Once.

Twice.

Maybe he wasn’t home.

Thrice.

I shouldn’t tell him on the phone.  It wasn’t fair, he didn’t deserve me to do that to him.

Again.

Why couldn’t Kit make the call.  After all the times I have protected her, she owes me.

“Porter.”  Daddy’s gruff voice answers.  Tears spring immediately to my eyes.

“Hi Daddy.”  I whisper, trying without success to cover the break in my voice.  Thankfully, I knew Daddy wouldn’t call on me.  His gruff manner would cover his own lack of social graces, his own inability to connect with people.

“Bette, is there something wrong?”  So much for Daddy not calling me on it.  I wonder if I know my Daddy as well as I have pretended.

There are so many answers to that simple question, but there is only one answer I want to give.  “Daddy, can you come.  Please?”  I know that Kit would rather me not ask him here, given their sometimes fractious relationship, but I wanted to see him.

Wanted nothing more then to loose myself in his arms.

“Bette, is there something wrong?”  He asked again.  I noticed that he hadn’t answered the question, and he likely wouldn’t until he knew why I needed him here.  That usually meant he was busy, but he had dropped everything in the past, I can only hope that he would do it again.

I seem to live on hope these days.

“Daddy,”  The tears broke free, falling unheeded down my checks.  There was a childlike vulnerability that I wasn’t used to.  It was like falling into my past and not being able to break through.

“Bette, I need you to tell me what’s wrong.”  He ordered, his voice unwavering.  There was a time when I thought it was likely that Dad would be reincarnated as a Redwood.  Strong, aged and unwavering, with arms so long to give many shade an security.

It was true that he wasn’t the perfect Dad, and often he thought about himself and not of me – but foe a time there he was all I had.  A time long before I met Helena, I was unquestionably alone.

“It’s back Daddy.”  Those words broke me.  It was difficult telling everyone last night, but the love and spirits flowed, as did my sense of duty.  My friends didn’t need to see me seemingly succumb to my disease, they needed to see my strength.

The needed so much.

No one needed that from me right now, and I was finally left alone with the truth, and I had never felt more alone.

My tears turned to sobs and robbed me of my ability to speak.  Daddy whispered to me, comforting me, trying to bring me around.

He told me he loved me; they weren’t words he used often so I know they were felt.  He said that I’ll be okay because only an old Porter can succumb and I am far to young.

“Bette, I will be there tomorrow.”  He promised his own voice cracking.  Daddy was sad, and that scared me.  “It will be okay my baby girl.  Kit, Helena, Peggy and myself will see you through this.  Your family is with you.”

The sentiment made me cry all the more, he recognised Helena and Peggy as my family, it was something that not even Kit could do.

He knew, and it didn’t hurt him.

“I’ll be there Bette.” He swore again, before hanging up.

I rested the phone against my chest and let the tears come.  I was alone, in one of the most beautiful places I knew… I was safe to cry.