When We Meet Again Read Free Page A

away from your child like that was unforgivable. It was made worse by the fact that he hadn’t come back in the wake of my mother’s death. I’d just turned eighteen when she died, so there was no custody issue involved, but he must have realized how alone I felt. Evidently, it hadn’t mattered. He’d called once, to tersely express his sympathy, and that had been it. Later, I’d felt like a fool for spending the next month hoping every time the doorbell rang that he’d be the one standing outside my house, waiting to make me his daughter again.
    By the time he resurfaced, showing up outside the journalism building at the University of Florida during my senior year of college to beg for a second chance, my walls were already up. I’d learned by then that I couldn’t rely on anyone but myself. I’d never forgiven him for teaching me that lesson at such a young age. And although he’d spent the last several years apologizing profusely on my voice mail, explaining that walking away had been the biggest mistake of his life, the damage couldn’t be undone.
    “I was so glad to get your call, Emily,” my father said now, closing the front door gently behind him and following me down the hall. “I know I have a lot to explain to you and a lot to make up for, but—”
    I cut him off. “This isn’t a social visit,” I told him. “I received something that I need to ask you about.”
    He looked crestfallen, but he nodded and ducked into the kitchen behind me. I gestured to the kitchen table, and when he saw the painting propped up there, he stopped short and stared. “Emily, what is this?”
    “I think it’s Grandma Margaret.” I hesitated. “Isn’t it?”
    Silently, he reached for the painting the same way I had an hour earlier. He traced the lines of his mother’s face, and when he looked up again, I was startled to see tears in his eyes. “Where did you get this?”
    “It came from a gallery in Munich, Germany.” I handed him the note. “There’s no signature. I don’t know who sent it.”
    His eyes widened as he scanned the small card. “ ‘I read your column, and you’re wrong,’ ” he read aloud. “ ‘Your grandfather never stopped loving her. Margaret was the love of his life.’ ” He looked up to meet my eye. “This is about your column from a couple months ago, the one where you talked about damage that trickles down through the generations.”
    I turned away, suddenly guilty. “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “I guess I owe you an apology. I didn’t know you read my column.”
    “Of course I do.” His tone was gentle and didn’t carry any of the blame I expected. “Every single one. And no apology needed. You were right about everything. I behaved abominably.”
    “Right. Well, anyway.” I bit my lip and turned back to the painting, changing the subject. “How sure are you that this is actually Grandma Margaret?”
    He looked at the painting for a moment. “I’m positive, actually. At the end of her life, she kept telling the same story over and over again. She kept saying that the day she met my father, she was wearing a red dress, and the sky was turning violet as the sun came up. Just like in this painting. It’s the exact scene she was describing.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I always felt so sad that the person who’d hurt her the most was the person she was thinking about at the end, as her mind got foggier. It was the only time in my life I ever heard her voluntarily mention him.”
    “She missed him,” I said softly, feeling a surge of guilt that I hadn’t spent much time with my grandmother in those final months. I’d been so busy with my career that I hadn’t made the time, and now I’d regret that forever. I looked back at the painting now, my eyes tracing the familiar lines of my grandmother’s face. “But what about the person who sent the painting? Do you think they know who your father is?”
    “I don’t know how that could even be