Chapter 1 #2
I study my water glass again, staring down the lemon wedge so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t wither.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. We haven’t done this before.
It’s impossible to catch up on a whole lifetime.
The first time I visited Dad here in Hart, I drove across the country while I was on a break.
I stayed with Dad, Rita, and the boys in their spare room.
I only had five days. We talked before that and after, of course, but Dad’s never pried.
I trace my free hand down the water glass, gathering up more water droplets.
“The night you left, you told me that you’d never stop loving me.
You’d do everything in your power to make me welcome if I wanted you in my life.
Do you remember what else you said when you came into my room that night? ” He nods, his jaw ticking.
“You told me there would be things that I’d hear and probably wouldn’t understand. You said you had plenty of regrets, but that your greatest one was hurting me because you had to leave.”
Dad swipes a grease-stained finger with a heavy eagle ring across his eyes.
He’s the strongest man I know, and that means that he’s never been afraid to have emotions.
“You were such a brave kid. Your lip was trembling and you had tears in your eyes, but you wouldn’t let them fall, even though I’d told you so many times that it was okay to cry and that you should never be ashamed of what you were feeling.
You told me that you knew your mom and I were having problems. You knew that we hadn’t been in love with each other for years. ”
“I also said that you hadn’t been in love with the church ever since I could remember. You’d just get up and go there. You helped people because you loved doing it and you loved them, but what most of the people in church thought and did made you sad.”
“You were only eleven and yet you already knew more about the world than I ever did,” Dad says, voice gone husky. “Children sometimes see things and understand right away what it takes adults years to comprehend.”
“I didn’t understand how complicated things were when I was younger. I just knew that you loved me. I said that too.”
“You did. It damn near shattered me. I wanted to stay more than anything.”
“You wanting to leave the church and get a divorce shouldn’t have come with conditions.” I try to say that without bitterness. “You shouldn’t have been ashamed. It was Mom who decided she was going to hate you for it. She said she’d never be able to hold her head up in town again.”
“I was never supposed to fall in love with a certain kind of life when I was doing outreach. That was the life I was trying to talk folks out of.”
“I thought it was amazing that you joined that ministry and that you went on the road to go to big cities to do street ministry and help the homeless. I know Mom hated it. She hated that you spent more time with addicts and drunks than with your own family. I couldn’t sleep one night and I heard you fighting.
She said that the kind of friends you were making weren’t the kind a minister should have.
You weren’t leading people to God. You were getting led astray. ”
Dad’s got a healthy tan from spending so much time outdoors, but he visibly pales. “I didn’t know that you heard that.”
“Yeah.”
“I never touched any drugs, but it was true that I had many friends who’d done bad things. They’d turned their lives around. Some were homeless. Some addicts. Some were alcoholics. Many were women who had been…”
“You can say it. Prostitutes, or who worked at clubs. I know that’s how you met Rita.
I know that she was trying to get clean because she had two little kids and that her husband wasn’t a good man.
” That was ultimately how Dad found his way to Hart.
Rita had a brother who lived across the country and was part of a biker club.
He’d always offered to keep her and her boys safe if she ever wanted to leave his brother.
“You helped her get clean and you gave her money to start over in Hart. The club kept her safe. I heard you trying to tell Mom one night, when you were upset that her husband OD’d, that you felt guilty.
Mom didn’t get it. She said that some people were past redemption and we all had a choice in the first place.
You didn’t need to be worried over a woman and two kids who weren’t yours.
You should be worrying about your own family and your own church.
She wanted to know what you had in you that was so dark you felt that you had to bleed and sweat to atone for it. ”
Dad winces like he’s been struck. “I was trying to help and I’ll admit, I got lost in it.
You meet people and you get to know them.
You hear their stories. It’s heartbreaking.
I was losing my faith in the idea of religion, but not in people.
It was the church board who finally sat me down and told me that I had to stop the ministry.
