Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
If I’d thought the air had been thick in the SUV driving to the diner, it was nothing compared to driving home. I knew Little Grandma had been trying to help, and it had felt really good having her defend me like she did, but boy I was going to end up paying for it tonight.
As soon as I backed into the carport, Dad had the passenger side door open, and he was getting out of my SUV. I immediately saw he was struggling to stay upright. He’d definitely overdone today.
“Dad, wait for me,” I said softly.
“I don’t need your help,” he bit out.
I watched as Mom pulled one of Dad’s arms over her shoulders and she took his weight so that they could get into the house. I hurried out of my vehicle, knowing what was coming next if I didn’t get my ass into the house. But the alarm sounded before I could get inside in time.
Dammit!
“Fallon, turn that goddamn thing off!” Dad hollered. I heard my parents’ bedroom door slam shut.
I pressed the code necessary to unarm the alarm, and my phone rang. It was the security company. I gave them the security word and told them that it was a false alarm, explaining my mom had her hands full as she came into the house.
I closed the front door and waited for Mom to return to the kitchen. After four or five minutes, I realized I was waiting in vain. Apparently, I was being snubbed.
Fine, just fine. I had work that I needed to get done anyway, but Mom and Dad were pissing me off. It was more than past time for us to have a conversation, Little Grandma was right. I went into my bedroom and grabbed my tablet and sun hat. Nobody ever said I had to create a presentation inside when it was so beautiful outside.
Mom had chosen the perfect spots for the dogwood trees. I pulled one of the lawn chairs under one of them and got to work.
“Fallon?”
I must have been really into things, because I hadn’t even heard the back door open or Mom cross the yard.
I jerked up. Once I had my heartbeat back under control, I gave her a half smile. “Hi, Mom.”
“Can you come inside? Your dad and I would like to talk to you.”
I took a deep breath, then nodded. Dad was waiting at the kitchen table. He was still in the same clothes that he’d been wearing when we’d gone out for lunch.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hi, Fallon. Why don’t you take a seat.” He motioned to the chair across from him. Mom sat between us. “Your Mom and I have been talking.”
I nodded. I mean, what was there for me to say?
“She’s been talking to me for a while now. Apparently, you two talked a few weeks ago out in the yard, back before you got bit.” He wiped his hand over his face, then looked back up at me. “You know that we wanted a daughter, right?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, all we wanted was a healthy baby. Boy or girl, it didn’t matter.”
I looked over at Mom. She was staring at Dad like she was willing him to say certain things to me. “Yeah, okay. So, you were fine having a daughter,” I nodded. “But I’ve got to tell you, it never felt like you were fine having me as your kid.”
Dad reared back in his chair like I’d taken a slap at him. He looked over at Mom.
“See, I told you,” she said.
“Fallon, of course we were happy with you.”
I swallowed what little spit I had in my mouth. “Were you happy with me , Dad? Because most of the time it seemed like I was a nuisance.”
“Of course I was happy with you. I was just working a lot. Trying to put food on the table. I didn’t have a lot left over to cater to you.”
Anger flared up. “I never asked you to have a tea party with me, Dad. I did ask you to look at a paper of mine when I got an A on it. Not read the damn thing but look at the A at the top of the page. Then I was hoping sometimes you might be able to come to a soccer game of mine one Saturday, since you didn’t work on Saturdays.”
Dad didn’t respond by immediately defending himself. Again he looked over at Mom. Then he turned back to me. “I didn’t look at your papers?” he asked.
“I remember three distinct times you blew me off. All three times I was in elementary school. You can be damn sure by the time I hit middle school I knew better. But by high school I finally did something that made me a superstar in your opinion. You were finally proud of me and showed it.”
Dad brightened. “What did I do?” he asked, as he fell into the trap.
“I brought Michael Rankin home as my boyfriend. You finally had the perfect son you wanted. The captain of the football team. That day you gave me a big hug, then promptly ignored me every day after to focus on Michael.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” my mom defended.
I skewered her with a look. “It wasn’t?”
“Your dad could just relate to Michael easier,” she said weakly.
“Was that it, Dad? You could just relate to him, and it made it easier for you to ignore me? What about the way you belittled me?”
“I never belittled you,” he roared. He was like a cornered lion. A sick, old lion. I should have felt sorry for him, but I didn’t. This was probably my only chance to have this conversation, and I wasn’t going to back down.
“Hell, Dad, you even belittled me today when you poo-pooed my degree in math and computers. Who does that? That was a hard degree, and I graduated at the top of my class. What the fuck, Dad? It’s like you worked to actively hate me.”
“I did not. I loved you,” he roared again. “I mean, I love you. Right now, today. And back then. I’ve always loved you.”
“Then why didn’t you show it?”
“I always showed you I loved you. I came in and tucked you in when you were little. I always came in and looked under your bed for monsters. I showed you I loved you.”
“Why did you put me down? Why weren’t you proud of me?”
“You were always so strong. You were so much smarter than I could ever hope to be. You didn’t need my praise. You could do anything. And you did. You have.”
He reached out and grabbed for my hand. I let him take it. His grip was so much weaker than I remembered.
“I am so sorry that I didn’t give you the recognition you deserved.”
