Page 25 of Escape Girl

Everyone knows that he’s the chairman at one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture capital firms. Everyone knows about his analytic mind and prescience, how he got in on the ground floor of Netscape, Amazon, and Google. Everyone knows that he’s amassed a nine-billion-dollar fortune. His reputation for being cutthroat and severe. That he worshipped his wife and was completely devastated in the wake of her death. That after she died, Sven Saturn took a prolonged leave of absence. He was not seen in the Bay Area for half a year.

But only three people in the entire world know where he was and what he was doing in those six months. My father, obviously. Me. And Jo fucking Harper.

My father is undeniably brilliant and has incredible judgment. The world sees evidence of that in his strategic business acumen, in his wealth. I saw evidence of it in how he loved and valued my mom above everything, including his business and wealth. But in his overwhelming grief following my mother’s death, that legendary judgment took a six-month vacation.

The day after my mom’s funeral, my dad disappeared.

I remember walking through their home, looking for him, wanting to apologize for the night before. I hated being in the house. All the rooms still smelled like my mom’s favorite moisturizer: lilac and vanilla.

Maybe he was still in bed in one of the guest rooms? No, they were all empty. The bed in the one nearest the master bedroomlooked a little rumpled, as though someone had tossed around on it without getting under the covers. But no sign of my father.

The door to the master bedroom was ajar, and the room was a mess, the only exception being the still-made bed. “Dad?” I’d called, knocking on the open door, unnerved to see the dresser drawers opened and puddles of clothes on the floor in the lighted walk-in closet.

The household staff kept everything perfectly organized, so it was easy to see that a few pieces of luggage were missing. In the bathroom, cabinets were completely empty as though someone had swiped their arm across all of the shelves and dumped everything into a bag.

My stomach tightened to a knot. My dad was in no condition to travel. Hell, he’d barely been able to form complete sentences for the past week. At the funeral mass, he’d leaned on me so heavily, I’d had to brace myself on the church pew to hold his weight. After the mass was over, he’d abandoned the rest of the funeral proceedings in favor of an entire bottle of Scotch.

I yanked out my phone, but calling him only went to voice mail. “Dad, it’s Em. Where are you? I’msosorry about last night. Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you. OK? I love you.”

He didn’t call back.

After he’d been gone a week, I was frantic. I’d just lost my mother and now my father too? Should I be calling the authorities or something? Surely, he would have called me back if he were OK. Surely, he wouldn’t be ignoring my pleas if he were alive and well. “Dad, it’s Em. AGAIN. It’s November 1. Listen, I’m terrified that I haven’t heard from you in so many days. I’m going to call the police and report you missing.”

Five minutes after I left that message, my phone rang. It was him! I answered with a high-pitched yelp. “Dad?”

“Don’t call the police, Em.” I blinked at his harsh tone. It was unmistakably my father’s voice, but also, not his voice. It was sodull, so devoid of anything lifelike that I shivered. “I’m fine, but I’m taking some time away.”

“Where?” I hated the sound of my voice. I sounded like I was a scared ten-year-old kid, not a twenty-five-year-old soon to graduate from law school. “Can I come see you?”

A long pause, then a wheezing sigh. “I just want to be on my own. I can’t—I can’t.” He hung up.

That was the last I heard from him until the end of May. I couldn’t count the number of times I called in those six months or the number of tearful, pleading messages I left. All ignored.

I returned to Boston, to law school, because I didn’t know what else to do. I attended classes, I interviewed for jobs, I did everything I was supposed to, even though I felt like a completely different person than the woman who started the year. That woman had a complete, loving family and passion for her future career. This woman was alone and couldn’t feel anything.

Sometime in March or April, my worry and fear grew colder. Angrier. When I graduated law school with no family in attendance, I decided to take a job offer with a firm in Seattle instead of one in San Francisco.

When my father finally deigned to call me at the end of May, I didn’t pick up.

His voice mail messages over the next couple of months never reached the level of desperation or tears, but he did apologize, over and over again.

“I’m so sorry, Em. I was in a terrible place. I never should have left.”

“I’m so sorry, Em. I miss you so much.”

“I’m so sorry, Em. I’m home, and I want you to come home.”

“I’m so sorry, Em. I’m seeing a therapist now, and it’s helping.”

Well, good for him. A little shocking, actually, that Mr. Powerful had actually admitted he needed professional help. But I’d had to deal with the first wave of shock and depression all on my freakin’ own, and I wasn’t terribly interested in helping him through his journey. Maybe that made me a bad daughter, but he certainly hadn’t been a very good father.

“I’m so sorry, Em. I want to tell you everything that happened while I was gone. I’m not proud of myself, but I want to be open with you. My relationship with you means everything to me.”

That one almost got me. What the hell had he been doing for all those months? I couldn’t imagine my father untethered, away from his business and my mother. Away from work and Mom, he didn’t seem like he could be a three-dimensional person.

“Em, it’s Dad again. I just love you, honey. I love you.”

So fine, that one made me flinch. But both of my parents were stubborn grudge-holders, and boy, had I inherited every last ounce of that particular trait.

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