I realize how much fathers are capable of loving when they’re loved, how much my father loved me, and how much I miss him.

Then my heart crashes to the floor with shame.

Sam. Does anybody love him? Does he have a father who loves him when I’m not there? The mere idea drives me mad—mad with guilt and shame. I cling to Eddie and don’t move. Can she read my mind?

I’ve never lied to her. We owe each other nothing but honesty, but still I say nothing.

“What was your father’s name?” I ask, and my voice doesn’t crack, although it ought to break, as should my silence and my heart.

“Edward,” she replies. “Actually, he was always Ed, and I was always Eddie. I was a smaller version of him, and sometimes I still feel that way: as if my larger ego—the more intelligent and more loving part of me—were dead.” She takes my hand and places it on her chest above her beating heart. Her kind, loving, great big heart. How can someone like her stand being with someone like me?

“I occasionally feel like ringing him to tell him something. It’s a painful reflex, like moving an unsplinted broken leg. On occasion I close my eyes and try to listen for his advice.”

She twists in my arms to face me. It only lasts for a few seconds, but she represents everything I’ve ever needed to embrace.

“How about you, stranger? Have you ever dreamed of your father?” she asks. Straight out. No scruples. Without shame or fear of causing pain. That’s Eddie through and through.

Never, I want to say. Please don’t ever ask me that question again.

I exhale and nod. The urge to flee is always with me, requiring only the smallest encouragement to kick into action. “Yes. In my dreams my father doesn’t usually know he’s dead,” I confess, “and I don’t tell him. I relish those moments with him and savor an opportunity to chat to him, share a room with him, or go for a drive together.”

Or sail out to sea, the last remaining freedom, but I can’t bring myself to bring up that scene. How often I have had that dream! Over and over again, and each time my father is unaware that the wave is about to hit us, and I’m never quick enough. I never see it early enough or grab hold of my father fast enough.

I’ve told Eddie that he drowned while he was out fishing, but I’ve never mentioned the fact that I was with him. Nor have I told her that I’m losing all sense of what is true and what isn’t. Did he let go of me, or I of him?