I was having a tough time taking in the fact that my father had just apologized to me. His watery blue eyes were begging for forgiveness.
“Fallon. I love you, and I’m proud of you. I am so sorry that I didn’t show you that the right way before. And now? The way you came home, and how you’ve been here for me and your mother for the last six weeks has been amazing.” Dad was fighting back tears. “Thank you.”
Mom grabbed my other hand. “Your father’s right. I prayed for a miracle, and you have been one of the miracles God has granted.”
“I couldn’t ask for a better daughter,” Dad continued. “Say you’ll forgive me.”
“Forgive us ,” my mom chimed in.
The block of ice that had encased the piece of my heart where my parents were lodged started to crack. “You don’t need my forgiveness. We’re family. I just needed to know that going forward, that I’m enough for you.” My voice broke.
“You are,” Mom assured me.
They both squeezed my hands tightly and I felt like I was outside again, under the summer sun.
“If only you hadn’t—” my dad stopped.
I frowned
“What, Dad?”
“I just don’t know why you ran away. Why did you leave Michael that way? Make us understand.”
I looked from Dad to Mom and then back again. “Michael will need to be here to have that discussion.”
Despite retiring, Dad had to go out of town on business. He might not be the president of the bank anymore, but he still had to go to certain quarterly shareholder meetings, so that had my ass planted at my childhood home with Mom.
I was just settling in to turn on a ballgame, when Mom sat down beside me on the couch. She plopped something on my lap. I looked down and groaned.
“I’ve been good all day, what did I do to deserve this?” I asked as I looked at the photo album.
“It’s either this, or some of your dad’s home films.”
“You win. You win. The photo album.”
Mom grinned. She loved looking through these albums. I looked at the dates on the spine and realized this was the one from when I first came to live with them. They’d taken a picture of me that first day, when I showed up with a black Hefty bag holding all my clothes and the three toys I owned. Back then, Mom and Dad were foster parents who usually took in kids who were in transition.
“You were so quiet and scared that first day,” Mom whispered as she traced my face on the photo. “I couldn’t do anything that would get you to smile. Not even a Wolverine bedspread or chocolate cake and ice cream could get a smile out of you that first week.”
I put my arm around my mom’s shoulder. “I was scared spitless. Everything here looked like it did on TV. I didn’t think it could be real, and I was waiting to be kicked out. I was afraid if I showed I liked something, you’d take it away from me. That’s what my biological dad would do.”
Mom turned to the next page. “This is three weeks in. I remember being so excited the day I took you to the mall and bought you all new clothes. Your old clothes didn’t fit you. They were all too small and were practically rags.”
“It was the first time I’d ever been to the mall. You let me ride one of the mechanical horse rides and one of the car rides inside the mall. I remember you putting in the quarters and feeling like I was king shit.”
“Yeah, but it all went wrong as soon as we got home.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, you wanted to throw away my old clothes. I threw a fit.”
“You never could explain why. All I knew is that I needed to leave them alone. Can you explain it now?”
“I was sure that one day you would kick me out and I wouldn’t be able to take the new clothes, so I had to keep hold of my old clothes.”
Mom’s head dropped. “I should have been able to figure that out,” she whispered. “I should have known to reassure you more.”
“The only thing that was going to reassure me, was time. Plus, I didn’t know it then, but you were doing the real thing that was going to make me feel secure. You were working to adopt me.”
“Yeah, both your father and I knew we wanted you to be our legal son. We would have kept you as a foster child forever, but we wanted to make it legal so that the state could never interfere.” She turned the page.
There I was with Zarek and Chloe at the skating rink.
“How are they doing?” Mom asked.
“It’s still tough.”
“That’s too bad. How about you and Fallon?”
“As soon as we can sort out a few things, I intend to take Fallon away for a week.”
“Sort out things, like whatever kind of threat is going on?” she asked.
I nodded.
“And you and Fallon?”
“I want to marry her, if she’ll have me.”
“She’d be stupid not to. You’re the second-best man I know,” she grinned.
“Is there a reason for the walk through memory lane?” I asked.
She turned a page, and I saw a younger me in a Wolverine costume for Halloween. It was better than any of the other kids’ store-bought costumes, because Mom had made it.
“Yeah, there is. When you explained to your dad and I what you had done to sabotage your wedding, it was clear you didn’t know why you did it. Do you know now?”
“Not entirely, no,” I admitted.
“But you have some ideas?”
“Well, it’s because of my biological dad, and him killing my biological mother.”
Mom nodded. “And?”
“I was trying to push Fallon away from me. For some reason I was thinking that I was bad for Fallon, and I wanted her to get away from me. When I think back to how I was thinking and feeling that night, I was intent on her hating me. I wanted her to never want to see me again.”
Mom flipped the page of the photo album again. This time it was her, Dad, and me in front of the Christmas tree. It was the year I was officially theirs.
“It almost sounds like you were trying to save her,” Mom murmured.
Her words stabbed straight through to my heart. She was right. That is exactly what I was doing. I had been saving Fallon.
From me.
No, not me, from the monster I had confronted yesterday.
Mom patted my chest, right over my heart.
“You good?” she asked.
“Yeah, Mom. I am.”