Chapter 7 #2
“Then I may as well get used to it,” I joked, trying to pull a smile out of him. “I remember the day we moved Mom in. It’s a lot, even when your entire everyday routine doesn’t shift at the same time. So let me buy you coffee or a burger or something.”
A smile twitched at his lips.
“Yes, it is a lot,” he whispered, shutting his eyes for a moment. “Sure. I’d actually like that.”
His gaze snagged on mine, the slow grin spreading across his face distracting me for a minute.
If this was going to work for the next few months, I couldn’t be distracted by smiles or crinkles at the corners of baby-blue eyes or the way Lee’s muscles moved under his T-shirt.
“You lead the way. I don’t know this area well enough yet to know where’s a good place to eat,” Lee said, holding the passenger side door of his SUV open for me.
“The diner by the highway is decent. Good burgers and coffee, depending on what you want. As long as you let me pay this time.” I glared at him, but he didn’t reply and shut the door.
Lee was silent as we drove, tapping on the steering wheel at red lights. He squirmed in his seat, seeming both agitated and defeated as he huffed to himself.
“I know it’s tough, but this is a great place. She can be on her own while she’s watched. Mom has even made some awesome strides in therapy here too.”
“I know,” he said, still fidgeting with the wheel after we rolled into the parking lot and he killed the engine.
“It’s not the best milestone, I know. I’m sure Mom will introduce her to her tribe of friends, and I’ll make sure to bring Bennie here as much as I can to see her while you’re away.”
He nodded, his gaze still drifting around the parking lot as his chest rose and fell with slow breaths.
“Maybe if I had settled us sooner, my daughter wouldn’t have to go through so much damn change at once.” His jaw clenched harder with every long exhale.
“Change is the only constant of life, as my father always said. She’ll miss her aunt and her grandmother, but no one is really that far away with video calls and texting, right?”
I expected Lee to nod or shrug or something, but he didn’t move.
“They’ll still be in her life all the time, even if they don’t live in the same house anymore.”
“Bennie’s life shouldn’t be disrupted because our family is moving on with their own lives and not revolving them around us anymore,” Lee said through gritted teeth. “And that’s my fucking fault.”
“Your fault? How is that—”
“Remember when you said you were mad at your father for smoking and felt like shit because of it?”
Lee’s gaze stayed vacant.
“Well, I didn’t until you reminded me.” I chuckled, but he wouldn’t turn his head.
“I still am sometimes,” I said, shifting in my seat to get a better look at the pain pulling at his features.
“I still wish that he hadn’t been so reckless about his health so I could have kept him longer, but who knows if that would have helped.
Some smokers can live a lifetime on a pack a day and never get cancer.
When it’s your time, it’s your time, I suppose. ”
He nodded, tapping the wheel as his chest moved up and down.
“I fought with Katie for years over having kids. We went to every cardiac specialist, and they all gave us the green light. Then Bennie was born, and I could see the toll it took on Katie, but she insisted she was fine. Her doctor adjusted her heart meds and assured us that any weakness was just her body adjusting.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I let a tense silence settle between us, hoping that would help Lee let out what he had to.
“Bennie was supposed to be in the car with her that day. She was so fussy and cranky, Katie asked our neighbor to watch Bennie while she ran to the store.”
Lee’s throat worked while he clenched his eyes shut, his fingers flexing around the steering wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white.
The air drained from my lungs at the terrifying possibility that he could have lost them both in that crash.
“That’s not like Bennie,” was all I could say, waiting for him to continue.
“Right,” he said with a humorless laugh. “It was almost as if she knew and was trying to warn her. I love my daughter more than my own life, but…” He leaned back, scrubbing his hand down his face.
“You’re mad because if Katie hadn’t gotten pregnant, then maybe her heart condition wouldn’t have gotten worse.”
“Yes,” he gritted out, leaning his elbow on the door. “Maybe it would have anyway. Who knows, like you said.”
