Page 73 of Watching Henry

“Hadley? Had?”

She looked up and her father was standing in the doorway, her keys dangling from his hand.

“What are you doing here?” Her father rarely came to her apartment, preferring to give her privacy.

“You left your keys in the front door. I let myself in before somebody else did.”

“But why are you here?” She sounded defensive and she knew it was because he'd caught her almost crying and she wanted to hide the fact.

“Sit down,” her father said. “I'll make coffee. You clear a place for us both to sit.”

She didn't feel like arguing, so she did as she was told whilst her father made two mugs of instant coffee.

“You're not yourself,” he said, coming to sit down and passing her a luke-warm mug. “That's why I'm here. Don't think I missed it. There's something wrong and... well, I thought maybe it was something you might like to talk about.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don't you have better things to do?”

“Better things than finding out why my darling youngest daughter is moping around and pretending that her life is fine when it's obviously not?”

A fair point. She shrugged.

“Had, what's going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Is it a woman?”

She opened her mouth then closed it again. Her father never talked about her dating life, and even now he looked awkward. But she couldn't lie to him. She nodded and he smiled.

“Well, at least it's nothing more serious than that. Someone you met over the summer?”

She nodded again.

“And someone who isn't in the picture now?”

A third nod.

Her father sighed. “It would help if you were a little more forthcoming, my dear.”

And she didn't want to say anything, not to her father of all people, yet he was the one sitting there and the words came bubbling up before she could stop them.

“Her name is Florence. She was another nanny with the same family.” He looked confused and she shook her head. “It's a long story. But... but I thought maybe, oh, I don't know. It's stupid, I suppose. We'd known each other for such a short time but I thought she understood me but it turns out she thinks the same about me as everyone else does.”

“And what's that?”

“That I'm a flake. Undependable. Unreliable. She said she couldn't risk herself on someone like me and...” she trailed off.

“And you're afraid that maybe she's right?” The question was quiet and gentle.

Hadley nodded. “Isn't she? Isn't that what you think?”

Her father laughed. “If you're a flake then so am I. I understand you better than you think, Hadley. Out of the three of you, you're the child most like me and I pity you that sometimes. But know this, I didn't get rich by focusing on one thing. I tried and tried and tried again, leaving projects half-finished until I found what I needed to go where I needed to go. If I'd spent all my energy on just one project, I'd have denied myself all the other chances that I've had.”

“So it's genetic then?”

“Maybe,” he laughed. “But I know what you mean. I truly do. And the best way to prove people wrong, I've always found, is just to go ahead and do what they think you can't.”

Now Hadley found a smile. “Seriously, dad? That's like the most trite advice ever.”