23. Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Cashlynn
“To Cashlynn, and Carrington Cove’s very first art gallery!” Willow holds up her glass of sparkling apple cider while everyone else holds their flutes of champagne, toasting to me and the official opening of my gallery.
Somebody please pinch me.
“Here, here!” Everyone echoes around the room.
Astrid speaks first as Scottie opens the door, letting in people who have been lined up outside all morning. “I think I speak for everyone when I say that we are so proud of what you’ve created here. The artwork is phenomenal, and I, for one, can’t wait to buy a piece for my house.”
Sally, one of the waitresses from Catch & Release, stands at the door to greet people and hand out the flyers for the classes I have scheduled for the next month. Dallas said she was eager for another job, so I jumped at the opportunity to hire her as my first employ ee.
Penn snickers. “And I’ll be the one figuring out someplace to put it.”
Everyone laughs as Astrid glares at her husband. “But not only that, you’ve brought an artistic outlet to our community. Lilly has been asking me every day for the past month about when she can come here to paint.”
“I told you not to tell her about it,” Penn mutters.
“I was just too excited! You know how I get,” she says as Willow approaches.
“I’m very ready for this little boy to leave my body, but part of me is very grateful that I got to be here for the opening.”
Dallas rubs her belly. “Me too. But we aren’t going to stay long. Doctor said I need to keep this woman off her feet until my son is done cooking.”
Willow rolls her eyes at her husband. “Oh, he’s done all right. And if he keeps kicking my bladder, I’ll be waking him up every night for years to pay him back.”
I can’t help but laugh, though part of it is from nerves. My eyes keep moving to the door as more and more people trickle in, but none of them are the two men I’m longing to see.
“Well, I can’t wait for you to come to the school in a few weeks to do the squirt gun painting with my class,” Scottie says as she bounces her daughter in her arms. “The kids are so excited. I also made the mistake of telling them, so I get asked about it at least five times a day.”
Grady shakes his head. “And then I get to hear about it just as many times.”
“You all sound so happy in your wedded bliss,” Hazel quips before taking a sip of her champagne. “You really make a person want to get married over here.” She points to herself.
Dal las chuckles. “Oh, I can’t wait for the day you get married, Hazelnut, so you can eat your words and vent about all of the annoying things your husband does, and we can all just laugh about it.”
Hazel scoffs. “Yeah, well, you have to actually date someone in order for that to happen and do you see a man for me around here?” She twists her head around the room. “That would be a no.”
But it’s at that moment that the man I’m in love with walks into the room, with my father trailing right behind him.
“Oh my God, I think I’m gonna throw up.”
Scottie places her hand on my shoulder. “Just breathe. This is neither the time nor the place you want to do that. But just in case, do you have a trash can under your desk? Because that saved my life when I was pregnant with this one.” She waves her daughter’s hand around.
Grady pulls her away from me. “Not everyone is as interested in the topic of throwing up as you are, babe. Let’s give Cashlynn some space, shall we?”
When I turn around, the entire Sheppard family has dispersed, leaving me alone as Parker and my father approach.
Parker leans forward and kisses my cheek. “Congratulations, sweetheart.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, smoothing his shirt nervously.
“Cashlynn,” my father says, pulling my attention toward him. And when our eyes lock, I see the remorse in his that I’ve wanted to see for years. His eyes move around the room. “You created this, June Bug?”
Parker takes my hand and stands to my side, grounding me. “I did, Dad.”
He blinks away tears as he looks around. “It’s beautiful. Your mother would have loved this.”
I suck in a breath as I fight to keep my emotions under control. “That means a lot.”
Whe n his eyes land on the framed picture on the wall by the main counter, he walks over to it, leaving Parker and me behind.
“Are you gonna be okay?” Parker whispers to me as I watch my father study the painting on the wall that my mother made for me when I was a little girl. It is the one piece of art in the gallery that isn’t for sale. It’s a reminder of what my mother gave me—a piece of her that I’ll always cherish.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“He assured me he wouldn’t yell.”
I sniffle through a laugh. “Well, that sounds promising.”
“I’ll be around if you need me, okay?”
I turn and look up at him. “Thank you. I love you so much.”
“Ditto, sweetheart.” With a chaste kiss, he leaves me, and I head in the direction of my father, who hasn’t moved from admiring the picture on the wall.
“I remember the morning she painted this for you,” he says as soon as he senses me. “You were obsessed with the color pink, so we slathered the canvas in every shade she could find and began putting lines in it, turning it into a collage of flowers.”
“I had it hanging up in my apartment in Philly, but I knew it belonged here, where everyone could see it.
When he turns to me, I see unshed tears in his eyes. “Can we talk?”
I look to Hazel, who agreed to help if I needed her, and she gives me a nod with a thumbs-up when she silently understands I’m in need of that favor.
“Sure. Let me take you to the back.”
I have my father follow me down a small hallway to a storage room where it’s quiet enough that we can speak but not be overheard by potential customers. “Look, Dad— ”
He holds a hand up, cutting me off. “No, Cashlynn. I have a lot to say and I need to get it off my chest, please.”
“Okay.”
A tear slips down his cheek. “I have been a terrible father to you.”
“What?”
He swipes away the tear and clears his throat. “I took the past few days to really think about everything that Parker said to me the other night, and he was right. I haven’t supported you the way I should have.” My eyes begin to sting, but he continues. “Losing your mother nearly killed me, June. And I wanted to find someone or something to blame, so I blamed her passion for art. If she hadn’t been in the car, driving to that gallery, she wouldn’t have died.”
“I know, Dad.”
“But if she hadn’t gone, she would have regretted it for the rest of her life. It’s taken me a long time to get past the guilt and anger of losing her, and on some level, I don’t think I’ll ever be over it. But I wasn’t the only one who shut down when she died. So did you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You stopped talking to me, stopped sharing your life with me. I knew you were still painting, but you never showed me.”
