I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
It catches him off-guard.
It rips a laugh out of his throat before he can stop it.
It is a mirthless sound, though. Something that borders more on surprise. Confusion. And, though he laughs, his expression does not change. The furrow in his brow does not soften and he goes on studying her with that neat frown. He tilts his head a fraction, his mouth half-open as if on the verge of speaking. But he cannot immediately think up anything to say.
She saves him the trouble by continuing. He had not been unhappy to see Sabbath. Granted, he might have been happier to see her under any other circumstance. He had not harbored any ill-will toward her, certainly. Seeing her under this particular set of circumstances had wedged a thick sliver of guilt between his ribs and he suspects he’ll carry it with him the rest of his life. But they’d never had a relationship, the two of them, neither of them had ever had any expectations that he’d been aware of.
Finding out that there was another little girl in the world who shared his blood had had a profound effect on him, certainly. And he won’t apologize for that. He will not claim that learning about her did not make him some convoluted version of happy. He will feel no remorse for living that truth.
Still, his expression is collapsed around the hard edges of his confusion and he shakes his head. “I was happy to learn about Prayer,” he concedes, “but things were never like that between Sabbath and me. I don’t think either of us expected anything to come of our...” He gives pause then, carefully choosing his words, “union.”
He shrugs his shoulders then, shakes his head again. “If I wanted to be with Sabbath, I would have been with her. And I suspect the same could be said for her. But she didn’t even want me to know about my daughter and I think that says plenty about her feelings about me.”
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
