I nodded, remembering how Dad and I had fiercely debated the do-not-resuscitate order when he told me he was going to sign it. I insisted it was selfish; if they could help him live longer, he should let them. His eyes had filled with sadness, and he’d shaken his head.
“I’m dying, Freckles. And while I know it’s hard, you have to accept it. If I go, I’m going, okay? I don’t want to be kept alive by machines or be a vegetable. You have to let me go. It’ll be easier for you in the long run.”
In the end I’d agreed, but sitting here now with Brenda, I wished I hadn’t. Why had I come here? What had I expected to find? That Dad wasn’t dead? It had all been some kind of mix-up or a distasteful joke? I needed to leave, get outside, clear my throbbing head, but my legs had become heavier than sandbags, pushing my feet into the floor.
“I left my bag here yesterday,” I mumbled. “Do you have it?”
“It’s behind the desk,” Brenda said, getting up.
“Where’s Dad now? Did Worthy & Moore already come to, uh, get him?”
“Yes, last night. You can go there now if—”
“I will,” I said, the fear of seeing my father’s body threatening to overwhelm me.
“Have you spoken to your mother yet? She—”
“No. I can’t face her. She blames me for Dad...for him...”
“You can’t listen to things like that,” Brenda said. “People lash out when a loved one passes, trust me, it happens more than you think.” There was no point explaining the deeply rooted animosity between my mother and me, so I stayed silent, and she continued, lowering her voice. “Nurse Jelani mentioned something your father said last night.”
“What was it?” I said, my head spinning. “What did he say?”
“It might not mean anything, but we thought you should know in case it does.” As Brenda paused, I held my breath. “He had a lucid moment, right before he passed. Nurse Jelani said he was a hundred percent focused, his voice clear as day. He grabbed her hand like this—” she pressed her fingers over mine and squeezed, hard “—then opened his eyes and said, ‘Tell Eleanor about Stan Gallinger.’ He repeated it three times. Does it mean anything to you?”
Tell Eleanor about Stan Gallinger. I rolled the words around my head, my brow furrowing. I didn’t know of a Stan Gallinger and couldn’t remember any of Dad’s friends or acquaintances of that name, either. Could it be...? Could Dad have left me one final gift, knowing he was slipping away, and we’d never see each other again? Was it his way of making amends somehow, of making things right between us?
Stan Gallinger. Stan Gallinger.
He was my biological father, I was sure of it. My heart rate quickened. Now that I had the information, I was no longer sure I wanted it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SEEING DAD AT THE funeral home a short while later was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I broke down in front of his body, whispering a thousand times “I’m sorry” and a million “I love yous” as my tears choked me. Somehow I managed to keep my voice steady after Mr. Moore guided me to his office, where we went over the paperwork and Dad’s wishes. I dug my fingernails into the armrest when he told me Dad left the final approval, and the right to change anything, exclusively to me. I wanted to shout I had no right to do anything.
“It’s all been arranged for Thursday,” I told Lewis in a shaky voice when we were back in a taxi and on our way home. He’d kindly insisted on coming with me to the funeral home after Brenda had given me my things and we’d left the hospice, even though I’d lied and told him I’d be fine alone. “Dad preplanned everything, right down to the last detail. He said he wanted to make it as easy as possible for me. Can you believe that?”
“I’m so sorry,” Lewis said. “You were very close, weren’t you?”
“Not as close as I thought.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
He frowned, waited a few beats for me to elaborate and I found myself hesitating, suppressing a sudden urge, an unexpected but undeniable need to talk. But I barely knew Lewis, never let people in, certainly not a relative stranger. I pressed my lips together and stared out the window, and Lewis didn’t push me for more information.
Back at the apartment I insisted on paying the fare and tried to shove money into Lewis’s hands but he wouldn’t hear of it. I continued arguing with him until he walked me up the stairs of our apartment building, and all the way to my front door.
“Enough,” he said. “Now, are you absolutely sure you’ll be all right? You really don’t want someone to come and stay with you?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, hoping I could ignore the throbbing in my skull for another minute, at least long enough to get inside my apartment and collapse on the sofa.
Lewis let out a sigh and I could tell he saw through my charade but didn’t know what to do about it. “Okay, listen, if you need anything, I’ll be upstairs for a while. Text me your number?”
“My phone’s dead.”
“Then I’ll send you mine if you give me your details.”
I didn’t want to argue so I reeled off the digits and he typed them into his phone.
“There,” he said. “I’ve sent you a text so you have my number now, too. Promise you’ll call if you need help? Anytime, day or night.”
“Thank you.” I tried to tamp down another little flutter going on in my stomach by focusing on retrieving my keys and unlocking the front door. “I’m sorry I caused so much trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” he said quietly. “Take care of yourself, Eleanor. I’ll see you soon.”
With the door closed behind me, I breathed in deep, grateful for the utter silence and the familiar, delicate scent of the lemongrass potpourri I’d treated myself to a couple of weeks before. I dropped my bag on the floor, plugged in my phone to charge and looked at my laptop on the coffee table. I took a step toward it, then backed away as if it were a venomous, toothy creature ready to bite. My mind sped up, repeating two words on loop, louder and louder until they were impossible to ignore.
Stan Gallinger. Stan Gallinger. Stan Gallinger.
Another few seconds, and my fantasies about my possible biological father ballooned to Hollywood-esque proportions. The excitement—was it excitement?—felt as delicate and fragile as butterfly wings. Part of me wanted to grab my laptop and start researching him, but another part refused for fear my illusions would shatter into millions of pieces, shards of jagged glass crashing down around me.