I knew the truth was that I had. I knew as well that he was the parent and he never should have allowed it. He never should have quit on me. He should have kept after me until I saw it. I would have accepted him eventually. He was my father. My daddy. I loved my daddy and I spent so many years wanting him to want me. Oh, God, I would have taken his love if I’d known he was giving it. It was all I ever wanted from him…his love, to be his little girl. I had wanted so desperately for my Daddy to want me all my life.
And he had. He had. I just couldn't see it for all my anger.
“Oh, God,” I felt the sadness and regret building up inside of me, spilling out my eyes, “Oh, God…what have I done?”
I was so selfish. So blind. I had shoved him away, gone through the motions of being a daughter instead of really being one. And now it was too late. My father was dead. I wouldn’t ever have another chance to try again. “Oh, God,” I repeated, “I’m so sorry…I am so sorry…”
Lucy found me. She slipped her arms around me, “He loved you, Silvia,” She rested her head top of mine, “Don’t you ever think for a second he didn’t and don’t you ever think for a second that he loved me more. He loved us differently, because he knew us differently, that’s all. But he loved us. He loved the both of us with all his heart.”
“Oh, Lucy, it's too late!” I wailed, “It's just too late!”
And it was. In too many ways to count for Daddy and I. We'd both lost. Lost because of pride and because neither of us knew the words we needed to get back to each other. And now it was over. No second chances. No take backs, no returns.
It was the deepest emptiness I had ever felt.
About a year later, when all of my father’s worldly belongings had been dispersed and his house was sold, Oliver took me at my request back to the cemetery where he lie beside my mother. I sat on his grave and I closed my eyes and I waited for him. I begged him to come to me, to become part of me the way I had chosen not to let him in life. I begged him to let me need him and to need me in return. I sat and I cried and I felt no touch at all.
And so I left him there to rest forever in Scotland, buried in the soil of his fathers. I left him and I went to Wales, the place he had sent me when I was fifteen and the place where he had left me when I was twenty, when he had given up on me ever needing his hand. I left him there and I went home.
Lucy took the photo albums from his house. Those memories meant more to her than me. If you want the truth, I wasn’t in very many of the pictures. The majority of them were taken without me there at all. I wondered how many of them I might have been in if I'd chosen to. Later, she left one in a silver frame on the mantle at my house. It was of young Philip Cotton and a red haired baby girl in a pale blue dress with yellow bees on the hem. He was holding this child under one arm, facing her toward the camera, but she was peering up at him, her blue eyes wide with wonder, and he was looking down at her the way a father looks at his daughter, with promises to love and protect her forever.
“You gave me away,” I whispered, “But I know you thought it was best. It’s just a shame, Daddy. I miss you, but it’s OK. I always missed you, even when you were here. That‘s my fault. I just wish I‘d known that I had a choice. You should have told me. That‘s your fault. We both lose, but we love each other just the same, don‘t we? I‘m here, Daddy, if you ever need me or you just want to say hello.”
I left the picture where Lucy had set it, but I didn’t look at it much. Hardly ever. And eventually it, like the sting of my father’s death, faded from my mind, to a place where when I thought of him I found only reasons to smile. Eventually, all the anger was gone and I was thankful for him.
I had a daddy, didn't I? He wasn't perfect and he certainly wasn't the one I'd dreamed he would have been, but I had one all the same. And I'd love him as much as I'd hated him, hadn't I? All that distance, all that time wasted, but the fact that he'd inspired such passion in me meant something in itself. I can honestly say now that I think that's special. Screwed up and turned inside out, we were special him and me, and I am so thankful that I can say that I had a daddy and that he mattered. All his faults and failures mean nothing to me now.
He mattered and I take him with me now every place I go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
We got the greatest gift that next winter when everyone made it home for Christmas. Carolena had just arrived with Adam, when the snow began to gather on the ground.
“Mummy!” She hugged me tight, “We’re in for a white Christmas!”
That was an understatement when we woke up the next morning to two feet of snow.
“No one’s going anywhere for a while! More snow is coming! This is the best Christmas gift ever!” Ana came bounding down the steps clapping her hands, “Hooray! All of us together under one roof! Eddie,” She snapped her fingers at her husband, “Light a fire! We’ll pop some corn!” She turned to Oliver and Alexander, who were sitting on either side of draughts, “Ollie and Xan, you can finish your game later! Put on your Wellies and walk down to the grocer for me! I need more potatoes, more sausages and more sugar!” She spoke to her sons as if they were teens still under her command. “Come on now! Hurry up!”
They looked at each other and grinned.
“Yes, Mum,” Alexander stood and kissed her cheek.
“Straight away, Mum,” Oliver kissed her on the other side.
“Would you shovel the garden path?” She asked.
“Absolutely not!” Oliver told her seriously.
Her mouth fell open and she clamped it shut promptly giving him a stern look.
“That’s why we have sons!” Alexander finished for him, “Lads, get your boots on! Shovel the way for your grandmother!”
“An’ what’ll the girls do?” Gryffin pretended to complain. He picked up a Wellie, realised it was not his and handed it to Warren.
“We’ll sit here all warm and look pretty while you work,” Carolena smiled. She was plaiting Natalie’s long hair, “Like girls are supposed to!”
“Oh, aye!” Nigel laughed, “Well, bake something at least then!”
Bess chucked a hair pin at him. “Shut up!”
“Come on then, Adam,” Oliver wasn’t about to let Caro’s man off the hook, “Come with Alex and me. You can carry the potatoes.”
“All right,” He agreed with a good natured grin.
“I like him,” Lucy told Caro after the men had left the house, “He‘s one to hang on to.”.
“He’s very handsome,” Bess added. “He has lovely eyes.”
“I like the way he smiles,” Nattie handed Caro a hair pin, “He’s got the best smile.”
“He has a nice arse, too” Annie said.
“Annie!” Caro giggled.
“It’s true! I just want to grab it and bite it!”
“Aye, me, too!” Ana nodded as she poked at the fire.
Caro’s face was as red as her hair, but she laughed with the rest of us. “Grandmum! I can’t believe you said that!”
“What? I’m a woman! I have eyes! I still have warm blood in my veins!” She looked from me to Lucy and the three of us exchanged knowing giggles. “You don’t forget to notice a handsome man with a fine body with your first grey hair, Girls!”
“Auntie Sil, why isn’t Lakshmi here?” Natalie was trying to keep her head still while Caro pulled her hair to finish the plait.
“She’s spending the holiday with her grandparents,” Lakshmi was Gryffin’s girlfriend. He’d met her in Edinburgh and before I knew it they’d moved in together. I hadn’t had the chance to meet her yet, which bothered me a bit, but she was lovely on the phone and Gryffin adored her, “They don’t know she and Gryff live together because they wouldn’t approve, so they wouldn’t like him coming there for anything overnight. They’re very religious, I’m told.”I peeked out the window to see all of the men chasing each other through street, lobbing snowballs in all directions. Even Edmond was in on it. I watched him slip and fall in the road. He waited a second for Nigel to come close and see if he was all right, then popped up and beamed him straight in the chest. At the same moment Gryffin and Warren assaulted Nigel from two other sides and he caught it in the back of the head and the shoulder respectively. I watched him chase after Warren, but Alexander caught him and wrestled him to the ground. He was busy shoving snow down the neck of his son’s coat when Oliver knocked him over and everyone piled on top. There they were in a heap in the middle of the street, all the Dickinson men and Adam Maldovan, stuffing snow down each other’s collars. “Girls! Quick! You have to see this!”