Carolyn's POV:
The hot tea steamed up, causing tears in my father's eyes.
"Why don't you come to see her?" His teardrops seemed a catalyst, pushing me back into that cold, indifferent outsider.
I asked too harshly, and it might hurt him. I knew I shouldn't do this or question my father. But I couldn't feel any pity and found it inexplicable even to myself. I had to get to the bottom of it.
My father looked at me pleadingly as if to say, "Don't ask." But I didn't want to back down, and I didn't want to change the topic as if nothing had happened.
It was as if I had become a different person, possessed by the spirit of the Adele upstairs or the pure white witch who died decades ago. Stubbornly, I asked, "Why did you abandon her? Why did you ignore her? Why did you leave her here and pretend it wasn't the absurd extension of the tragedy you left behind in your youth?"
