Jury of One

77

Shelly walked down the hallway upon hearing the whine of the intercom buzzer. She hit the button for entry into her building and walked over by the door. She unlocked it and found herself taking steps backward, away from the door.

The state plane from the capital would have landed, by her estimation, about twenty-five minutes ago.

He came in by himself, without any security detail. He seemed startled, for some reason, to see her. Perhaps he’d been lost in thought. Perhaps he’d been busy calculating the damage to his political campaign. There had been some talk of a vice presidential bid down the road, perhaps even the top spot. Why not? He was a tall, handsome, personable conservative from a large Midwestern state.

That was over now. No question. Stuff like this? Just too messy. He’d be lucky to hold on to his current job now.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, standing firm. She immediately regretted the capitulation.

He looked at her with a quizzical expression, cocked his head. And then she saw something she had not ever seen before. She saw tears in the eyes of her father.

“You’re sor-” His throat closed. Something else she had never seen.

It was a moment she couldn’t describe, one that she never would be able to explain. A breakthrough. A spark, maybe, that each of them had been awaiting. She didn’t know who moved to whom. Later, she would remember that they met in the middle. They held each other tightly, desperately, their bodies trembling. No words were spoken for what seemed like forever, as if they were trying to recover so much with this embrace. Just like that, and she felt it sweep over her, felt time melt away.

His head turned, his mouth moved to her ear. “What kind of a father am I?” he whispered, his voice trembling. “What kind of a father am I, when my beautiful little girl can’t tell me that she was-that somebody had-had hurt my little-”

“I should have told you, Daddy. I’m so-”

“No,” he whispered gently. “It wasn’t your job to tell me. It was my job to ask. I prosecuted so many of those cases, and when it came to my own daughter-” He stroked her hair. “I thought you were being stubborn. I swear that’s what I thought. I swear.”

She didn’t have a reply to that. She just held on to him as tightly as she could.

“You had to go through all of that alone. And I made you feel worse. Oh, God, Shelly, can you ever forgive me?”

“I already have.” She pulled back from him. She tried to smile, but her lips were still trembling.

He cupped his hand around her chin, and this seemed to calm him. “I am so proud of you and so ashamed of myself.”

She shook her head but couldn’t speak.

“I want my daughter back,” he said.

“She’s back,” she managed. And she meant it. Could that really be all it took to erase years of barriers and resentment? Was that, in the end, all she ever really wanted, to hear these words?

He smiled at her. His steel-blue eyes were entirely bloodshot now. The strong, stoic mask was washed away. It seemed appropriate, somehow, that she was seeing something new in him at this moment.

He touched the back of her neck tenderly. “You hurt yourself today. You fainted.”

“I’m fine,” she answered, and then chuckled. “Do you think I could have possibly found a more public way for this to come out?”

He smiled. They both did. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“This is going to hurt you-”

“It doesn’t matter.” He slowly shook his head.

Their breathing evened out. They looked at each other, their smiles slowly growing. He petted her hair, wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“I’m going to do something I’ve never done before,” she told him.

He looked into her eyes, noted the expression on her face. He tilted his head so their foreheads touched. In some ways, nothing had changed. He could still keep a step ahead of her.

“You’re going to vote for me,” he said.