It was dark everywhere except for the gloomy streetlights
which lit the road across Kingsland high street. His feet were bleeding more
profusely than they did some moments before, he could barely walk now. It was
almost midnight now. Silence reined the streets of Wood Green. He managed to
pull some fragments of glass from the skin but some had penetrated deep enough
to set his whole body on fire. Jake Stanton did not know what to do. Everything
seemed fading away and his head was throbbing badly. He felt like the walls
were closing down on him. He walked swiftly passed some teenagers who were
stoned apparently into the nearby alley. He laid on the stoned floor his back
facing the apartment building which looked deserted and dreadfully old. After making
sure that nobody was watching, he entered the building through the fire escape
and spent the night there. He lost track of time. And when he woke up it was
almost dawn. The bleeding had stopped but the wounds still hurt. He gathered up
his nearly negligible strength and walked to Whittington hospital where he was
the head of neurology. The sky was dark grey and the streets were covered in
snow. It was a mile away, so he didn’t have to walk that much. ‘Oh dear, how
the hell did that happen Stan?!’ Dr. Stevens the head of surgery gasped as he
walked into the ER and saw Jake. He then told about his little adventure last
night. Doctor Forest Stevens was Jakes’ mentor and dearest friend. They had
graduated from the same medical school and interned at the same hospital. He was
like a big brother to him and he knew he could trust him with anything. ‘Damn
you’ll get yourself killed trying to get to her you idiot. You should tell Lillian
the truth my dear Jake, in person, if you want to be a part of her life. Anyway
let’s get this dressed’ he scoffed while taking out the last piece of glass
from his friends’ right foot. Jake had to rush now, he thought. Lillian’s
flight was in a few hours and there was no time to waste.
Lillian Stanton, the girl who lived alone in the huge red
bricked mansion across Kingsland High Street, was his only child. Jake and his
wife had separated when she was twelve, but never got a divorce due to her mother’s
death from a brain aneurysm. Jake got the custody but left Lillian in the care
of her aunt Clare who lived in Wales. The child proved to be untiringly strong
and managed miraculously through all of it. Lillian finished her junior year at
Woodside High School with A’s in all subjects and moved to the house her
parents used to live in before she was born. She was the head of the student
council and public speaking club at her school. Besides that, she was
undoubtedly the brightest student of her class. But the saddest past was that
she did not know her dad was alive and looked out for her secretly. Jake was
proud of her but too scared to reveal himself, fearing that she would shut him
out for the rest of her life. He had rented an apartment across the street far
enough but not too much to make sure he could ensure the safety of his daughter.
It was two days to the prom night and she didn’t have a
dress to wear for that night. When she came home from the dance class afterschool;
that afternoon, quite weary, she went to her room to sleep straightaway without
having lunch. The walls had flowery dark pink wallpaper on them. A whole wall was covered by a shelf that had
countless music records, another had Jakes’ old bookcase lined up against it
which contained her book collection. She was a profound reader just like him.
Several photographs that were taken by her, quite beautiful, were pinned to a soft
board over her bed along with a photograph of her with Jake and his wife when
Lil was a toddler and some newspaper clippings. It lay beside the guitar on her
bed. The dress was white in color. It had sleeves of flowery net and the fall
of silk and net. With it was a pair of heels which had diamonds on them. The
note placed aside it said: ‘Wear them to the dance my love’. It was signed ‘J’.
At first she thought it was Andy playing her. Andy was her cousin, son of her
aunt Clare who never missed a chance to tease her. He went to school with her. But
after confirming from him on phone that is wasn’t him she freaked out. It had
been eight months since the first present came in. She called Detective Greg
Chase of Scotland Yard, Andy’s father and informed him of her concern. He had a
camera placed in the backyard for her security and to entrap the intruder.
