Chapter 4 — Two People Were Given Opposite Stories
Margaret stared at Robert.
“What did you tell him?”
Robert looked older than he had ten minutes earlier.
“Margaret…”
“What did you tell him?”
Robert sat down.
David answered first.
On Saturday evening, the night before he was supposed to meet Margaret, Robert came to David’s apartment.
He said Margaret had reconsidered.
She was frightened by the move.
She did not want to go to Seattle.
And she did not want another emotional argument before David left.
David refused to believe him.
Then Robert said:
“If you actually care about her, don’t make her say it to your face.”
Margaret covered her mouth.
David continued.
He asked why Margaret hadn’t called herself.
Robert said she was devastated.
Embarrassed.
And afraid David would convince her to change her mind.
“I was angry,” David said.
“But I believed him.”
David left his apartment early the following morning.
He drove west.
No café.
No goodbye.
He thought that was what Margaret wanted.
Margaret stared at Robert.
“And then you came to me.”
Robert nodded weakly.
“Yes.”
He told Margaret David had stopped by.
He claimed David had changed his mind about her moving.
“He thinks the relationship moved too quickly.”
“He wants to start over alone.”
Margaret had believed every word.
Why wouldn’t she?
Her father had never lied to her about anything that serious before.
Helen stood several feet away.
“You did this?”
Robert looked at her.
“I thought I was protecting her.”
Margaret laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“From what?”
“Leaving everything for a man she’d known three years.”
“I was thirty-seven years old.”
“You were my daughter.”
“Those are not opposite things.”
Robert lowered his head.
For twenty-seven years, Margaret believed David had chosen to disappear.
For twenty-seven years, David believed Margaret had asked him to.
Both stories came from the same person.