Chapter Thirteen
Aria opened her door. An older man—probably in his late fifties, or even early sixties—stood on her doorstep. His hair was dark, liberally streaked with gray, and his face was careworn. He looked like he’d had a hard life. He also seemed very nervous.
“Can I help you?” she asked when he stood there without speaking. He didn’t appear to be selling anything.
“Are you Aria DeLuca?”
His voice sounded … not familiar but she might have heard it before. She had no idea where though. “Yes. Why?”
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I can’t believe I finally found you.”
This was getting weird. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“I’m your father.”
Her stomach dropped to her toes. Could it really be him? She hadn’t seen him since she was seven. How would she know what he looked like after all these years?
“My father? I haven’t seen you in twenty-plus years and you show up on my doorstep? Why? And how did you find me anyway?”
“I know how strange this is. But I want to … not explain. There’s no excuse for what I did. But I’d like to tell you why.”
“If you even are my father you’ll have to prove it. No, never mind. I don’t care.” She tried to shut the door, but he stopped her by sticking his foot in the door.
“Please, Aria. I only want to talk to you.”
“Ryan, can you come here?”
A moment later he stood beside her. “Do you need help getting rid of this man?”
“He says he’s my father. You know, the man who deserted me and my mother over twenty years ago.”
Ryan frowned. “A little late, aren’t you? Do you have any identification? Can you prove you actually are her father?”
The man pulled out his wallet and gave his driver’s license to Ryan. “It says he’s Steven DeLuca,” he told Aria. “Was that your father’s name?”
“Yes. But big deal. That could be faked.” But was it? What if he was telling the truth? Did she even want to see him? “What’s my mother’s name?”
“Susan. Does she live here too? In this town, or with you?”
“She’s dead. She died several years ago. I’d say it was a broken heart but it was cancer.”
Stricken, he said, “I’m so sorry. I wanted to talk to her too.”
“Why?”
“To apologize.”
Aria stared at him a moment before she laughed. “You must be joking. The husband who left her with a seven-year-old and no job skills wants to apologize?”
“Yes. Very much. And while I can’t apologize to her, I still can to you.
Look, I know this is a shock and you probably don’t even want to see me, much less talk to me.
But I’d appreciate it more than I can say if you would.
I’ll leave you my number—well, it’s the number of the VA group home I live at—and you can call me if you decide you want to see me and hear what I have to say. ”
He turned to leave, but then turned back. “I’ll be here for a few days.” With that he got in his car—a nondescript, older-model, dark-colored Honda.
As soon as he left, Ryan shut the door. “I won’t ask if you’re okay. I’m sure you aren’t. I sure as hell wouldn’t be.”
“Do you think it’s true? Is he really my father?”
“I don’t know but you have his eyes. And his driver’s license looked legit.”
“I’m not sure whether to hope he is my father or be glad he isn’t. But if he is … then what reason could he possibly have to do what he did and expect me to what? Forgive him?”
*
“I don’t know what to do.” Aria was still in shock. Her father, make that her supposed father, had suddenly appeared after more than a twenty-year absence. It blew her mind.
“First, we need to figure out if he’s who he says he is,” Ryan said.
“Okay. How do we do that?”
“Ask for a DNA test. That might be the simplest way. Or you could ask him something your father would know but no one besides you and he would know it. Is there something like that?”
“No, there’s nothing—Wait.” Seven years old.
There was something. “I think he gave me my first African violet. It was beautiful. A dark blue that looked purple. He even taught me how to take care of it. Mom said I was too young to know how to do it but he—” She paused to clear her throat.
“He said I was smart and I loved plants, and he knew I could do it. And he was right.”
“I’d think that’s something no one else would know.”
“I haven’t thought about it in years. I took it with me whenever we had to move. I wonder if that’s why I’ve always grown African violets along with all my other plants?” She hadn’t even realized it. She’d blocked it from her memory because it hurt too much to think about the father who’d left her.
“Do you know what you want to do?”
“Not really. But I can call him tomorrow and ask him about the plant. The problem is, what do I do if he remembers?” Even if he didn’t remember, though, she couldn’t totally count him out. What if it really had been only wishful thinking on her part?
“That depends. Do you want to know him better? To find out why he left? And why he came back?”
“I do. I mean, of course I’m curious, but I don’t see how some lame explanation is going to change my mind about him.”
“What if it’s not lame? What if he had a really good reason for leaving?”
“It would have to be a hell of a good reason. Like amnesia. But that only happens in soap operas. Or maybe novels. Besides, he not only left, he also never came back or tried to find me.”
“You can’t be sure he hasn’t tried to find you. Maybe he tried but couldn’t. Didn’t you and your mom move around some?”
“Yes. At first. But we lived in Denver for quite a while.”
“Still, that doesn’t mean you were easy to find.”
“You sound like you’re defending him.”
“No, I’m just trying to look at all sides.”
*
“Other than amnesia, which is pretty damn unlikely, I can’t imagine what his reasons would be,” Aria continued. “Plus, he’d have had to suddenly get his memory back, which is a whole different thing.”
