Page 143 of Forever Dark
“Who is it?”Robert called.
His voice was rough with tiredness but clear enough.
Selena swallowed.“It’s Selena.”
A pause.
Locks turned.The door opened, and Robert stood in the warm spill of the hallway light wearing pajama pants, an old cardigan, and slippers that had seen better years.His hair stuck up at one side.He looked smaller than she remembered him looking even a few days ago, but his eyes sharpened when he saw her.
“Lena?”
“Hi, Dad.”
He glanced past her toward the car, then back at her face.“Everything all right?”
“Yeah.Everything’s okay.”
He opened the door wider.“Come in, then.Don’t stand out there like a traveling salesman.”
The line was so familiar it nearly hurt.
Selena gave him a small smile but stayed where she was.“I don’t want to keep you up.I’m pretty beat.I just wanted to let you know I’m going to Washington in the morning.”
Robert’s expression changed only a little, but she saw the disappointment.He had always been bad at hiding what mattered to him.Good at silence.Bad at disguise.
“Oh,” he said.“Right away?”
“Early flight.”
“That was quick.”
“I thought the case would take longer, but we got lucky.”
He looked down once, nodding to himself as though he had expected nothing different and was trying not to mind.“Well.Work calls, I suppose.”
“It does, Dad.”
The words sounded thin.Too close to all the old excuses.She had used that exact shape of sentence too many times.Work calls.Things are busy.I’ll try to come down soon.Another month gone.Another year quietly added to the tally.
Robert put one hand against the doorframe.“You sure you don’t want to come in for coffee?I can make a pot.”
“At this hour?”
“I’m old.We drink coffee at stupid hours and complain about sleeping badly.”
That got a laugh from her.
He smiled because she had.
Then the smile faded, and the quiet between them became less easy.
Selena looked past him into the hallway.Family photographs hung along the wall.Some older than she liked to think about.Diane at a school dance.Selena in a graduation gown.Their mother in the garden, one hand raised against the sun.A photograph of all four of them on the porch, Robert younger and broader, Selena leaning away from Diane because her sister had been trying to pinch her.
She looked back at her father.
“I also came to say something.”
Robert’s brow creased.“What?”
