You scramble off the sofa at the insistent buzzing of your phone, the haze of inebriation evaporating as the screen displays: 2 Missed Calls. 3 Unread Messages.
“A functional adult would have the grace to text.” “Where are you? Don’t lie. I’ve checked your dorm.” And most recently, at 4 in the morning: “Tracked down your phone. Come downstairs NOW or I go up.”
The party left the house a witness to careless revelry. You haven’t the clarity to recall whose campus house this is, nor does it matter as you stumble toward the balcony and look down.
O Lord, here he is.
Anthony stands beside his car, shirt immaculately pressed, Windsor knot half loosened. His eyes, flinty and wintry as November lakes, rise to meet yours and still you on spot.
Those very eyes have held you since the world first began to make sense. When your own parents didn’t bother, he did. He taught you to read, to write, to articulate your first tangled thought; he tutored your A-level, filled in your application forms to Winfell, and penned the recommendation that bore your future in its ink. At times, you’ve wondered whether, upon the sealed ovale of your heart, his signature had been inscribed as well.
His tutelage, as constant as it’s generous, can never suffice. But you could have endured it, the distance, the restraint, the kisses on your forehead and forehead only... You could have endured it all for a lifetime, so long as that lifetime had been composed solely of the two of you. To retentive feelings, a lifetime proves too short.
But last week, while sifting secretly and routinely through his letters, you came across an architect’s quote for renovations to Wrenleigh Hall, his long-abandoned family estate.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
You still remember the cadence of his voice as he read those words to you before drawing the blankets to your chin.
If not for such a purpose, then why resurrect that dead house? The thought seared as it came. He can be elusive and inscrutable and remote but still, you adore him, despite, because. But if this intimacy you’ve clung to is a fantasy of your own invention, you will tear from your chest alive the part of your heart that bears his crest.
You watch as he turns back toward the car. The engine starts as your heart sinks, sinks, all the way down.
Anthony easily identifies the figure on the balcony, your tousled hair, rumpled dress, bare feet on cold tiles. Once, he believed you might transcend the banal fit of rebellion. You are too bright, too refined, too perceptive for such recklessness.
O Lord, was he wrong.
Yet deep down he still believes this must be his fault. Had he been inattentive? Missed a signpost along the way? When was the last time he took you to dinner?
List upon list of parental inadequacy unfurls in his mind as he studies you from afar. Get a grip, Anthony. At least she’s safe and sound.
You can be wilful and untamed and more life than his heart can hold but still, he loves you, despite, because. Perhaps his failing lies in holding you too close, too tight; all these nights, these bottles, maybe even, in his nightmares, strangers’ arms, are your way to fight or flee.
He casts you one last look, then slips back into the car and starts the engine.
The final gift a father can give is to let go; from here and on, his girl will fly, fly, soar to the sky.