Chapter 10 - The Chair Across From Him in the Lobby
The lobby seating area wasn't private, not really. Two low armchairs set around a small marble table, close enough to the front desk that I could hear the printer humming and the bellman calling for a car. Richard sat down first and set his phone face-down. He didn't order coffee. He folded his hands so the ring showed, on purpose this time.
"You wanted to know how I got it," he said. "So I'll tell you straight."
I kept my tray tucked against my chair leg. I was off the floor for fifteen minutes. Marisol had covered my section. I could feel the clock running.
"It wasn't given to me," he said. "Not handed over. Thomas left it."
"When?"
He looked at the windows, not at me. "Twenty-three years ago. He came to my office in Cleveland. We hadn't spoken in almost a year. He put the ring on my desk and said he didn't want to lose it on the road."
I waited. "What road?"
"He was moving. He said Florida first, then maybe work on boats. He didn't have an address. He said, hold this till I get settled. I told him he was being dramatic." Richard turned the ring once around his finger. "He never came back for it."
The chair was too soft. I sat forward so I wouldn't sink into it. "That's it? He just left it?"
"He left a lot of things," Richard said. "That was the only one I kept on me."
A couple walked past with rolling suitcases. I lowered my voice. "You said you searched for us twenty years ago. If he left the ring with you three years before that, you knew he was gone. So what did you actually do?"
He didn't flinch, which I gave him credit for. "We hired a man. A licensed investigator out of Tampa. Thomas had called our mother from a pay phone somewhere near the Gulf. Said he had a little girl. Said the mother was gone. He asked for money."
My hands went cold. "My mom died when I was three."
Richard nodded. "That fits the timing. The investigator found a rental, a clinic record. By the time he got there, you'd moved. The landlord said a man with a baby left in a truck with another couple. No forwarding address."
"And you stopped?"
"We didn't stop that week. We ran it for eight months." His voice stayed even. "The trail split. One record had Thomas Hale. One had Thomas Hall, no e. Different birth date. The investigator said the second one was probably him trying not to be found. Then our mother got sick. The money went to her care. I told myself I'd pick it up again." He paused. "I didn't."
I stared at his hands. "You had his ring the whole time and you just wore it?"
"At first I kept it in a drawer," he said. "After my mother passed, I started wearing it. It felt closer than a box."
That answer made my throat tight, and I hated that it did. I needed to test him, not feel sorry for him.
I shifted. "Okay. If you knew him, tell me something nobody would know from a photograph."
He met my eyes. "Like what?"
"My dad had habits. Things he did without thinking." I thought of our kitchen in the apartment, the linoleum that curled by the sink. "Tell me one."
Richard exhaled. He rubbed his thumb over the blue stone. "He tapped his ring when he was thinking. Drove our father crazy at the dinner table. He'd tap it twice against a glass before he'd drink. Said it was for luck."
I felt something drop in my stomach. My dad did tap his glass. Twice, with his middle finger, because he didn't wear the ring anymore. He'd told me the ring was safe. I hadn't understood what that meant until this week.
"Anything else?" I asked, and my voice came out thinner than I wanted.
"He hated having his picture taken," Richard said. "Would turn his head at the last second. My mother has — had — a whole album of half his face."
That was true too. In every photograph I had, my dad was half turned, laughing, eyes cut away.
I leaned in. "What song did he hum when he was fixing things?"
Richard opened his mouth, then closed it. He shook his head. "I don't know. He was older when... I mean, after he left, I didn't see that part of him. I know he used to whistle in the garage when we were kids. I can't give you a song."
The honesty of that stung more than a wrong guess would have. I wanted him to fail cleanly or pass cleanly. Instead he gave me two hits and one gap.
"Did he ever say why he left your family?" I asked.
Richard looked down at the marble table. "He and our father fought about money, about responsibility. Thomas wanted out from under the name. He said we cared more about appearances than people. Maybe we did." He glanced up. "I don't want to paint us clean, Lily. We were slow. We were proud. We thought he'd come home when he was ready."
"But he didn't."
"No," Richard said. "He didn't."
The front desk phone rang. Marisol passed the lobby entrance and gave me a look that meant ten minutes left. I stood, picked up my tray.
May you like
Richard stood too. He didn't reach for me. "I kept the ring because I thought he'd ask for it back," he said quietly. "I never thought I'd be showing it to his daughter to prove who I am."
I nodded once. I couldn't say thank you. I couldn't say I believed him, either. But I had his story now, and the places where it held and the places where it went thin, and I knew which part I needed to check next.
