was sounding anxious, but he felt so lost. “Should it be slow? Should it even be done here? I can leave, and we can go slow. Anything to make it easy on her.”
“Charlotte’s done a good job keeping you in the picture,” Megan cut in, glancing warmly at Charlotte. “Take a look around, Conor. You’re everywhere.”
And he did.
He slowly refocused his sights on the pictures hanging on the walls. He followed them out of the kitchen and into the family room. Pictures of him as a kid. Pictures of him and Charlotte, of Charlotte pregnant, of him holding her and her swollen belly.
Just as he was staring at his pictures, he was drowning in all of Penny’s, too. Baby photos fresh out of the hospital. Photos of her crawling, walking, smiling up at the camera. On a bike, on roller blades, in the pool. She always appeared so happy, so blessed. His eyes burned as he traced her baby face with his thumb, the regret growing even heavier in the pit of him.
He missed all this.
Oh, if he could just turn back the clock.
He would have done things so differently.
Always this regret hung over him, but never this powerfully.
My beautiful Penny. He thought, loathing himself for becoming the very thing he loathed the most: his father. The absentee fuck who had turned to the drink before he died and destroyed the relationships around him.
Had Thames destroyed his relationship with his daughter already?
He didn’t know how long he’d stood there, touching the photos, telling himself he would have done anything to be transported to that moment to see it for himself. He vaguely heard the soft pitter patter of feet approaching, and he knew she was going to be there when he turned and…he wasn’t so scared anymore.
He wanted this. He wanted it more than the air he breathed.
He turned, and there she was, fresh out of bed, her head a mess of soft brown waves flowing past her shoulders. She was still in her blue pyjamas, that teddy in her arms, and she was looking to Charlotte, her eyes wide with questions. But the girl already knew the answers. She swallowed and turned to look at him, her shock slowly turning to…something good. He could see the recognition in her eyes.
She knew who he was, and it conjured such a strong emotion in him.
“Are you my daddy?” she asked, her voice small.
It wasn’t killing men in prison that made him cry. It wasn’t seeing Charlotte for the first time in eight years, either. No, it was seeing his daughter, and suddenly he understood why there was an empty piece in his heart. He’d given it away to Penny when she fell out of Charlotte on that driveway that miserable day. He’d looked at her screaming face, longing to touch her, but also doing what he could not to for fear of ruining her.
“I am,” he declared quietly.
She smiled, running up to him just as he knelt to her level, scooping her tiny form into his arms. “Mom said one day you’d be here.”
It hurt how good this felt, to hold her, to not have to wonder what she felt like. This tiny being