Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Jacob moved forward.
Sally did too.
Dad had tears in his eyes, and he looked at me.
“Darlin’, I’ve always loved you.”
“You can’t just say it, sir,” Alexis said quietly. “You have to show it.”
Jacob got closer to my dad.
Dad stared at me.
“Jacob,” Martha issued her order tersely.
Dad moved.
His arms shooting out, he caught me, pulled me into his body, wrapped me tight, pushed his face in my neck, and sobbed, “I’ve missed you, Raye, so damned much, honey.”
Tentatively, I put my hands on his back.
He lifted up, cupped my face to his hands, ran his thumbs across my cheeks, and whispered, “You look just like your mom.”
My body bucked.
Cap’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck.
“I wanted you to go,” Dad said.
“What?” I whispered.
Cap’s hand squeezed.
“I couldn’t protect you,” he pushed out. “Christ, every day I woke up, terrified of what might happen to you.”
And it happened again.
My insides hollowed out.
“Oh, Dad,” I said softly.
“She was on a fucking playground. How can a kid not be safe on a fucking playground?”
Oh God.
I pushed into him, and this time held on tight.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, cheek to his chest.
“It was, honey.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You’ll have kids one day and you’ll get it. It was.” He pulled me away with my face in his hands again, and he said, “But I wanna work on it because it’s torture, you being far from me. I thought I deserved it. I thought it was my penance. I thought you’d be safer, far away from me. But I couldn’t hack it. Then, when it got too much, and I’d break down and think to come to you, I’d think again I was being weak. You went away, and I thought you did it to protect yourself from me. I thought you needed the distance. So I stayed away. But it’s not that. It’s not weak. I miss my little girl. So I’m gonna work on it because I need you in my life.”
I put my hand over one of his at my face. “Does Deb make you happy?”
“Yes, but it’s incomplete because you aren’t a part of it. I hate that I do that to her too. I just can’t seem to stop…fucking up.”
“He left us with this, Dad. This is all on him. But he took Macy. We can’t keep giving him pieces of us.”
He nodded. “You’re right.”
I put my other hand to his and curled both around, taking his from my face, but I held them between us.
“You need to go back to Deb,” I said.
“She lives with the guilt too.”
I figured that was part of the draw.
Though, Deb was very pretty, and if memory served, really sweet.
“You’re right. You have work to do. Both of you. But it isn’t your fault. I don’t blame you. Mom didn’t.”
“She did.”
Hang on.
“What?”
“She blamed me, and she blamed Deb. I protected you from it when she’d lose it. The words she’d hurl at me. She hated me before she stopped feeling anything. I didn’t want you to know. After we lost her. Your memories of her were already jaded. I wanted you to be able to keep hold of what little you had. I didn’t want to tell you how much hate she had for me, how deeply she blamed me.”
“How could she blame you? You had nothing to do with it.”
“She sent Macy to Deb’s so she could get her hair done. The truth of it is, darlin’, she couldn’t stand the guilt she felt herself, so she transferred it to me.”
God, this was so fucked up.
He looked over my shoulder, so I looked over my shoulder to see everyone else had drifted away.
Everyone but Cap, Luna, Scott, Louise and Shirleen.
“I’m glad she has you,” Dad said to Cap.
Cap, his hand still on my neck, gave it a squeeze, then he wrapped his arm around my belly again and gently pulled me away.
That was the only response he gave my dad.
“Right.” Dad sniffed. “Friday. You bring whoever you need to bring, darlin’. We’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
His eyes moved over my face like he was drinking it in, memorizing it.
My eyes, I knew, were doing the same.
Then he nodded decisively and turned to walk away.
He got only a few steps in before I called, “Dad.”
He turned back.
“I missed you too.”
He gave me a small, sad smile, a low wave, then he was gone.
When I lost sight of him, I wilted in Cap’s arm.
But he wasn’t the one who caught me.
When the first sob came, it sounded against Linda’s neck.
The next one, Martha’s arms were also around me.
The next one, Alexis had burrowed in.
The next, Jacob had surrounded all of us in his embrace.
It was then, I realized I no longer lived in my Citadel, and I hadn’t for a long time.
I’d moved to an Oasis.
EIGHTEEN
DAD INTERRUPTED