Till The Clock Strikes Gone

35 | the time machine

Harvey had been reading all day and yet he had no idea what he was reading. The book was mainly a pretence to avoid talking to his daughter or William for that matter. He had been thinking and after much thought, he ended up doing something that he had been hesitating for a long time but finally decided that it was the right decision.

Now, he was dying to talk to his daughter as he watched her while she sat on the couch and stared at the blank wall. Her features appeared to be in deep thought. He walked up to her and the sound of his footsteps made her turn her head to look at him. He gave a small smile which was left hanging between them as Eliza didn't return it and went back to staring at the wall. Harvey saw her eyes glistening with tears but she wasn't crying.

He reached her and the couch dipped a little as his large body occupied the place beside the tiny frame of his daughter. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together.

"You went to see him?" he asked, not knowing why but he had to.

"Yes," his daughter answered, not making any move to look at him.

"Are you upset with me, honey?"

That earned him another feeble "Yes."

He sighed. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I didn't mean to tell you that awful story."

"Why Papa?"

"Because I didn't want you to hate me. That's what you are doing now," he confessed and she turned to face him.

"I don't hate you, Papa," she said with teary eyes. "It's just too much. I have spent all my life thinking that I'm the reason Mommy died but now...now it's different." Harvey observed her features tense.

"What did he say to you?" he questioned, curious.

"He told me that he's going to die." Her voice was sharp like she detested the words. "He said I have to marry him to save him."

"And you don't want to?" he spoke calmly.

"Of course I don't want to! He needs to understand that but no. He keeps making the same mistakes you made."

Harvey went attentive at that. "Care to explain?" he asked.

"He loves that wife of his like you loved creating that device. You both have no idea what your obsessive decisions can lead to," she said, not leaving his eyes.

"He loves his wife. He's not like me. I was just plain stupid."

"And so is he."

"He is in pain, darling. He doesn't know what he is doing. Do you want to see him in pain?"

"He is not the only one, Papa. That's how the world works." She resumed staring at the wall. "We need pain to survive. It prepares us for its ugly children. Pain, fear, injury, grief, we need all of that and anyone who thinks he doesn't deserve pain is foolish...for when we feel pain...we are, even if only for a moment, truly human."

Harvey stared at his daughter in amazement. He couldn't believe the words pouring from her mouth. It was his job to tell her about pain because he had felt it but she was the one doing it and it made him feel how much he had neglected her life. He put a shaking hand on her head and patted her lightly. She rubbed the tears flowing down her eyes to look at him.

"William is being foolish, Papa. He should go. I begged him to go but he is hellbent on staying," she spoke in a delicate and complaining voice.

"He loves you. He wants to be with you." He made a faint attempt to reason.

"He is foolish, Papa. He can't be happy with me," she said, as another teardrop fell from her eyes and she rubbed it with the back of her hand. "Look at him, Papa. He is a renowned author of his time. He is matured, powerful and has his entire life sorted out and look at me, I'm just an Eliza. I don't even know what I'm going to do after college. I have no talents, no extraordinary intelligence and definitely no interest in anything. I sometimes feel so ashamed of myself when I look at you and expect to see disappointment but you never show it. I'm hopeless, Papa. He will never be happy with me. He is different. He deserves someone better than a girl who doesn't know shit about her life. He needs to get over this strange obsession. It will ruin him. I will ruin him."