Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
“Well, your hopes were wrong,” Jordyn muttered under her breath.
Okay.
Lucian knew Jordyn had hit her limit for the day. Just the way anger twisted at her mouth and her hand kept squeezing inside his, she was over it.
That was just fine, too.
“I think we’ll head out for the day,” Lucian said, standing from the couch.
He tugged Jordyn up with him.
“There’s a nice little seafood place a few miles away. Follow the signs into town, you can’t miss it,” Roland informed.
“Thanks,” Lucian said.
Jordyn sighed, rubbing at her forehead. “Can I ... can I ask something else?”
Roland nodded. “Sure, anything.”
“Where is your wife and kids tonight? They’re only teenagers, right? So, it’s not like they live away from home. You knew we were coming for more than a couple of weeks now. We had everything planned—you were contacted ahead of time. This wasn’t like ... an ambush on my part or anything.”
Roland looked stunned. “I ... well, I—”
“I wanted to meet them,” Jordyn interrupted softly. “When I found out I had half-siblings and that you had remarried, I thought it would be nice to meet a part of my family. I didn’t have that growing up. I had nothing growing up.”
“Jordyn,” Lucian murmured, tugging her a little closer to his side. “It’s all right, bella.”
“No ... no it’s not,” Jordyn said, turning back to her father. “I had nothing except a mother who didn’t care for me very well, but I was okay with that. I was fine with the fact you might have moved on with your life because I’m an adult now. I’m married and I’ve lived through hell, and that was perfectly fine. I just wanted the chance to meet you, to meet them, too. Where are they? Why aren’t they here today to meet me, too?”
Roland looked like he wished the floor would swallow him whole. “My wife didn’t want to be here and didn’t want the kids mixed up in it, either. Dee took them to a movie for a couple of hours. I think they were going shopping after.”
“Me, you mean,” Jordyn said. “She didn’t want to be mixed up with me.”
“Essentially, yeah.” Roland sighed heavily, adding, “I’m sorry, but she was content to leave it all behind. You’re right, you’re an adult. We both figured that by now, you’d have moved on in life, too. If you hadn’t come looking for me by now, I didn’t think you ever would. You were young enough when your mother took you that I suspected maybe she hadn’t told you where you came from. You wouldn’t have known better.”
“She told me,” Jordyn said faintly. “She didn’t lie—she was a lot of things. She was an addict and neglectful; selfish, too.”
Roland frowned. “I’m aware of what Sandra could be like.”
“My mother was a lot of things,” Jordyn repeated. “But a liar was not one of them.”
*
“How did it go?” Antony asked.
Lucian felt the tightening in his chest return. “Awfully.”
Antony blew out a puff of air that crackled in the speaker. “Yes?”
“Yeah,” Lucian confirmed.
“I’m sorry, son. I know ... she was looking forward to this.”
“She was,” he agreed. “And I don’t think it’s him so much as his entire world right now. The fact he’s practically said his goodbyes to her without ever even actually saying it. He’s left her behind—the two year old her. His life has moved forward.”
“And parts of hers is still stuck back there, waiting for her father to catch up,” Antony finished for his son.
“I’d say so.”
Antony hummed a sad sound. “Do you feel that way too, sometimes?”
“About what?” Lucian asked.
“Us, I guess. Or rather, your mother and father. Do you feel like there’s a part of you that’s still stuck in your six year old self, waiting for the world to tell you they did you wrong or made unfair calls? Are you waiting for the rest of us to catch up with it all?”
“Do I want John and Lina, you mean.”
“I suppose that’s what I’m saying.”
“So say it,” Lucian said.
Antony sighed. “Do you, Lucian?”
“I miss my parents.”
“I know.”
“And I love them, especially my mother,” Lucian added quieter.
“I know that, too.”
Lucian smiled. “So yeah, but I don’t worry about it too much because I know when I get back to New York, they’ll be waiting there for me. I can always go home—you’re still waiting.”
Antony fell silent for a moment before saying, “You know we’re not who I was talking about.”
“But you’re who I’m talking about, Papa.”
“Is it really that simple for you, Lucian?”
“It wasn’t,” he admitted, “not for a long time.”
“But?”
“But I have a family—I always have. I don’t need to focus on the past.”
*
“Lucian?”
Lucian slipped into the bathroom doorway and leaned against the jamb, watching his wife surrounded by bubbles in the hotel’s tub. “Hmm?”
“I’m sad,” Jordyn mumbled.
He didn’t need her to tell him that.