“No. Nobody called me. Just the police. They said she ran away and asked if I knew anything. I didn’t even know she was gone,” he said, taking a gulp of coffee. “Do you know anything else about what happened? Did she leave a note or anything?”

“No,” Darcy answered, still not looking at him. “She took all her favorite stuff and just left. ” Like you did, Darcy thought bitterly. The only difference was, everybody knew where Carl Wills had gone—to New York with that twenty-four-year-old.

“It wasn’t because of me coming back, was it?” he asked again. Now, finally, Darcy looked up. She looked into the prematurely aging face of her father, at the unfamiliar ruts and crags, the scar near his left eye that had not been there five years ago. He looked as if he was in deep pain, and that was all that consoled Darcy.

“It might be that,” she said. “It was a big shock to have you come back after five years. She worshiped you. You should have seen her right after you left, making up crazy lies to explain why you were still a good guy even though you’d left us. You were being held prisoner by enemy agents. You saw mobsters at the house and you left to draw them away from your family. Stuff like that. Then she learned the truth. She had all that hurt in her and now, all of a sudden, you’re back, bringing all the hurt back. Maybe that’s why she ran. ”

Carl Wills’ hands shook as he wrapped them around the coffee cup and took several more gulps.

“She cried so much when you left, and she kept on crying because it was a wound that wouldn’t heal,” Darcy went on, finding comfort in his obvious misery. She wanted to somehow pile all her own pain on this man’s soul, crushing him with the burden, and then be free of it herself.

Hakeem leaned over to Darcy and quietly said, “You want me to wait outside? Maybe there’s something private you want to say to your father?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said. Hakeem got up and left the coffee shop. A damp breeze rushed in after him, mixed with the smell of approaching rain.

“I used to wonder what I’d say if I ever saw you again,” Darcy began in a flat voice. “I guess I just want to know why you did it. Left, I mean. ”

Darcy expected a roll call of excuses, Mom’s shortcomings, his advancing middle years, his failures at his thirdrate jobs, perhaps that he had been seduced by a wily young woman at a low point in his life.

“There ain’t no easy answer, Darcy,” Dad began, lowering his head. “I wish I could give you one, but I can’t. ”