Page 6 of No Turning Back
“It’s your dad, baby,” she says softly. “He had a heart attack.”
I blink, stunned. “Oh my God.”
Kate’s dad had a heart attack just a few months ago, he needed surgery but he was fine.
“Which hospital is he in? I’ll be there in ten.”
There’s a pause. Too long.
“No, sweetie,” she says, her voice breaking. “He... he had it last night. By the time I found him this morning, he had… already passed.”
My breath catches, stomach sinking like a stone.
For a second, everything just... stops. I don’t even remember putting the phone down, just the heavy silence that follows. No buzzing. No voice. Just stillness.
We didn’t have the typical father-daughter bond. He wasn’t the dad who came to school plays or taught me how to ride a bike. But he was my dad. He was there, in his own messy way. Loud, stubborn, flawed as hell, but familiar. Constant.
And now... he’s gone.
No matter how complicated things were between us, nothing prepares you for that kind of final.
Chapter Two
Quinn
The service was beautiful.
Some woman I’ve never met tells me this as we stand outside the church, just off the steps where the casket had been carried down not long ago. I try to smile politely but it doesn’t reach my eyes.
People have been staring at me all day. Whispering.
The daughter who hasn’t shed a single tear.
But I can’t help it. They just won’t come. Not when the phone rang, not when I packed my black dress, not even when I walked up to his casket and saw him laid out in that crisp blue suit with his tie slightly askew, like he’d dressed himself in a hurry.
Nothing.
Not sadness. Not anger. Not even disbelief. Just… nothing. Like all my emotions got stuck somewhere mid-throat and refused to come out.
We didn’t have a Hallmark relationship. No daddy-daughter dances or Saturday pancakes. But he was the dad I could call at any time and he would show up, no matter what.
And now, suddenly, it’s just gone.
My mom and I haven’t had a moment alone since she called to tell me he was gone. Now, as we step toward the waiting limo, I watch her whisper something to Aunt Loren, who veers off toward another car.
Inside, Mom sits beside me, immediately hitting the button to raise the partition.
"Okay, sweetie," she says, voice soft and cautious. "I didn’t want to do this now, but I don’t think I have a choice."
I look at her sideways. “What?”
She takes a deep breath, her hands fidgeting in her lap.
"The day before your father… passed, we were approached by a woman. She said she and your dad had a brief… relationship, about twenty years ago. It ended so abruptly that she never told him about their daughter."
I blink. Hard.
“If they were together twenty years ago,” I say slowly, “then the kid would be, what nineteen? Twenty?”
