Douglas Kennedy - Woman in the Fifth

Your daughter

Megan

PS I’m still angry at you … but I miss you too.

I put my face in my hands after reading this — and found myself sobbing. Your daughter . That said it all. After nearly three months of thinking that I had lost Megan forever, here was the response I had been hoping for. I’m still angry at you … but I miss you too.

Hitting the Reply button, I wrote:

Dear Megan

It was wonderful hearing from you. You’re right to be angry with me. I’m angry with me. I did something stupid — but by the time I realized I had made a terrible mistake, things started to spin out of my control and I found myself unable to stop bad things from happening. However, you do need to know that people took my mistake and used it for their own aims. I am not trying to make excuses for what I did. I accept responsibility — and will always feel terrible for hurting you. I am simply so pleased that we are now back in contact with each other — and promise to keep writing you every day.

I’m sure that, very soon, things will get easier at school … and that you will be able to put so much of this behind you. I appreciate how difficult it is not telling your mother that we’re in touch. In time, I hope that your mom and I will be able to be on friendly terms with each other — because I’m sure that’s what you want too. Always know that I think the world of you and am here for you whenever you need me. Meanwhile I promise to write you every day.

Love

Dad

I read through the email several times before sending it, wanting to double-check that it was devoid of self-pity, that it didn’t come across as a self-justification, and that — most of all — it communicated to my daughter how much I loved and missed her.

As I stood up to leave, the man behind the desk looked up from his newspaper and said, ‘Bad news?’

This threw me — and made me realize he’d been studying me while I was reading Megan’s email.

‘Not at all.’

‘Then why are you crying?’

‘Because it’s good news.’

‘I hope there will be some more for you tomorrow.’

There was no further word from Megan for the next few days — even though I emailed her every afternoon, keeping the tone anecdotal, filling her in on life in my quartier . After three days, I received the following:

Dear Dad

Thanks for the last couple of emails. I was on a school trip to Cleveland … b-o-r-i-n-g … and only got back yesterday. I went into your office at home last night, and found an old map of Paris, and looked up where you are. Rue de Paradis — I like the name.

I had to be very careful about going into your office, as Mom told me it was off-limits, and Gardner hasn’t taken it over yet …

Gardner . As in: Gardner Robson . The man who helped engineer my catastrophe and had also taken my wife away from me. The very sight of his name on the computer screen made me grip the sides of the plastic chair and try to control the rage that I still felt.

‘ Gardner hasn’t taken it over yet … ’

Why not take over my office when he’s taken over everything else?

I read on:

I find Gardner very hard to live with. You know he used to be in the Air Force and he keeps telling me that he likes things ‘ship shape’. If I leave a jacket on the staircase when I come home from school, or if I’ve forgotten to make my bed, that’s not ‘ship shape’. He can be all right as long as you do things his way, and Mom seems totally in lurve with him … but I’m still not totally sold on him as a stepdad. I keep thinking it would be cool to visit you in Paris, but I know that Mom would never let me … and, anyway, I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about what you’ve done. Mom said you wanted to end the marriage …

She said what ? Given that she had taken up with Robson well before my scandal hit the front pages — and given that I begged her repeatedly for a second chance — how dare she twist the truth and then feed our daughter this lie … a lie which Megan understandably interpreted as, in part, a rejection of herself.

I read on:

… and that’s why you cheated on Mom with that student and then fled overseas when everything got too hot. Is this true? I hope not.

Your daughter

Megan

I slammed my fist so hard on the desk that the guy behind the counter looked up in surprise.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said.

‘Bad news today?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. Very bad.’

I turned back to the computer, hit the Reply button and wrote:

Dearest Megan

I have made many mistakes in my life, and have been guilty of all sorts of wrong calls. But I never — repeat: never — wanted to end the marriage to your mom. That was her decision — and one which I tried to talk her out of. If I had my way, I’d still be living at home with you and your mom. Please understand that your mom ended the marriage because she was angry with me for what I had done … but she wasn’t exactly blameless for the way things turned out. But, once again, let me reemphasize the fact that being away from you — and being unable to see you on a daily basis — is so terribly hard. And my one great hope is that I’ll be seeing you very soon indeed.

Love

Dad

PS It’s very important that you don’t raise any of this with your mother. If you start asking her questions about whether she wanted to divorce me, she might get suspicious and wonder if we’re in touch. The last thing I want is to lose contact with you.

After hitting the Send button, I turned to the guy behind the counter and said, ‘Apologies again for punching the desk.’

‘You’re not the first. A lot of bad news gets read here every day. But maybe there’ll be good news for you tomorrow.’

The guy was right. When I returned the next afternoon, there was a reply from Megan.

Hi Dad

Thanks for writing what you did. I’m still confused by it all. Like who’s telling the truth here? But it’s good to know that you didn’t want to leave us. That means a lot. And don’t worry about Mom. She’ll never know we’ve been writing each other. But do keep the emails coming. I really like them.

Love

Megan

The fact that she signed the email with ‘ Love ‘ … that was not simply ‘good news’. That was the best news I had received since this whole nightmare started. And I immediately wrote back:

Dearest Megan

It really doesn’t matter who is telling the truth here. What does matter is that we stay close. And as I said yesterday, I’m sure that we will be seeing each other again very soon.

Love

Dad

It was a Friday when I sent that email — so it didn’t surprise me that I didn’t hear from her over the weekend. As she had a computer in her room at home, I knew it might be dangerous if I emailed her on Saturday or Sunday … just on the off chance that her mother or Robson might walk into her room when she was opening her mailbox (yes, this was overly cautious on my part — but I wanted nothing to jeopardize our correspondence, let alone land Megan in trouble at home). So I resisted the temptation to write her — and just continued on with my usual routine. Wake up at eight, the morning shop, the morning write, lunch, out the door by 1.30 p.m. at the latest, movies, home by midnight, a Zopiclone sleeping tablet chased with herbal tea, sleep … and the inevitable 2 a.m. wake-up call when Omar came rolling in drunk (he did this nightly without fail) and proceeded to pee loudly. Though his loud bodily functions would always snap me into consciousness, the Zopiclone ensured that I’d pass out a few minutes after this wake-up call. As such, I gave daily thanks to that hotel doctor who had overprescribed me one hundred and twenty tabs of this knockout drug.