After a lengthy dismissal process, Evelyn was declared healthy enough to return home. The IV antibiotics had chased the worst of the infection out of her body, but she was prescribed other oral medications to make sure it stayed away.
For the next ten days, I refused to let Evelyn move without my express permission. Every morning and evening, I unwrapped her shoulder, sanitized the incision site, and rewrapped it with fresh bandages. I set an alarm to remind her to take her medication. I helped her to and from physical therapy, once she was cleared to return, and I washed her shoulder brace with religious devotion every two days.
My father kept to his word. With Evelyn’s permission, he took up residence on her luxury sofa and kept his things in a large duffel bag under the coffee table. Wherever I went, he followed, whether to the laundry room in the basement or the market down the road. If I was busy in the kitchen, he volunteered to chop vegetables and help with the cooking, but after he burned a perfectly good pot roast beyond recognition, I banned him as my assistant chef.
When Evelyn and I were both at home, Dad let his guard down. He worked from his laptop, teaching classes over a teleconference and grading papers that were emailed to him. One morning, while I was in the bathroom, I overheard him talking to his wife over the phone.
“Not yet, honey,” he was saying. “I want to make sure Jack is over this Ripper phase of hers. If she gets arrested, I might not be able to bail her out a second time.” There was a pause as Grace responded. “No, I’m working from here. I don’t have any vacation days left. I told my boss I had to leave the country for a family emergency.”
As I left the bathroom, I let the door loudly drift shut on its own to announce my presence in the room. Dad glanced over at me.
“Jack says hi,” he said into the phone. “Gotta go. She needs my help with something. Love you.” He hung up and smiled, unaware that I’d overheard. “What’s for dinner tonight?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” I collected my coat and headed for the door. “I’ll let you know.”
He rushed to follow me. “Where are you going?”
“The market. Maybe I’ll get inspired.”
“I’ll go with you.”
I grabbed his jacket before he could and held it behind my back. “Dad, you can’t keep this up forever. I know what you’re doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re babysitting me,” I accused him. “You’re scared I’m going to go back to investigating the Ripper. I’ve learned my lesson, okay? I’m not going to get arrested again.”
“You heard.”
I hung his jacket up again. “I’m going to the store. Don’t follow me.”
I felt relieved to leave the flat without him tagging along. You’d think five years of no contact would provide us with plenty of conversation material, but I’d recently discovered my father and I had less in common than I thought. For one thing, he watched golf with an unwarranted amount of enthusiasm. A sport played so slowly did not merit the cheers and whoops he emitted whilst viewing a game.
For another thing, he spoke so languidly that I began to guess the end of his sentences out of impatience for him to finish them. When I returned to conversations with Evelyn, I cherished the pace at which her mouth moved and was glad to speak with someone who said more than ten words every thirty seconds.
My father and I had spent exactly fifteen minutes trying to catch up on each other’s lives before giving in. All his stories had to do with Grace and his two stepchildren, Hunter and Hailey, who I didn’t particularly want to hear about. Alternatively, I’d spent the last five years of my life running a blog about serial killers and interfering with other investigations before this one, so my dad wasn’t too keen on listening to me either.
He liked politics. I hated them. I liked symphony music, but he couldn’t identify a tuba if one hit him in the face. He preferred nonfiction books geared toward religious commentaries while I liked mysteries and thrillers. Even our tastes in movies and TV were different. He watched inaccurate historical retellings with unbridled rapture, while I would take a science fiction or fantasy show any day of the week instead.
Our differences left us with little to nothing to talk about, which made it all the more awkward when he dogged me from place to place. I relished the relative silence as I walked through the cold drizzle to the nearby market. It was the first time I’d been alone with my thoughts since Evelyn’s hospital stay.
Despite my arrest, I hadn’t completely forgotten about the Ripper case. Thanks to good old Officer Stowick, my picture popped up on the news at least once a day. Half of London was convinced I had something to do with the attacks. The other half still thought the police needed someone to blame things on. Though Chief Investigator Baker had since announced I was not the main suspect, I received such strange, lingering looks in the streets that I’d gotten into the habit of wearing a cap in public.
As expected, the police had not made any more progress on the real identity of the Ripper, even with my description and the stolen files back in their possession. As long as the real killer was out there, I couldn’t help but wonder who I had almost caught in Mitre Passage that night.
At the market, I rented a buggy and perused the aisles with intentional sluggishness, determined to spend as much time as possible away from my father’s company. I decided to make Mom’s homemade curry recipe, which I’d memorized long ago. Evelyn had finally gotten over her curry aversion, and it was comfort food for me. Dad, I remembered, didn’t care for the dish.
As