“Have you ever told anyone this?”
His head whipped to me.
“What? That I’m mad at my wife for getting sick after having our baby, just like I was afraid she would, and leaving us both? No. It’s bad enough I let my family take care of us for years because I couldn’t handle being alone with my own daughter. Fuck,” he grunted out, slapping the steering wheel.
“Lee, come on.” I eased closer, balling my hand into a fist to fight the urge to touch his tortured face. I’d seen him in pain over Katie before, but not like this. After the funeral, he’d been listless, but now it seemed like everything he’d been holding back was ricocheting through his body.
“You had a horrible thing happen to you, and your family stepped in to help.” I grabbed his wrist. “Again, like I’ve told you, it’s what families do.
You did what you could handle at the time.
What did they tell me in group—being mad at them for not being here is just because you love them that much?
” I leaned forward, fighting an overwhelming, visceral urge to bring him into my arms.
“I should have gotten settled alone while she was younger. Then she wouldn’t have to go through all this change and adjustment now.”
“Kids are more resilient than you think. You all raised a happy, smart girl who I am sure will be very popular at her grandmother’s new place.”
“I’m sure she will,” he said, his hand falling to his side as he finally eased off the wheel.
“There’s no set timeline for you to figure out how to get your life together. I’m a great example of taking the long way. And now, you are.”
Lee nodded, his eyes still blank.
“It’s time to give yourself a break. For feeling however you feel, for taking the help that your family was more than happy to give you, and for learning how to adjust.”
He fell back, his body now limp when he rolled his head toward me with a slow smile coasting across his mouth. Warmth flooded my chest that I wanted to brush off as relief, but Lee’s gaze was heavy with more than just repressed grief.
“You almost convinced me I’m not the shittiest father alive.”
“Your daughter loves you. You made sure she was taken care of while you sorted yourself out. I think that makes you an amazing father.”
His eyes traveled over my face while he drifted his knuckle along my jaw.
“You sound pretty wise for someone who says she doesn’t have it together.”
“Oh, trust me. I don’t,” I said, breathless as goose bumps puckered down my neck. I smoothed my hair away from my shoulder, grazing the raised skin to calm it down before Lee could notice.
Getting goose bumps from a man I was about to move in with couldn’t happen. It was another one of those muscle-memory reactions I’d have to find a way to control.
“Now that we have that all settled, I’m hungry.” I reached for the door handle, desperate for some distance and air since the inside of the cab seemed to have neither.
“Hey,” Lee called to me when I walked ahead.
“What? I told you I was hungry.” I crossed my arms and jerked my chin toward the diner entrance.
Lee ambled over to where my feet were rooted to the concrete.
“Come here,” he whispered, pulling me into a hug.
I felt his full-body exhale when he dropped his head to the crook of my shoulder, goose bumps now breaking out all over the place. I was over this, over him, so why was my heart trying to hammer right out of my chest?
Instead of resisting, I melted into him, resting my head on his shoulder while I allowed myself one greedy minute.
“It was always like this with us,” Lee whispered as he pulled away.
“Like what?” The fight to gasp enough air to make words was as frustrating as it was embarrassing.
“I love your brother and all, but he was never much of a talker. He was more about the silent support.”
“So you’re saying that I’m the bigmouth of the two of us?” I said with a shaky laugh.
“No.” He shook his head as his mouth curved. “All those long talks we’d have, sometimes for hours.” He dipped his head, lifting a brow. “There’s still no one I’d rather spill my guts to than you. You brought me back to life back then, and you’re kind of saving it now.”
One more inch of that crooked smile would make me melt right on the asphalt. Those long talks had been everything. He’d brought me back to life too, then had made me fall in love with him shortly before he’d torn my heart to shreds.
But he hadn’t known he was doing it, so how could I be mad at him?
I couldn’t and wouldn’t be taunted by an old wish that would never come true.