They said they’d had complaints, and it wasn’t proper. ”
“How ironic.” I can’t help my dry tone. Dad hasn’t once asked me what I think about church and God. He won’t, either.
“They thought that if I was so passionate about what I was doing, then I needed to shift my focus from being a church minister to street ministry and get hired somewhere else. It was a not so gentle nudge out the door, even if they pretended to give me a choice.”
“Mom blamed you for it. She said you should have seen it coming.”
“She did,” Dad admits, but not unkindly.
I won’t ever tell Dad about the stuff Mom said after he left.
That he was having an affair with a drug addict and that he’d moved across the country to be with her.
She told me once that my own father had chosen a junkie and her kids over his real wife and daughter.
She made it seem like that’s the reason she had to protect me.
She had to keep me safe from a father who had fallen so low that he was now a sinner, an adulterer, probably a drug dealer as well.
She told me she had to cut off all contact for my own protection.
I didn’t believe all of it. It wasn’t until I was a teenager and I found out that my dad had put the house and the car in my mom’s name that I started to subtly question what she was telling me.
Our food comes, and I get another reprieve. The words were right there, ready to break loose and spill free. It’s not good timing, but maybe it’s not the worst either.
I distract myself with eggs and hashbrowns for a few moments while I gather my courage.
After all these years, Dad still gets the same breakfast he always did.
Two eggs over easy, bacon burned until it’s crispy, and two pieces of rye toast. He still likes hot sauce on the eggs.
Patti must really know his order, because they came sprinkled with red droplets.
I wait until he’s half done eating before I push my plate to the side and clear my throat. “I have to tell you something. You’re going to be upset. I don’t want you to blame Mom or be angry with her, even though it’s on her. I get that. It’s a choice she made not to tell you.”
Dad’s hand freezes. His fork clatters to the table. He doesn’t make a move to pick it up. I can’t tell him any other way.
“When I was sixteen. The house burned down.”
He goes so pale that there’s almost no tan at all. He looks sick. I should have found the words, and the courage, before we started eating.
“A fire…” he gasps.
I nod slowly. “Yes. Mom got out, but I was trapped inside.” Giving him the barest details might be best. Saving the rest for later, when he’s processed it, is likely the smartest way of dealing with this.
“I woke up and the room was all smoke. The fire was devouring part of the house. I could feel how hot the door to my room was. I looked around to try and find something to break the window, but there was nothing. I crawled around and found Bubby. She was so scared. I was too. I didn’t know that Mom was outside by then.
” I pause. Even saying the words brings me straight back to that night.
How scared I was. “She was also trying to find something to break the window. It was getting hotter and smokier. I didn’t know what to do.
I thought I was going to… to die, but then the window just shattered.
A man jumped in. Bubby got scared and leapt out of my arms. The man grabbed me.
He must have cut himself on the glass because he was covered in blood.
He shoved me through the window, but he didn’t hurt me.
He made sure I didn’t get cut on the jagged edges like he had.
I turned around and begged him to find Bubby, even though the room was full of smoke and the fire was literally inside by then.
He- he- did. Mom saw me and ran to me. We both waited.
I was so scared. I was so afraid that I’d sent someone to their death.
I loved Bubby so much. I’d had her since I was a kid.
I couldn’t let her die that way. He…” I chew on my lip for a moment as tears burn my eyes, as the fear and smoke and the terrible certainty that I wasn’t going to survive, roll through me.
Dad doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. He’s barely breathing.
“He got Bubby. He came out with her wrapped in his t-shirt. I knew he was hurt. That he’d been burned and he’d inhaled too much smoke.
I knew it as soon as the paramedics and the fire trucks came and they put a mask on Bubby to give her oxygen.
They gave me one too.” I have to finish, even though I’ve never seen my Dad look like this.
Scared. Scary. Ruined. Devastated. I grasp his arm. Hard.
“I’m okay,” I say. “I know it wasn’t right that Mom didn’t tell you.
She told me straight up that if you didn’t care about what happened to us then, you wouldn’t care now.