“I thought it would hurt you. I didn’t want to make you angry or sad…”
“And that’s my fault for ever making you feel that way,” he says. “But seeing the parts of your mother in you doesn’t hurt me, June. It fills me with love and pride that she lives on in you.”
The tears start to fall right then and there. “Dad…”
“What you did here, what you’ve created? It’s incredible—such an accomplishment. I’m so disappointed in myself for making you feel like you couldn’t share it with me and let me be proud of it with you.” He ste ps forward and takes my hands. “I’m so sorry, June Bug. And I promise to do better.”
I lunge for him, holding his as tightly as I can. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you more than you’ll ever know, Cashlynn.”
“And I’m sorry I lied to you.”
He releases me and wipes the tears from under my eyes with his thumbs. “I know that now. And I know that it took a lot of guts for that man to stand up for you the way he did.”
“I love him.”
“I know that too. He told me that he feels the same way, and asked for my permission to marry you when the time is right for you both.”
I’m so relieved to know that he still wants that with me. “Please don’t punish him for what happened, okay?”
“If this is about the practice…”
“It’s not just that,” I say, interrupting him. “It’s for our future too. I don’t want you to hold this against him.”
“I won’t, June. But there’s something else we need to discuss.”
I nod, knowing what’s coming next. Placing my hands on my hips, I tilt my head at him. “You and Beth?”
He sighs, glancing down at the ground while shaking his head. “I was so hurt when your mother died, I never thought I’d love again, June. In fact, I had no plans for it. But Beth broke down my walls, she made me see that true strength doesn’t come from pushing people away, it’s from letting them in again knowing the risk of being hurt is still there. I’m retiring so she and I can enjoy the rest of our lives together, and I hope you can accept that.”
“You deserve that, Dad.” I reach for his hand this time. “And I adore Beth. She’s good for you, keeps you in line.”
He laughs. “That she does. She threatened to leave me if I didn’t make things right with you.”
“ I think we would have gotten here eventually.” I smile, feeling more relieved with each passing second. “Parker and I got through our own issues too, so you weren’t the only one that was having relationship disagreements.”
“It’s normal for couples to have conflict, to hurt one another intentionally and unintentionally. What matters is how you solve your problems, rebuilding that trust, and whether you can compromise to make sure it doesn’t continue being an issue.”
A thought crosses my mind. “How did you and Mom handle disagreements?”
He grins, thinking back over his memories for a minute. “Well, if it wasn’t something we could agree on, we’d play for it.”
“And what did you play?”
He laughs and leans toward me. “Rock, paper, scissors.”
***
“I really need to get back to the gallery and balance the drawer, Dad,” I say, trailing after him into his house, eager to finish up my day after a whirlwind of emotions.
“This won’t take long. Parker said he’d wait for you there, but I have to drive you back with this stuff, so your day isn’t over yet.” He smirks at me over his shoulder.
“Wait a minute…what stuff?”
The whole day has been a blur—I lost track of how many people I spoke to and how many paintings I sold. It felt like the entire town made an appearance throughout the day, and I had so many people eager to submit their artwork or request certain types of art they were lookin g for. My classes are also entirely booked for the month, and I already have a waitlist forming for the summer.
I was sitting at my desk, trying to wrap my head around the day, when my father came into my office and asked if he could take me somewhere. I turned him down initially, but he insisted and then Parker encouraged me as well. Now, I’m more than curious about what stuff he has for me.
When we step inside, he leads me to the basement, unlocking the door and urging me to go ahead of him.
“Are you sure it’s safe? I mean, this is where you fell and hurt yourself, isn’t it?” I tease him as I head down the stairs.
“Hey, watch it, young lady. I’m still your father,” he grumbles, though a smile pulls at his lips.
Laughing, I make it to the bottom of the staircase just as Dad flips on a light switch. The moment the room comes into view, I gasp. “Oh my God.”
“This is what I was coming down to see when I fell that day, June Bug.”
Rows of canvases line the walls, stacked neatly on top of each other. I know who the artist is before I even take a look.
“Did she paint all of these?” My voice cracks as my eyes move at lightning speed.
My father nods. “Yep. She had most of them in storage before she passed, and when I moved to Carrington Cove, I forgot about them. A couple of years later, I got a call from the storage unit in Florida saying the bill hadn’t been paid and they were going to auction it off. I knew what was in there, so I drove down immediately and brought them back here.”
I move around the room, looking at every painting my mother kept over the years, ones I’m sure she wanted to sell or keep for herself instea d. Memories flood my mind of watching her at work, and even those times when she would set up a canvas next to her for me to paint right alongside her.
“I come down here when I want to be close to her, June. She was so talented, so beautiful and carefree. So wise and funny,” my father says, emotion clogging his throat. “You remind me of her so much, and I think she’d want you to have these. I think they would look beautiful in your gallery.”
I move toward my father and envelop him in my arms. “I think so too.”
“You can sell them or put them on display, whatever you choose.”
“There’s so many of them. There’s no way I can take them all today,” I say as I lean back a bit, but he keeps me tucked into his side.
“I know, but I imagined we could take a chunk back with us tonight and start figuring out where to go from there. No rush, sweetie.”
“I still can’t believe this.” My skin is covered in goosebumps, almost like I can feel my mother with us at this very moment.
“I miss her so much, June, but my biggest regret is how I’ve treated you since she passed. I’m so sorry that you were the object of my grief when I didn’t know what to do with it,” he croaks out as I feel his tears hit my shoulder.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. But I’ll do better. I promise you that.”
And right there, in my father’s basement with my mother surrounding us, the two of us begin to heal in ways we both desperately needed.