Ronnie sat up straighter, not wanting to lie to him. “He went home to pack,” she said.
She could feel her dad studying her.
“Did I ever tell you my dad was a poker player?”
“Yeah, you told me. Why? Do you want to play poker?”
“No,” he said. “I just know there’s more to what happened with Will than what you’re saying, but if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay, too.”
Ronnie hesitated. She knew he’d be understanding, but she wasn’t ready yet. “Like I said, he’s leaving,” she said instead. And with a nod, her dad let it go.
“You look tired,” he said. “You should go home and take a nap later.”
“I will. But I want to stay here for a while.”
He adjusted his hand in hers. “Okay.”
She glanced at the IV bag Jonah had asked about before. But unlike her brother, she knew that it wasn’t medicine to make him better.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
He paused before answering. “No,” he answered. “Not too much.”
“But it has hurt?”
Her dad started to shake his head. “Sweetheart…”
“I want to know. Did it hurt before you got here? Tell me the truth, okay?”
He scratched at his chest before answering. “Yes.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know what you mean—”
“I want to know when it started hurting,” Ronnie said, leaning over the bedrail. She willed him to meet her eyes.
Again, he shook his head. “It’s not important. I’m feeling better. And the doctors know what to do to keep helping me.”
“Please,” she said. “When did it start hurting?”
He looked down at their hands, clasped so tightly on the bed. “I don’t know. March or April? But it wasn’t every day—”
“When it hurt before,” she went on, determined to hear the truth, “what did you do?”
“It wasn’t so bad before,” he answered.
“But it still hurt, right?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I don’t know,” he protested. “I tried not to think about it. I focused on other things.”
She could feel the tension in her shoulders, hating what he might say but needing to know. “What did you focus on?”
Her dad smoothed out a wrinkle in the bedsheet with his free hand. “Why is this so important to you?”
“Because I want to know whether you focused on other things by playing the piano.”
As soon as she said it, she knew she was right. “I saw you playing that night in the church, the night you had that coughing fit. And Jonah said you’d been sneaking over there as soon as the piano came in.”
“Honey—”
“Do you remember when you said that playing the piano made you feel better?”
Her dad nodded. He could see what was coming, and she was sure he wouldn’t want to answer. But she had to know.
“Did you mean that you didn’t feel the pain as much? And please tell me the truth. I’ll know if you’re lying.” Ronnie would not be deflected, not this time.
He closed his eyes briefly, then met her gaze. “Yes.”
“But you built the wall around the piano anyway?”
“Yes,” he said again.
With that, she felt her fragile composure give way. Her jaw began to quiver as she lowered her head to her dad’s chest.
Her dad reached out to her. “Don’t cry,” he said. “Please don’t cry…”
But she couldn’t help it. The memories of how she’d acted back then and the knowledge of what he had been going through drained whatever energy she had left. “Oh, Daddy…”
“No, baby… please don’t cry. It wasn’t so bad back then. I thought I could handle it, and I think I did. It wasn’t until the last week or so that…” He touched a finger to her jaw, and when she looked into his eyes, what she saw there almost broke her heart. She had to look away.
“I could handle it then,” he repeated, and she knew by his voice that he meant it. “I promise. It hurt, but it wasn’t the only thing I thought about, because I could escape it in other ways. Like working on the window with Jonah, or just enjoying the kind of summer I dreamed about when I asked your mom to let both of you stay with me.”
His words seared her, his forgiveness more than she could bear. “I’m so sorry, Daddy…”
“Look at me,” he said, but she couldn’t. She could think only about his need for the piano, something she’d taken away from him. Because she’d thought only about herself. Because she’d wanted to hurt him. Because she hadn’t cared.