I knew she was lying. I wanted to tell you when we reconnected, but I knew how much it would hurt you.
We- we tried to find the man who saved me.
She put up all sorts of stuff online, asking him to come forward so we could thank him, but he never did.
He just… vanished. It was like he hadn’t ever been there at all. He saved my life, and Bubby’s too.”
Dad’s vibrating in the bench beside me. He’s shaking so hard that I’m trembling from his tremors.
“When I first met Maverick and Loreena, he told me that he could find just about anyone, or that Dravin and Wizard could. I have a date. Gordonville, Ohio only had five thousand people. It wouldn’t be impossible, even if it seems like it would.
Maverick said that he wouldn’t do anything until I told you first and asked your permission.
It’s taken me all this time to get the courage to tell you. ”
Dad shoves up from the booth so hard that he knocks both his knees into the tabletop, nearly sending our plates careening over the edge.
I cover my mouth with both hands. Scalding tears stream down my face. This wasn’t how I wanted this to happen. I thought that Dad might actually sit calmly and go and break down in private later. Not that I wanted him to do that, but I don’t want him to hate Mom or me.
He turns to me, chest heaving. “I know who it was.”
Black edges around my vision so fast that I nearly fall over, and I’m sitting down. “H-how?” I choke out. The whole room is spinning. The diner might as well have flipped upside down. I can’t even make out my dad’s face, but I turn towards him. “How could you know that?”
“I’ll explain everything, but I need to talk to him first. This isn’t my story. I didn’t know there was a story at all. I need to get this straight. I need… I need a minute.”
Here.
He just said that the man who has haunted me, like a kind spirit or a hero ghost, is here. In Hart. Right. Now.
I gasp and choke, trying to get air into my lungs. I can’t bend all the way over because the table is in the way. I’m going to have a panic attack.
Jesus fucking Christ, is this even real?
“We’re both upset.” My dad sets his hand on my shoulder and helps me out of the booth. “I’ll explain everything when I have answers, but I don’t. Not yet. I need to talk to him before I can get back to you. Will you give me time? Just a few days?”
Days?
Days are going to feel like years.
“Hey.” he rubs his hands down my arms. “Let me make sure you get home okay. I can have someone from the club come get you in one of their cages.”
“Cars,” I recover enough to push out. “Cars, dad. Or Trucks. Or vans. Calling a vehicle a cage is weird. And no, but thanks. I’m okay to drive. Really.”
Dad ruffles my hair like I’m a kid again.
I let him, because we missed the last decade of life together.
He’s tall and strong, jacked for an older guy because he works out all the time at the clubhouse.
It feels good to have him near me. I’ve been leaning on my own strength for years, and setting this into his hands feels like being able to take a real breath again.
I like being able to rely on him and lean on his strength.
It’s not just nice to have my dad in my life.
It’s the best feeling ever.
He guides me up to the front counter, peels off a few bills, and pays for our breakfast. He wraps an arm around me and helps me outside, though by the time we get there, I’m no longer shaking. It still feels nice to be able to lean against my father and let him hold me up.
“Do you trust me?” he asks a few moments later.
“Of course I do!”
He walks me to my car. It’s at the far end of the parking lot. He tips my head up so he can look me right in the eye. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
I bite down on my bottom lip and nod.
“This is a lot for both of us, but we’ll talk soon, yeah?”
I nod again.
“I love you, Fawnie. You can call me anytime, day or night. If you want to talk, or if you just want to sit in silence. You don’t need to have anything to say, or any real purpose to do it other than just wanting to.”
I fall into my dad’s arms and let him hug me hard.
He doesn’t make any move to let me go, and so I stay there, eyes shut tight, listening to his heartbeat with the sun shining down on both of us from a cloudless sky.
I have more questions than I have answers, but I force all of it to the back of my mind and focus on this instead. On us.
This is time I never thought I’d have.
It’s the biggest blessing that I’ve ever known.