Chapter 6 - A FATHER AT THE DOOR
Cameron wrote so hard the pen nearly tore the paper.
I wanted you every day.
I never knew you were alive.
I am here, and I am staying.
At three forty, a police officer and an independent child welfare investigator arrived with the court’s interim order.
Pike stopped smiling when he read it.
They entered the school.
Cameron had to wait in a small conference room while the investigator spoke privately with Eva.
There were drawings on the walls.
Flowers.
A dog.
A house with too many windows.
He looked at the chairs and wondered how many birthdays his daughter had spent in rooms like this.
The door opened.
She stood beside the investigator.
Fourteen years old.
His daughter had lived an entire childhood without him.
Cameron rose slowly.
“Hi.”
She watched him without moving.
“You look older.”
A broken laugh escaped him.
“So do you.”
He wanted to reach for her.
Instead, he kept his hands at his sides.
“You don’t have to come closer.”
Her eyes moved to the photograph on the table.
“They said you signed the papers.”
“What papers?”
“The ones giving me away.”
“I didn’t.”
“Everybody says something different.”
“I know.”
She looked surprised by that answer.
“I’m not going to ask you to trust me because I showed up in a suit,” he said.
“We can check everything.
Together, if you want.”
Eva sat.
Cameron sat across from her.
“Do you remember my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Did she have a nice laugh?”
He pressed his lips together.
“The nicest.”
Eva studied his face.
“Sometimes I remember a song.
But I don’t know if I made it up.”
Cameron quietly sang the first line of the silly bedtime song Caroline had invented.
Eva’s mouth opened.
Then she covered it with her hand.
The investigator moved a box of tissues closer.
Cameron didn’t finish the song.
He couldn’t.
After a while, Eva pushed an envelope across the table.
“This is what they showed me whenever I asked about you.”
Inside was a copy of a guardianship document.
His signature appeared at the bottom.
Attached was a letter explaining why he could no longer care for his daughter.
Cameron recognized the signature.
May you like
It was his.
And he remembered signing it.
