He snatched the pink diamond bracelet from her hand. “Where did you get this?”
“From Precious. She has this little box where she keeps—things. I saw the bracelet when she opened the box to store my lucky penny.”
He spread the bracelet in his palm and held it under the light of the table lamp. It shimmered, shooting rays of pink across the room. “I’ve been looking for this. It’s the last Mother’s Day gift I gave to Cassie.” His eyes came back to her face. “Precious had it all this time?”
Michelle nodded. “That day, Precious took some of her mother’s jewelry from her closet to play dress up with her dolls. Apparently, your wife wanted to wear the bracelet to the party that night, and when she realized that Precious had lost it, she told her she was grounded until she found it.”
Michelle swallowed back a choke as he fisted his hand around the piece of jewelry and brought it against his chest. “Your wife left home that night very upset with your daughter, which is quite understandable under normal circumstances,” Michelle continued in as tranquil a voice as possible. “But, Precious never saw her again, Erik. She thinks it’s her fault that her mother left. She thinks she was a bad girl. That’s why she does everything you ask. She thinks if she makes you angry, you’ll leave, too. She tries so hard to please you, but you make it so difficult for her. She’s just a little girl who needs her daddy’s attention!”#p#分页标题#e#
The last statement was hurled from a place deep inside Michelle’s heart. A place where she’d lived as a child, constantly trying to please her father, but getting nowhere. Tears pooled in her eyes for the desperate child upstairs and the half-broken man standing in front of her.
His fist dropped to his side. “How could I have not known? Why didn’t she tell me?”
Michelle heard the anguish in his tortured voice. Her heart ached for him like it had never ached for another living soul. She took a step toward him, wanting to offer him comfort just as she’d done last night when he’d told her about the night his wife died in his arms. “Because she was afraid, Erik. She thought you’d be angry. If I can help you—”
“Help me? You can’t help me.” He stumbled backward, his huge body shaking uncontrollably. “Just… go. Leave me alone.”
Michelle staggered blindly out of the room, not knowing whether or not she still had a job.
Erik closed his eyes and grabbed the back of the sofa to stop the trembling. His gut crunched painfully. He opened his mouth and took deep breaths into his constricted lungs, then fell to the floor, his head bowed in misery. He wept inside, but didn’t shed a single tear. How could he have been so blind to his baby’s pain?
Michelle was right for accusing him of being a neglectful father who was wallowing in self-pity and guilt.
Damn her for being right.
The truth hurt like hell. For two years he’d hidden behind his grief, afraid to face his loss because the future had seemed so bleak without his wife. He’d tried to imagine that it was just a long bad dream and that Cassie would come back to him. He’d told himself that she was on an extended vacation and that life would return to normal after she came home and they resolved that last stupid argument.
But she wasn’t coming home. She was gone forever. He’d spent two years feeling sorry for himself, and denied his daughter the only other parent she had.
It had taken Michelle Carter, a girl from the wrong side of Manchester’s tracks, to yank him out of his trance. Damn her! He slammed his elbows into the back of the sofa. Damn her for slapping him with the truth, for forcing him to face reality, to do what Cassie had asked as he’d held her bleeding mangled body in his arms on that dark horrible night.
“Oh, Erik, you know how I hate tears. Don’t cry, darling. Just live. Live, and take care of our baby. Love her, Erik. Love her for me. Tell her I’m sorry for—”
Cassie’s last unfinished request pierced him cruelly. All this time he thought Cassie had asked him to tell Precious she was sorry for leaving her, when in fact she’d been sorry for being angry at her. And all this time, Precious thought it was her fault her mother wasn’t here.
God, it was nobody’s fault but his. His alone.
Erik pushed off the floor and climbed the stairs two at a time, and headed in the direction of Precious’ room. Her door was ajar and the light from the hall fell across her small form. Erik felt a tightening in his chest as he gazed at his child.
She was so beautiful and innocent. She shouldn’t be saddled with the guilt of her mother’s death. No child should. He’d spent two years wallowing in his own guilt when he should have been there for her, absorbing her pain, getting to know her the way her mother knew her. He was the only parent she had, and he’d let her down. Cassie must be so disappointed in him.