On prom night she was walking alone in the school’s front
yard when Dave came searching there for her. Her eyes were wet. She was crying
silently. The sky was full of stars and soft music penetrated from the school
windows into the cool air around her. Dave was her best friend and helped her
whenever she felt low and needed a friend by her side. He asked her what was
wrong. ‘I miss them so much Dave! I feel so hollow and lonely. I wish if I could
see them at this moment and hug them. It- it can be- so hard sometimes.’ She stammered
while sobbing softly. He told her to not worry and asked for her to come inside
and dance. Later on Dave went home with her to watch a movie, over coffee. When
the movie was about to end, he paused it and moved close to her. ‘Lillian, I
have something to tell you’. ‘Can it wait till tomorrow, please?’ she asked in
a low whisper. ‘I guess, no’ he said that as he took her hands in his and said
slowly: ‘Lil, I have never come across someone as amazing as you. You’re like,
my light, my best friend in this whole world. And I am not afraid to tell you
that I love you. Yes Lillian I love you so much and I will never let you go. I
promise you even if the world falls apart and there is no hope left, I would be
there to hold your hand, I will be your light in the darkest of times. I will
die to protect you if I’d have to.’ He held her face and kissed her gently. In
that moment time seemed to stop. There was nothing but endless space around
them. They forgot the existence of this world and what could be felt was only
the calm and peaceful feeling that melted their hearts. It was like someone had
shielded her against all the pain that was trying to break her. When their lips
parted, they both grinned at each other and went into an ephemeral embrace. ‘I’m
so glad you happened to me sweetheart’, he said while leaving the front door
some hours later. Next morning after coming home from a run and fixing herself a
cup of milk and a couple of cookies Dave’s mom had baked for her, she went
outside and opened the mailbox. It was windy and exceptionally chilly. The Sun
was nowhere to be seen. She went inside quickly after getting the letters. And
there it was. The one mail she had been waiting for since months, her admission
decision from Yale. Her heart stopped beating as she opened it. She jumped with
ecstasy when she read that they had accepted her. Sprinting around the living
room she called Dave and broke the news to him. He almost started crying with
happiness for her. The term was to start in two months. And there was a lot to
be done. Her next two calls were to Andy and Aunt Clare. She informed Lillian
that she’d be coming over the vacations to help her pack.
The winters passed by like water flowing through a stream. It
was the night of her departure. She was leaving early next morning. Dave was to
drive her to the airport in his new Ford. He was going to Cambridge for his
Bachelors but he promised her that they’d end up in the same university after
this. He was over at hers all the time during that day. After he had left, she went
into her room and opened the box in which she had things of her dad and mom. Whilst
going through the album they had compiled when she was young, she whispered
while looking above, ‘I wish you both were here to see how happy I am mom and
dad, I miss you so much. I will never stop loving you’. Standing outside the
room, hiding behind the closet Jake whispered back, ‘So would I my child, so
would I’. He had entered the house through the front door. He wanted to see her
one last time before she left him. Lillian had forgotten to lock it. The luggage
lied there in the hallway. Everything seemed to be packed that was to be taken
except some clothes were scattered all over her bedroom. She couldn’t sleep. She
felt restless and scared. In a state of confusion, she put some broken glass
near her bedroom window and thought the ‘present guy’ will come that night. That’s
what she called him, ‘The present guy’. She believed whoever was doing all this
was a dangerous person, playing with her by leaving those things. When Jake was
about to leave he figured the door was locked now. Lillian must have done this
while he was hiding. He took off his shoes and went to her room to go out through
the window which was open fortunately he thought and did not see the glass
because of the darkness that surrounded him. Lil was asleep. As he was just
about to let out a faint shriek; Lillian moved in her bed but didn’t wake up.
He climbed down quickly, holding his bloody DMs, bathing in pain and his feet
all crimson without making even the faintest noise.
After Dr. Stevens was done with the bandage. He forgot the
unbearable pain his feet and legs were in and went to the flower shop to get
some daisies and tulips which were Lillian’s favorites. He drove off, like the
wind, to her house. She was inside so he crept to the Ford which was open and
placed the flowers with the card and left. It was really cold and snowing since
the last night. She said goodbye to detective Greg whom she had called when she
saw blood in her room in the morning. They had pulled off the surveillance from
the camera and all they saw was a man in a mask leaving her window last night. She
was wearing a white fall dress and black boots with a Red fur coat and the hat
Jake had knit for her when she was two, along with the watch which he gave her
as the first present recently. When on way to airport, as they were about to
turn through the streets corner she thought she saw a man whose feet were
bandaged. She looked there again but there was no one there. When she got off
the car in the parking area of the Heathrow airport, she saw the flowers and
the card. It said, ‘you stay strong and safe the only woman I have ever loved
in my entire life. Take care and safe journey. Love, Dad. xxx’ Tears welled up
in her eyes as it dawned upon her, the reality. He had been near her the whole
time. Watching over her all along and she was so blind that she couldn’t figure
it, the man across the street who always seemed to watch her. It was her
father. She called Jake and told him to leave a little present for that man
across the street, a little something for ‘the present guy’, for her beloved dad.
As he entered his house, he thought he had lost her forever. What he did not
know was that in his room upstairs, resting in his closet was a chocolate
fondant cake, his favorite, left there by his teenage daughter who was now
miles away from him, on her way to New Haven. On the mantelpiece in the living
room lay a mask covered in dirt. Jake Stanton was the man in the mask. He used
to creep into Lillian’s’ room when she was at school.
As the plane was about to take off she looked past the
window and whispered ‘I love you dad’ and smiled. She was not angry or sad but
was filled with delight to finally have come across her dad who loved her
dearly.
