Daddy sighs. “It was the summer, and everyone knows a place like Denny’s gets busier in the summer, just like it does here. I passed her behavior off as that. Why wouldn’t I? I loved her, Kia. A part of me still does. She gave me you, and I will always love her for that. It wasn’t until Patty told me she’d been to Denny’s and seen your momma leavin’ with another man. She didn’t know who he was, but she said she’d rather me hear something like that from her than the busybodies around here.”
“What did you do?” My voice comes out surprisingly even. Hearing the story of the destruction of my family hurts more than I thought it would.
“I sent you to Luce’s for a sleepover and followed your mom after her shift.” He smiles wryly, holding it for a few beats before it drops again. “Patty was right. She left out the back with some other guy, and I followed them to a motel. They were all over each other before they’d even reached the motel room. Instead of going up there like I should have, I turned around, drove home, and went to bed.
“I confronted her the next night when you were in bed. She admitted it, and then I left. I shouldn’t have gone the way I did, Kia, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have stayed and spoken to you, been honest with you. Or at least, me and your momma should have done it together and come up with a believable story.”
I nod slowly, meeting his remorseful eyes. “You should have. Do you know how many nights I spent staring out my bedroom window waiting for you to come home? Do you know how many times I locked myself away in the treehouse and cried because it was all I had left of you? I was thirteen years old, and you left me without as much as a goodbye. It took three months of whispers and crap around town before I realized what they’d all known all along. You weren’t coming back. You really had left.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to rein in my anger, aware of a few eyes on us. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for that.”
“I don’t expect you to,” he says sadly. “I don’t ever expect your forgiveness for the way I left and I won’t ever ask for it. I just ask that you try to understand.”
“I understand, Daddy. And I know it wasn’t just your fault, but only one person walked away. Only one person made that decision and that was you. No matter what Momma did or said, you didn’t have to leave the way you did. Your reason for leaving is her fault, but your actions are yours.”
“I know, Kia bear. And believe me when I say I tried to make it right. I tried to contact you so many times, but she was always in the way. She stopped me at every turn.”
“Why didn’t you get a lawyer? Take her to court?” The words come out sharper and more bitterly than I intend them to. “Why didn’t you fight until you were blue in the face for contact?”
He says nothing. He just looks at me, his blue eyes curious.
“I would have,” I say simply. “If I knew what I know now, even half of it, I would have bugged her like hell to let me speak to you and see you.”
“I was a coward,” he admits, glancing away from me. “And cheap. I didn’t have the money to hire anyone to fight the case for me.”
I swallow. “I would have thought you couldn’t put a price on true love. I would have thought you would have fought until the ends of the Earth for me, but I guess the Daddy I thought I knew and the one that walked away were two different men.” He flinches at my words, but I’m not mincing them anymore. I’m not being pushed around, and if it means feelings get hurt along the way, then that’s tough.
It might be juvenile and immature, but I’ve been hurt for so long, it’s about time they felt even an ounce of the pain I’ve carried with me.
“So, what’s taken you so long?” I ask bluntly. “Why has it taken you six years – six freakin’ years – to come back?”
Dad fidgets, twisting his hands on the table, then dropping them to his lap. “I need a divorce from your mom. It should have been done years ago.”
“I know that, but why? Why is it so important now?”
“You already know I’m getting married again… But Dee, my fiancée, is pregnant.”
~
I don’t know how I managed to walk out of The Eagle Inn and drive to Reese’s. I don’t know how I managed to do anything except scream at my father. Which, oddly enough, I didn’t do, even though I wanted to.
No, I didn’t scream, shout, or make a scene. Instead, I’d stood up and walked away silently.
I mean, shit! What a thing to drop into a conversation with your daughter.
Not to mention a part of me finds it kinda gross that my forty-something father is having a baby again.
I blow out a long breath and lean back against the couch in Reese’s den. His mom let me straight in, asked no questions, and left me to it. Not because she doesn’t care, but because she knows me almost as well as Luce and Reese do.
And, naturally, she knows all about my estranged father arriving unannounced.
I count the ticks as the second hand goes around the clock, echoing in the silence of the den. I need to focus on something else other than my family issues.
On the shelf above the blocked fireplace is a photo of me and Reese. I’ve never noticed it before but I remember it. It was taken a week or so before I left for New York, at Leo’s twenty-first birthday party. Reese’s arms are tight around me, and both of us are smiling so wide our cheeks look like they might crack. To the side of it is another photo – one taken that I don’t even know about. We’re lying on the dock by the lake, him leaning over me, and we’re both grinning about something. I bet Luce took it since she took way too many pictures last summer… Most of which are in that box in my closet.
I bet if I looked in it hard enough, I’d find that exact picture.
Last summer. It really was the summer to end all summers, despite the way it actually ended. It was the summer I understood what it was to fall in love. What true friendship was, and that the right amount of laughter and silliness could make even the darkest day a rainbow of color to rival the Northern Lights. It was a summer of firsts, one of which happened right here in this room.
Reese’s hazel eyes had darkened to a chocolate brown, and he slid an arm around my back, pulling me toward him.
He leant his head into me and his lips captured mine. My arms snaked around his neck, and his other hand cupped my head, keeping my lips firmly against his. His kiss was rough. It was wanting and hot and sent earthquake tremors through my body as my need mingled with his until his was barely distinguishable from mine.