Dropping a bombshell Cleo was so like her mother - the blonde hair, the beseeching eyes, the way she moved.
Cleo was so unlike her mother - she was kind, gentle, innocent.
What if all of that changed? This was why he had been so against introducing her to the idea of what her mother was like. He had worked hard to counter the traits of her personality that he saw slipping through - the little flashes of fire and temper and selfishness. And he had done well. But, now that she was growing up, they were only the tip of the iceberg... he knew that there was only so much he could stop.
If he had known about Cleo’s existence before he met her, he would have refused anything to do with her. He would have hated the idea of her. He was sensible. He was honest. He wasn’t the type of man who did what he had done… Except that her mother had made him. He had been swept up, lost control. And when people weren’t in control, everything got so ugly. She had wanted to, he wasn’t that much of a monster, but, with his head swimming, as if he was drunk... He had had no self-control. Desire. Lust. It hadn’t come to violence but he saw how easily that kind of passion could. How quickly one shaded into the next. He wanted to believe that that wasn’t in Cleo’s future, or at least didn’t have to be. It was repellent to think of people thinking of his daughter like that. But they would. She had too much of her mother in her for it not to be an issue.
They locked up shop together, and he knew she was watching him, sensing the weight on his shoulders.
“Daddy, is something wrong?” she asked.
“Just thinking,” he replied, as he and Cleo pulled down the blinds and the brooms set to sweeping the shop floor. He took out the till drawer, but the notes and coins blurred. He couldn’t focus. He would count it later.
Upstairs, Cleo perched on her chair in the kitchen, waiting for him to start her tea, as he usually did when they’d finished in the shop. Instead, he took out the chair opposite her with a sigh.
“Cleo… We need to talk about something. About your mom,” he searched, still working out what words to use.
Cleo’s heart clenched. She had wanted for so long to know about her mother, but the times she’d tried to draw her daddy on the subject, it had been obvious he didn’t want to talk about it. Now, seeing the serious look on his face, she regretted what she’d wished for. He seemed scared, and nothing scared her daddy. Whatever he was about to tell her, she didn’t think it could be anything good.