Free The Best Goodbye by Abbi Glines

the gauntlet last night in my moment of anger, and now I had to stick with it. Then I had to find another job. Pulling up to the restaurant, I turned and looked at Franny. I had to take her to her dentist appointment today. “You stay here. Lock the doors. I’ll be right back,” I told her, before getting out.
    “I wish I could come inside and see it,” she said, studying the outside of the place. It really was a nice building. Arthur Stout hadn’t cut any corners, that was for sure.
    “I know, and I’m sorry. But it’s not a good time,” I explained. I didn’t want to tell her I was quitting. Not yet. I needed to find another job first. My little girl could be a worrier.
    I closed the door and waited until she locked it, then headed for the entrance. I needed to drop off my letter of resignation. I figured I wouldn’t get a good reference from him anyway, but I still wanted to do this properly.
    “Thought you were quitting,” Captain’s voice called out, and I spun around to see him getting out of his truck. I hadn’t seen him parked there, but I’d been focused on my task at hand.
    I held up my resignation letter. “I am. Just came to give you this.” I kept my spine stiff. He had no idea of the hopes and dreams he had shattered. Not just mine but Franny’s. She’d never know her dad now, because I didn’t trust him to be the man she needed.
    I couldn’t see his expression behind his sunglasses, but at this point, I didn’t care. I knew how detached and cold he was. He’d probably throw the paper into the trash as soon as he got inside and never think of me again.
    “You sure you want to do this?” he asked, surprising me.
    I paused. Why was he asking that? He’d been mad at me last night for something I hadn’t done. “You aren’t a fair boss. You don’t like me, and I’m not sure why. I work hard, and I try my best to be as professional as I can. But last night you were—”
    “Wrong,” he finished for me. “I was wrong.”
    I closed my mouth, then opened it again, before closing it one more time. I didn’t know what to say to that. I’d seen this side of Captain before, when he’d apologized about being hard on me when Franny was sick. But I hadn’t seen it since then.
    “Listen, Rose, I’m not going to be here much longer. The place is open now, and I’ll be training the new manager over the next few weeks. We have a rub between us, but you’re a good worker. The place needs you. Just because we don’t . . . work well together, that doesn’t mean you won’t work great with the new guy. Stay. Give it a chance.”
    He was leaving soon? What? “Where are you going?” I asked, completely ignoring the fact that he’d just asked me to stay.
    He shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Just not here.”
    It shouldn’t matter. But somehow it did. Quitting was one thing, but knowing where he was helped. I couldn’t change the fact that I wanted to know that River was safe and OK. I had made it through ten years of not knowing where he was, and every day I worried and hoped that he was happy.
    Knowing he had become this man who was so different from the boy I had loved was hard, but at least I knew where he was. That he had family here. I wanted to have that peace. If he left, I’d lose that again. And just because my River had become Captain, that didn’t change the fact that I cared. I would always care, because I would always love River. He was a part of me.
    “You look really upset about that, Rose. Any particular reason?” Captain drawled, as if he were amused.
    I forced myself to snap out of it and shake my head no. There was no way I could explain it to him. Even if I tried, there was a good chance he’d hate me for having left him without an explanation all those years ago. If he rejected Franny, well, I couldn’t deal with that. So I said nothing.
    “Mommy, I need to use the restroom,” Franny’s voice called out, and I turned away from Captain to look back at my