Dearest Rose by Rowan Coleman Page A

trace of the man who had kissed her in the middle of the forehead and then walked out of the door. ‘It’s me, it’s Rose, your daughter.’
    John Jacobs opened the door a fraction of a centimetre more and stared at her in the poor light, as the rain began to increase in intensity, dribbling through the gaps in the porch. His brow furrowed as he studied her face, and for a moment Rose wondered if he remembered that he had once had a daughter at all.
    ‘Of course I recognise you,’ he said after a moment, his voice flat, even.
    ‘Hello, John,’ Rose said to the father she hadn’t seen since she was nine years old. ‘I’ve found you.’
    It was such an odd thing to say, like they had just completed a long, long game of hide-and-seek, and yet it was the only thing Rose could think of to say. His jaw clenched tightly as he observed her from behind the safety of the door, and Rose knew he was debating whether or not to let her in.
    And then without another word John Jacobs reached a decision, and stood aside to let Rose pass over the threshold into his house. Glancing back briefly at the truck, Rose took a breath and went in.
    At a loss as to how to behave, she looked around the single kitchen-cum-living room, paved with cold-looking flagstones, to find a battered old sofa positioned in front of a cold grate, covered in a dusty-looking throw. Without looking at her father she eased off her sodden coat, pushing the damp hair back from her face.
    ‘Have you got a towel?’
    John, who was still standing by the open front door, sighed heavily , pushed the door shut with a begrudging slam, shrugged and looked around, crossing the ancient stone flags in two long strides to pick up a tea towel that had certainly seen better days, and handing it to Rose. For want of anything better Rose took the grubby paint-stained article and rubbed it over her hair until the worst of the moisture was absorbed.
    ‘So then,’ Rose said, pulling her fingers through her long hair, unaltered in style and colour since she’d last seen John, and struggling to know what to say, ‘I suppose this is a bit of a shock for you. For me too, as it happens.’
    John opened his mouth and then shut it again, turning his back on her and staring at the white-painted brick wall behind the old ceramic sink for some moments, perhaps hoping that if he waited long enough, when he turned round she would be gone, and he’d be waking up from some fitful nightmare.
    ‘How have you been?’ Rose asked his back, gathering herself to be strong, to keep her tone even and audible, to somehow find a path through this impossible situation. John’s shoulders remained tense and resolute, as if he could drive her out of his house with sheer force of will. Rose bit down on her bottom lip hard enough so the pinch would distract her from the tight band of anxiety that constricted her chest. He palpably wanted her to disappear from his life as quickly as she had reappeared. If hers had been a different life, if she hadn’t been cramming in a lifetime of questions in the time she had before Richard came, Rose would have turned round and left, but if hers had been a different life then perhaps she would still have had her father and her mother, and would never have married the very first man who asked her when she was only eighteen years old. Whether he knew it or not, John had started the chain of events that had brought her to his doorstep on this stormy afternoon, and now it was time to deal with the consequences.
    ‘Look,’ John began, his tone curt and stiff, his voice a little hoarse as if he wasn’t used to talking, his gaze still fixed on the whitewashed wall. ‘What do we have to say to each other, really? We are strangers. And I’m sure you have feelings and anger that you want to talk about, but you see, Rose, it won’t make any difference to you or me, or the way things have been, if you do. I do not wish for either a reunion or a heart-to-heart. I have no