“You are annoying! But I loved you with a father’s heart! I wanted more for you! It was terrible. And I wouldn’t change one goddamn thing!”

She put her hands over her face, covering the tears. She was probably ten the last time she cried in front of Sully.

“Maggie, don’t snivel about it. I did the best I could and I apologize if it wasn’t good enough.”

“It was good enough,” she said. “You never say you love me.”

“I just did,” he grumbled. “I’ll say one thing—you never thank me for all the years I did without you for your own damn good. If you had a child, you’d understand.”

I almost did, she thought, emotions overflowing.

“Because I’ll tell you something, Maggie—when you have a child you’ll understand how hard it is when she’s taken from you. I guess I was supposed to grieve for you so you’d be convinced it wasn’t fun for me, but I didn’t want to do that to you. I wanted you to take everything offered you in a good home and not feel the tearing inside when—”

“I just wanted to know that,” she said. “I didn’t know you were protecting me. I thought you were just as happy I was gone so much.”

“So now you have it—I wasn’t one goddamn bit happy about it. But it worked out the way I wanted it to. You made something out of yourself. If you’d stayed around here you’d be bagging groceries and cleaning up campsites.” He shook his head. “You’re welcome.”

“I just wanted to know,” she said.

“Now you know. We gonna let go of this now?”

She nodded and wiped her cheeks.

“I’ll tell you what, girl. You do make a man work hard for it.”

She gave a little huff of laughter. “About Mother,” she said. “She’s a pain in the ass.”

“I know that,” he said, picking up his fork. “At least she’s not my pain in the ass. Now, I want you to tell me something—how long are you planning to stay here and make me pay for all my parenting mistakes?”

She took a breath. “I came for a two-week break. I stayed because I knew that despite all your grumbling, you could use my help. Then my lawyer called and said we’re going to trial. Soon. In a month or so. He said it was perfectly reasonable for me to wait it out here.”

Sully lifted his bushy brows. “Trial?”

“Trial,” she said. “The lawsuit. It’s taking all my energy to keep from running scared.”

“You have nothing to be scared about,” he said. “Walter says you’re one of the best and it will all come to light. Meanwhile, I can stand it a little longer if you’re determined to stay on a bit.”

She laughed. “You certainly know how to suck up, Sully.”

“Don’t I?” he said.

He who is outside the door has already a
good part of his journey behind him.

—Dutch proverb

Chapter 9

Maggie was at peace. She knew her father loved her but what she had really wanted was to know that he had missed her, that her absence had been hard for him. And now that it was laid to rest, she’d think about showing gratitude. Sully had done his best by her and it hadn’t been easy.

And of course Maggie thought about Walter’s visit. She had begun to ask herself if there was any compromise in her situation. Maybe there was a free clinic somewhere that needed her. Or maybe she should just take a year to travel with a medical team to performed badly needed surgeries in places that didn’t have readily available resources. One of those big hospital boats maybe?