Chapter 64 - Daddy Issues

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He stands in the doorway looking just as stunned as I feel. His eyes are teary and his white lips are chapped and dry. I notice a slight droop on the right side of his face as he opens and closes his mouth several times.

"Alison! You look... I can't... Look at you! You're all grown up," he stammers.

I press my lips together trying to hold back the overwhelming waves of emotions crashing through me. I have so many questions to ask him, so many things I want to say but they all get lost before they make it to my lips. I can't speak. I can't move. I breathe in and out, trying to organise the chaos into a single file so that I can make sense of it.

"How did you find me?" I manage.

"Mr Lewis?"

I feel Jeremy's presence behind me and something inside me calms down just a little. I turn my head up to him as he puts his hand on my lower back, assuring me that he's with me. His ice-blue eyes are narrowed and cautious. His posture is straight, dominant, protective. My father lifts his eyes up to him and they widen slightly.

"Mr Cordina," he acknowledges in a familiar British accent I haven't heard in a while.

My eyes travel from one to the other. "Jeremy? What's going on?"

They both look at me shiftily. The silence in the room is so dense I fear the roof will cave in with the pressure.

"Will somebody say something?" I urge them.

My father's expression becomes alarmed at the hysteria in my voice but Jeremy simply increases the pressure of his hand on my back. Then he says to my father, "Why don't you come in, Mr Lewis? It's late you must be tired."

I step back as my father shuffles into the room, sets his bags by the door and takes a seat timidly on the couch. Jeremy's gaze follows him across the room and then, when my father is nice and restless on the couch, he turns to me. "Go sit down, Ally. I'll make coffee."

His voice is firm and demanding but secure and comforting at the same time. I obey him and take a seat next to my father, whom I haven't seen in almost five years.

I breathe in and out again until Jeremy comes back with three coffees. He sets a plain white mug on the coffee table and hands me my Bad Cop mug, his eyes carefully studying my face. The smell of anisette reaches my nostrils and I inhale it, willing it to flow straight to my head and then to the rest of my body. Jeremy sits down next to me and puts his hand on my knee. In any other situation, this would have sent my heart into a frenzy, but right now, it's the one thing grounding me to the here and now. We both look expectantly at Mark Lewis and I feel a small pang of guilt seeing him cower ever so slightly under our sharp gazes.

"Alison, I know you said you don't want to hear from me ever again," he starts bravely. "But, I'm your father."

I open my mouth instinctively, but Jeremy's hand squeezes my knee bracingly, convincing me to bite my tongue and hear him out. The lack of outburst encourages him to go on with his speech, which I know he must have practised over and over on his way here.

"I know I haven't earned the right to be called that, but I'm trying so hard to be a better person, Ally. For you! So that maybe someday you might allow me to be a part of your life again."

His darting eyes carefully avoid mine. In this moment, no one would believe that this man used to be one of the best lawyers in London.

"You were right. I was never there for you or your mother and you both needed me so much. I was never a brave man," he goes on. "I couldn't deal with her being sick and I couldn't deal with you being sad."

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