Page 144 of Forever Dark
Selena had rehearsed it on the drive.Not perfectly, but enough that she thought the words might come.Now they were lodged somewhere beneath her ribs.
She drew a breath.
“I came to say sorry.”
Robert blinked once.“Lena.”
“No.Let me say it.”She shifted her weight, fighting the urge to make it smaller, cleaner, easier for both of them.“I’m sorry for not being around like I should have been.I’m sorry for leaving Diane to handle things.I’m sorry for telling myself it was just life getting busy when I knew it was more than that.”
His mouth tightened.Not with anger.With emotion he did not want loose on his face.
“That’s okay,” he said.
“No, it’s not.”
He looked at her then.
Selena kept going before she could retreat.“It isn’t okay.Maybe there were reasons.Maybe some of them were even good ones.But I let too much time pass.I made this place harder in my head than it had to be.I made all of you part of something I was trying not to feel.Something to run away from.”
Robert’s eyes shone in the porch light.He said nothing.
“And I know saying that now doesn’t fix it,” Selena said.“But it’s going to change.”
The words surprised her with their certainty.
Robert searched her face.“How?”
“I’m going to call every week for a start.”
He gave a faint, skeptical huff.“Every week?”
“Every week.”
“You hate the phone.”
“I hate awkward phone calls.So, we’ll have to make them less awkward.”
That earned her the start of another smile.
She stepped a little closer.“And I want to come back more regularly.Not just when work sends me.Not just when there’s an emergency or when I’ve run out of excuses.I mean it.”
Robert looked away toward the yard.
For a moment, Selena thought he was going to tell her it was unnecessary.That she had her own life.That parents understood these things.All the gentle lies people told to keep from asking for what they needed.
Instead, he nodded.
“That would make me happy,” he said.
The plainness of it cut deeper than accusation would have.
Selena blinked hard and looked down at the porch boards.
“I should’ve done it sooner.”
“All we have is now, kiddo.”
She laughed under her breath, though it came out unsteady.“That sounds like something Mom would’ve said.”
