Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
I should have been happy but I wasn’t. Being with Mark fulfilled every single teenage fantasy I had nurtured over the years, but I couldn’t completely throw myself into how I felt about him.
He had trust issues and I was afraid that no matter how he felt about me it wouldn’t be enough for him to open up.
I was keeping myself from totally losing myself in him for fear of the pain if it didn’t work out. I was either being cautious or a coward. I was debating which one when my telephone rang.
It was my dad. I didn’t immediately answer. Why was he calling? I let it ring, unable to bring myself to take the call. When it stopped and silence descended, I waited to see if he left a message, but he didn’t.
I paced my small apartment, wondering what the call was about. This time I was being a coward so I rang him back and waited for him to pick up.
“Hi.” He sounded nervous and it made me feel bad.
“You called?”
“Yeah…I was hoping we could meet up… If that’s okay?”
I wanted to say no but something in his voice stopped me .
“Where do you want to meet?” I found myself saying.
“I’m at the park, if you can make it now.”
I wasn’t sure if I was ready to do it but it was too late now. “I’ll meet you at the bench by the pond.”
It was the place I liked to think, so at least it would be quiet and there wouldn’t be too many people. This was going to be emotional.
“See you soon,” he said, and I ended the call.
Was it too soon? But I didn’t want to drag this whole thing out either.
I had lost a parent already and our time was gone.
Did I really want to lose the time I had left with the parents I still had?
Even though my dad wasn’t biologically my father, it didn’t make him mean anything less to me.
I still loved him as much as I had before.
I made my way to the park, taking my time. I wasn’t sure I had the ability to deal with the upcoming meeting with him.
My throat burned when I spotted his lone figure at the edge of the water, throwing food at the ducks in the water.
His shoulders bent forward, he looked deep in thought. For the first time I saw what my absence was doing to him and I didn’t like how it made me feel. He was my dad but I still felt nervous when I approached him and I didn’t know how to start. Did I just say hello and see where it went from there?
But he felt my gaze, because he turned to watch me approach. “Hi.” His eyes lit up and my throat constricted. Dad.
I nodded, unable to talk without giving away my vulnerability.
“How are you?”
I shrugged.
“We’ve been worried about you.” He dusted his hand off on his jeans, having finished feeding the ducks, who were still waiting around for more.
“It’s been a bit rough.” It was a nice way of putting the emotional rollercoaster I had been through.
And that hadn’t been the only thing going on in my life, but I wasn’t ready to open up to anyone about Mark yet.
I wanted us to work out but I knew realistically the chances were slim.
First he had to meet me halfway and trust me with something.
If he couldn’t do that, we were over before we even got started.
“Oh, Tracy, we never meant for this to happen.” He made a move closer. “We only ever wanted you to be happy and loved.”
The resentment of what I had lost with my real father rose to the surface and I found it difficult to feel sympathy for him.
“I don’t feel very loved at the moment. I missed out on the chance to meet my father and I’ll never get that back.
” There was an ache in my chest and no amount of words were going to take it away.
Maybe it would get better with time. Getting a chance to get to know my half-brothers would help heal it.
He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
My throat burned and I shoved my hands into my jeans. I dropped my eyes to look down at the ground. His boot came into my line of vision.
“There’s nothing your mom or I can say that’ll fix what you’re going through.”
I let out a shaky breath when I looked back up at him.
“We did it because I loved you like my own and I never wanted you to feel that wasn’t the case.
At the time we believed it was the right choice but now I can see we could have done things differently.
” He looked so much older in that moment.
“This is tearing at all of us. Matthew won’t speak to us and we miss both of you. ”
I shifted, feeling guilty despite having every reason to feel the way I did. “That’s the thing…” I paused. “I’ve always felt different.” I shrugged.
“I had no idea.” He swallowed.
I nodded, finding it difficult to open up about things I had fought so hard to keep hidden .
“Matthew is so together all the time, and Sophie isn’t anything like me either.”
“Siblings are different,” he murmured. “I’m nothing like my brother.”
“It’s not just that. It became a joke with how different I looked from Matthew and Sophie, but it made me feel different too, and it went deeper than just that.”