Ryan could think of several reasons for leaving that could make what her dad did more understandable, but he didn’t know that Aria would buy off on any of them.
Wasn’t that part of the reason he hadn’t told her about Connor and Casey and the war?
Because he didn’t know if she’d consider that a good reason for him never settling down, never staying in one place for long?
Hell, the more he thought about it, and accepted Connor’s point about what had happened, the more he realized his reasons had been misguided at best. He had a feeling he was going to have to explain himself to Aria before she truly trusted him again.
If she ever did. He’d intended to tell her what had happened but after he’d talked to Connor he put it off.
And kept putting it off. But right now he needed to help her deal with her father. Or whoever the man was.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“What good would that do?” she asked.
“It might help you decide whether to hear him out or not. You said you were curious.”
Her laugh held no humor. “I don’t know what I am. This—seeing my father again, assuming it is him—is the very last thing I ever expected to happen. My God, Ryan, it’s been more than twenty years.”
He took her arm and led her to the couch to sit. Sitting beside her, he asked, “What did your mom say?”
“At first she just told me he’d gone on a trip and would be back.
But as time passed, she accepted that he was gone and she had to tell me something.
She never said he deserted us. She said he had to go away, and she wasn’t sure when he was coming back.
Eventually, I realized what had happened and that he was gone for good.
“I think she hoped to see him again until the day she died. I know she did.” She rubbed a hand across her forehead. “Did I tell you she asked for him on her deathbed?”
“I heard you say that earlier.”
“She never got over him. And she never said a bad word about him. Which I didn’t get at all. You’d think she’d have resented him leaving like he did. No explanation, no nothing. But she never did.”
“Unless he did tell her something about why he was leaving and she didn’t tell you.”
She frowned. “Why wouldn’t she tell me if she knew?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a thought.” He stood. “I should get going.”
“Don’t go. Please.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“What do you want, Aria?”
She stood and faced him. “I don’t want to think about my father. Or whoever he is. I don’t want to think at all.”
“Is this an invitation to your bed?” Yes, that was blunt but he wanted it spelled out.
“Would you say yes if it was?”
“I’d prefer you had a different reason. Like you want me, not just because you want to forget.”
She frowned again. “I don’t go to bed with men I don’t want. Actually, I haven’t been to bed with anybody other than you in a long time. I thought we’d settled this. You said you changed your mind.”
She paced away, then turned to look at him. “You know what? Never mind.”
*
He looked confused. “Never mind what?”
“I changed my mind. We are not having sex. We will not be having a casual relationship. The only relationship we’re going to have is as co-parents to Sophie.”
“I really don’t understand you. You said it was just sex and not a big deal. Now you say it’s not happening. Make up your mind.”
“I can’t. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I want.” She threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know any damn thing at all!”
The baby monitor came alive with Sophie’s cry.
“Damn it. Now I’ve woken the baby.”
“She’s probably hungry. Want me to go fix her a bottle?”
“She isn’t crying anymore. I’ll go check on her and see what’s up.”
Ryan followed her into the baby’s room. Sure enough, she’d fallen back asleep. “She’s so beautiful,” Aria said softly.
“Yes, she is. Like her mother.”
“Flattery won’t change my mind.”
He shook his head but didn’t respond until they left the room. “You need to quit worrying about this whole sex thing.”
“What does that mean?”
He took her hand and held it between both of his. “Even if you hadn’t suddenly decided we shouldn’t have a sexual relationship, we wouldn’t have had sex tonight.”
“You said—”
He held up a hand. “You’re upset. Understandably so.
I’m not interested in taking advantage of you.
I’m in this for the long term, Aria. I want us to be a family.
Together. I’m dead serious when I say I love you.
I know you don’t love me. Or at least, you won’t let yourself because you’re afraid I’ll leave you again. ”
“Do you blame me?”
“No. But I’ve changed. And if I have to prove it to you by being your friend before you let me back in then I will.”
“What if I never ‘let you back in’ as you put it?”
“I’ll just keep trying. Until you convince me there’s no hope for us and we aren’t there yet.”
She wanted to argue with him but she couldn’t. Her feelings were a mess right now. All jumbled up with how she felt about Ryan. Should she admit she still loved him? But she couldn’t. All mixed up in that were her feelings, her total shock, about having her father drop back into her life.
Assuming he really was her father. She had a feeling he was. Typical, the man had showed up at a time when she was all screwed up over Ryan. One more thing she didn’t need.
“Let me stay with you,” Ryan said. “I’ll sleep on the couch. We can talk or if you don’t want to talk we can watch a movie. I’ll even go buy some ice cream if you want.”
“You know ice cream is my weakness.”
He grinned. “Yes, I know. How about it?”
“Chocolate. Double fudge chocolate. The most chocolaty chocolate you can find.”
“Works for me. I’ll be back.”
Why was he being so nice when she was so wishy-washy? Could he really have fallen in love with her?
It seemed really unlikely.