“He’d try to pass him off as a business partner.” I sympathized with Emma’s frustration. Besides Josh and the other home care nurses, I was the only person who ever saw how bad things really were for Neil. Around everyone else, he used some inhuman amount of willpower to keep his pain from showing.
“Please,” Emma said, and her eyes were so big and round in her face she looked like the cat from Shrek. But not in a funny, manipulative way. “Is he going to be okay? Does he have any idea?”
I took a deep breath as I considered. “Right now, things are on track. I know it seems like he’s dying, but that’s just the chemotherapy.”
“It didn’t make him this sick before when I saw him,” she pointed out.
“Whenever you’ve visited, your father has done everything he possibly could to make sure you didn’t see how sick he was. Now, it’s a little harder. Part of it is how he looks, I think. It’s difficult to believe he’s feeling fine when his hair and eyebrows are gone and his fingernails are falling off. But believe me, things are going a lot easier for him now that he knows what to expect.”
She nodded, her lips pursed. “If things were really bad, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”
“I would.” I didn’t even have to consider the answer. “He’s your father. I’m not going to keep anything important from you. Unless he were to say, ‘don’t tell Emma,’ but I don’t think he’s going to do that.”
“You’re right. I’m acting paranoid.” She bit her thumb as she stared out the window. “I haven’t been spending enough time with him.”
“Neil doesn’t want you to put your life on hold to worry about him. He’s told you that.” I’m sure that wouldn’t lessen her feeling of regret if he did die and she perceived herself as wasting time she could have spent with him.
“What would you do, were you in my shoes?”
What.
“Um,” I began, super eloquently. “Is that rhetorical?”
“No.” She shook her head firmly. “I have no experience with this. I don’t know what I should be doing.”
Had Emma really just asked me for advice?
“Well, he did mention that you’re not calling as often as you used to,” I ventured. “He knows you’re busy, but maybe if you just gave him a call now and then.”
“I’m always worried I’m going to wake him up or bother him,” she admitted.
“Well, I’m the one usually answering his phone lately.” Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she was afraid she’d get roped into a conversation with me. “Do you want me to just tell you if he’s sleeping or having a bad day?”
“I suppose,” she said cautiously.
“I’m not going to use it as an excuse to keep you from your dad.” I paused. “Is that... were you worried about that?”
“I know you’re a good person.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “But I don’t really know you.”
“And all that shit happened with Elizabeth. Look, you don’t have to trust me. I know I’m not going to do anything shady to you. Eventually you’ll know that, too.”
“It’s not that I think you’re going to maliciously attack me or keep my father from me. It’s only... your actions at the magazine seemed suspect. And my mom...”
“Hates me,” I finished for her. “It’s not a secret. And I don’t like her very much either, so we’re on equal footing.”
“She’s not a fan.” Emma’s eyes flared wide as she rolled them.
“I don’t have any contact with her, really. She calls for Neil and I give him the phone—” My heart lurched. Emma’s chin tilted slightly, and her eyes narrowed. I think we’d landed on the same conclusion at the same time. But I had to be sure. “Is that why you haven’t been calling or coming over so much? Did your mom say something?”
“Oh, this is quite uncomfortable, isn’t it?” Emma made a popping sound with her lips. “She... may have hinted to me that you were not wanting people to come around.”
“That’s silly. She could have come over any time she liked. She just had to ask Neil.” Silence hung between us a moment. Too quickly I added, “I literally only say ‘hello’ and ‘I’ll go and get him’ to her,” and I sounded defensive even to myself. But I’d never tried to prevent Neil from speaking to Valerie, and I resented that she’d given that impression to her daughter.
I tried again. “Actually, Emma... I really like having you at the house. It makes it feel less lonely.”
“I thought I would be intruding.”
“Not at all.” My stomach roiled at the thought that I’d somehow kept her from her father when she’d wanted to be close to him.
And I was furious at Valerie for even planting that suggestion in the first place. But she was Emma’s mother, so I wasn’t about to address it. I didn’t like feeling as though I had to compete with another woman. It was so... tacky and daytime soap opera. While a part of me acknowledged that sometimes, people just didn’t get along and it had nothing to do with any sense of jealousy, I wasn’t going to try and fool myself into thinking that was the case here.