He studied me but kept quiet.
“I always felt like I was missing something. Finding out about Robert made me realize what I’d been looking for.”
“I’m listening,” my dad prompted softly. I could see this was difficult for him but I had to say it. Maybe things might have worked out differently if I had been honest about it earlier, but I couldn’t live in a place where there was no possibility of a different outcome.
“He loved to paint. Maggie showed me a whole bunch of stuff he had painted and I finally have something that connects me to someone. I finally feel like I’ve found what I’ve been searching for. I have inherited my creativity from him. It doesn’t sound like much, but I feel like I belong.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” It came out as a whisper.
“I didn’t want you and Mom to feel like you’d failed me in some way.”
He looked slightly overcome, and I reached out a hand to touch his arm. “I’m still mad and hurt but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
His eyes watered and I moved forward to hug him. He returned the hug with a tight grip around me.
“We love you so much. I still consider you my own and I… always will.”
I closed my eyes while I was overcome with more emotion, which was difficult to cope with.
“And you’re still my dad.” He hugged me more tightly .
“Can’t…breathe,” I managed to get out, and he released his hold.
He smiled. “Sorry.” He kissed my forehead.
“It’s so good to see you again. Your mom has really been struggling with your absence.”
His eyes searched mine.
“Tell her I’ll be around for lunch on Sunday.”
His whole face lit up. “Really?”
I nodded. “I don’t want to hurt either of you but I had to have time to work through it.”
“She’ll be so happy.”
I didn’t know if it would be possible to return to the same relationship we had before, but maybe we could build something new.
“I’ll have a talk to Matthew as well.”
He rubbed his brow. “I don’t know if he’ll come around.”
His anger stemmed from my pain. I was sure if he saw I was making the effort to put it behind us it would be easier for him to do the same.
“Let me handle him,” I assured him.
After my meeting with my dad, I wrestled with the decision of if I was ready to tell my brother about Mark, but I didn’t want to take that step until I was sure this thing with him had a chance.
It was on my mind again when I opened the door to my apartment building later that evening, to see Mark. He leaned casually, waiting for me to let him in.
“You gonna let me in?” he asked when I didn’t move.
I nodded, letting him pass me before I closed the door. I stood watching him anxiously, not wanting to confront him about the trust issue but knowing I had to .
There was so much at risk. We had just started, and I felt there was a big risk we wouldn’t get past the first hurdle.
“What’s wrong?” Mark’s eyes narrowed, taking in my closed-off body language.
“We need to talk,” I said. My heart was still trying to slow down because the sight of him did weird things to my body. I was trying to think of what I had planned to say but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember a word.
I walked over to the sofa and sat down. Mark didn’t, remaining standing beside the chair, and it made me feel like he somehow had the upper hand. There was no way to tell what he was thinking, his face void of any emotion.
“We agreed that when we started this, we had to have…trust.”
His mouth tightened and my stomach dropped. It did nothing to make me feel this was something we could overcome. Saying it was one thing but actually following through was something else entirely.
Silence ensued, making me feel more uncomfortable.
“I don’t want to push you.” I nervously licked my lips, trying to hang on to the courage to stand firm and not let it go.
“But you’re going to anyway,” he retorted. The tension was clear in his tight jaw.
I stood up, needing to feel more in control, and I found myself standing in front of him. But his air of aloofness kept me from moving any closer.
“I need to be sure this has a chance before we tell Matthew.” It wasn’t something I was looking forward to, the unsurety of how he would take it making me more anxious.
“I need to prove I can trust you before you’re ready to tell your brother,” he deduced.
I nodded. It made sense to me in my head, but not when he said it out loud.
He turned away from me and his stance was tense. This wasn’t going well and I had a sense that it was going to end very differently than how I had hoped. I watched as he faced me again and I could see from his expression he was angry.
“So, what do you need, Tracy? A few details about my past, will that suffice? Or do you need to know everything before you’re willing to take a chance?” His eyes flared and I knew I had made a mistake. “And if I’m too fucked up, then what?”
I frowned, moving closer. “This isn’t about that. Who you are today is shaped by your past. It won’t change how I feel about you but it might help me understand you better.”