The police officer couldn’t bear to tell Elisa that her father had died.
Standing behind Elisa, Hamish spoke up, “Open the door.”
The police officer nodded and pressed down on the door handle. With a click, the door opened.
It only opened a crack, but the smell of blood wafted out. The police officer moved aside to let them in.
This was the first time Elisa was afraid to enter a room. She couldn’t see inside. Koby’s words on the phone kept replaying in her mind.
Hamish pushed her in very slowly. Once inside, he suddenly stopped about four meters away from the corner. A stretcher there was covered with a white sheet.
Seeing this, Elisa gripped the wheelchair handles tightly, reopening the wounds on the backs of her hands.
She tried to stand up but was pressed back down by Hamish before she could move. “Don’t move. I’ll push you over.”
Elisa shook her head. She didn’t believe the person under the sheet could be Koby. She mumbled, “It can’t be, it’s not him.”
She didn’t believe the man lying there could be Koby, the man who had called her trash.
As she said, Koby didn’t deserve to be a father. His awful personality and blatant sexism had been passed down to his daughter.
But when Elisa was very little, he had held her, made her formula, fed her, changed her diapers.
So why did things become like this?
Elisa opened her mouth, trying to call out “Dad,” but no sound came out.
Hamish pushed Elisa closer until they were about a meter away. The smell of blood grew stronger.
Elisa stared blankly, her gaze moving slowly from left to right until finally settling on the ring on the left hand ring finger peeking out from under the sheet.
It was Koby’s ring, his wedding ring that he wore for 27 years and never took off.
“Dad,” she finally made a sound, but it was choked sobs.
Elisa felt the world spinning. She staggered to her feet, using the wheelchair handles to support herself. Hamish reached out to steady her but she pushed him away. She took two steps forward and collapsed to her knees.
Behind her, Hamish put his arms around her. Elisa trembled in anguish in his embrace.
She covered her eyes but the tears kept pouring out between her fingers. The overwhelming despair threatened to crush her.
Still on her knees, Elisa crawled forward inch by inch until she reached the sheet. She lifted her left hand and slowly pulled the corner down.
When she saw Koby’s bloodied, twisted face, she went limp in Hamish’s arms, as if all her bones had vanished.
Deep down, she had known from the start that Koby was dead after jumping from over thirty floors up. And she remembered clearly the last scene from the video, exactly the same as now – the man’s bloody face, shattered skull.
She just couldn’t bring herself to believe it, to accept that the man who raised her was gone.
Elisa sobbed incoherently, “Dad, I’ll agree to anything you ask. I’ll give the company back to you and my brother. I don’t want anything. Just get up, please get up! I didn’t mean to ignore you those four days you went missing. I was locked up and didn’t know you were in trouble. If you’re mad at me, then get up and yell at me. Dad, don’t ignore me. Everything I said before was a lie. I don’t hate you.”
Elisa forced a smile uglier than her crying, “Look how concerned you are about your image, why did you hurt yourself like this and get blood all over? Your clothes are dirty too.”
She murmured to herself, “Dad, it’s so cold here. Hurry up and come with me.”
The policeman nearby couldn’t stand to listen anymore and interrupted, “Miss Powell, your father is dead. He died instantly after jumping from the thirtieth floor. He won’t wake up.”
Elisa shook her head and mumbled, “That can’t be. He’s just angry and pretending to sleep, ignoring me on purpose. He does this whenever he gets mad at me. This happens a lot.” She looked pleadingly at Hamish, “Tell me he’s just angry at me, right? He’s deliberately not responding?”
Hamish stayed silent, looking at her with detached eyes that seemed to mock her.
Panicked, Elisa could no longer hold back heart-wrenching sobs. Her tears fell like severed pearls.
Hamish’s voice was somewhat hoarse. “Elisa, your dad really is dead. You already knew at the hospital.”
“No, I didn’t know! He’s not dead!”
“Hamish, my dad’s not dead!”
“I’ll give the Powell company back to him and divorce you. Then he’ll wake up for sure.”
Hearing the word “divorce”, Hamish’s heart clenched. This was his biggest fear, finally said aloud by Elisa.
No way would he let her divorce him, even if Koby was dead. He would make sure Elisa had no way of leaving him.
Hamish grabbed her slender wrists to stop her moving. “Enough, Elisa! I already told you your dad is dead. Even if you hand over the Powell company and divorce me, he still won’t wake up.”
“Let me go, Hamish!” Elisa didn’t know if it was from seeing too much blood, but her eyes had a terrifying, murderous glint. She unleashed all her resentment at Hamish.
Seeing her look at him like he was her enemy, Hamish couldn’t stand it. His hooded eyes flashed dangerously, “What? You want to make trouble with me now?”
Make trouble? As expected of Hamish, he could dismiss her hysterical screams as nothing but unreasonable troublemaking, acting with callous disregard for her wounds.