Beneath the Surface(52)

Sheryl gave him another once-over. He wore a jean jacket and trousers, a bright white T-shirt underneath. The stark cleanliness of the outfit struck her. Clean clothes was another thing she’d forgotten to associate with her father—the person who was supposed to do her laundry after her mother had died. He was skinny as a rake. Despite looking sober, he didn’t look very healthy, with his pale, yellow skin and sunken eyes.

“Do you want some coffee?” Sheryl asked.

“Just some water would be great, thanks.” Her father sat down without being invited to.

As she went to fetch a bottle of water and some glasses, she took a few deep breaths—Amber had been telling her about the immediate effect they can have on your psyche.

“Look at you,” he said, after Sheryl had sat down opposite him and clasped her laptop shut. “All grown up.”

“I’m forty-seven,” she said. “I’ve been grown up for thirty years.” Before Sheryl and Kristin had bought their house, she had received the odd birthday card at her apartment, back when her father still had an address for her.

“I know. I know,” he said. “I’ll be seventy in a couple of weeks.”

Every year on her father’s birthday, Sheryl contemplated getting in touch. In theory, it wasn’t hard to do. He probably still had the same phone number, because why would an alcoholic bother to change numbers? And if not, all Sheryl had to do was go down to Campbelltown and ask around. But every passing year when Sheryl made the choice to cut him out of her heart and her life a little bit more, the distance between them lengthened. Despite being dressed in jeans, he looked more like a man in his mid-eighties than approaching seventy.

“I’ve been doing the twelve-step program,” he said, his eyes flitting from here to there. “Successfully, this time.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve come to make amends.” Sheryl didn’t know how else to be than on the defensive. Her heart was not made of stone and she even felt sorry for her father, who had lost most of his own life as well on the day he found his wife hanging from a rafter in the attic.

“I know I can’t ask forgiveness of you, but I do need to tell you how sorry I am.” He shuffled in his seat. “My liver is not going to hold out much longer. It has been failing for a while now, something I can’t blame it for.” He gave a mild, derisive chuckle.

“Oh.” Sheryl wished she had a glass of wine standing in front of her instead of water.

“I didn’t mean to barge in on you like this and deliver all this news, but I don’t know how else to tell you. I thought about writing you a letter, but… but I guess I just wanted to see your face. Look you in the eye.”

“How long have you got?” The tremor in Sheryl’s voice surprised her.

“Not long,” was all he said.

“I’m sorry.” Maybe it was because she saw her own eyes reflected back at her, only much more weary and bloodshot, but Sheryl truly was sorry. She had always imagined a phone call from the police, telling her matter-of-factly that her father had been found dead. While she was glad that it would never have to come to that, having him sit in front of her and give her the news himself was just as harrowing.

“When did you find out?” Sheryl asked.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve known something was up for a long time, but I’ve only been sober for four and a half months and going to a doctor was hardly a priority when I was still on the sauce.”

“And you still decided to stop drinking?” Though she barely knew the man, it seemed so unlike him.

“It’s never too late.” That mirthless chuckle again.

Sheryl didn’t know if he was joking. She had no way of telling. It had been too long. Too much time and life had passed between them. Inside her, a war waged between seeing herself in this man and all the distorted, mostly unpleasant memories she had of him. All the times he had let her down. At first, when she came home from school, she’d find him on the sofa, sleeping it off. But soon after he lost his job, he spent most of his time in the pub down the road, and Sheryl spent most of her time at her aunt’s. Though Sheryl always felt she needed to stay to take care of her dad, and to tackle the bottomless grief they’d been plunged into together. Who else could possibly understand what it was like to lose her mother like that? To be deserted by the person who gave birth to you?

“Looks like it is,” Sheryl murmured, hoping his hearing was failing as well.

“I know I’ve been the worst kind of father and I also know I don’t deserve to know any of the things I would like to know before I go, but I would like to learn about your life. About you.”