by HELEN HARDT
I’m a freaking open book.
Except…
About my childhood.
About my father.
I read no further. It’s all fluff anyway.
For someone who prides herself on being an open book, I’m kind of sealed shut about those two areas. I don’t even let myself think about the father thing.
Dale holds his phone, but he’s not reading what’s on the screen. Rather, he’s staring into space. Is this a good time? Maybe if I tell Dale about my childhood, about my own birth father, he’ll open up. If not? At least he’ll have something else to focus on for the next several hours.
I lightly touch his forearm. “Dale?”
“Hmm?” He doesn’t turn to look at me.
“I want to talk to you.”
“About what?” Still not looking at me.
I squeeze his muscled forearm. “Look at me. Please.”
He sighs and turns toward me. His green eyes are unreadable. They don’t show sadness. They don’t show anger. They don’t show fear. All emotions that would be normal when a parent is having life-threatening surgery.
But this man isn’t a parent to Dale. Only biologically.
Just like my own father.
“What is it?” he asks.
“I want to tell you something about myself.”
“Sure. What?”
“I… My father…”
“You said you don’t talk about him.”
“I don’t, normally. But I’d like to tell you what I know. And about some other things.”
“Okay.” His tone softens a little, and the burgundy fills the air and seems to float around me in a protective cloak.
I clear my throat. Here goes. No shoving it back inside the Scarlett O’Hara file. “When I was old enough to ask, my mother told me he died in a car crash when I was a baby. She made do as best she could, but eventually we were evicted from our apartment because she missed so much rent.”
“I’m sorry.” He takes my hand. “You told me you’ve gone to bed hungry before. I’m sorry about that.”
“Yeah. Hungry. Sometimes cold and hungry. Other times sweltering and hungry. San Francisco can get up to a hundred degrees in the summer.”
He squeezes my hand to the point it’s uncomfortable. “Wait. Are you telling me…?”
“That I was homeless? Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”
“Ashley, baby, I’m so sorry.”
I melt. Seriously. Right into butter on the uncomfortable waiting room chair. Baby. He’s never called me any kind of endearment.
Baby.
Baby.
That voice that enthralls me.
But I can’t stop now. I’m opening up to him in hopes that he’ll open up to me.
“Yeah. I mean, we stayed in shelters when we could, but we also lived in a tent sometimes.”
“Fuck,” he says.
I clear my throat. “Anyway—”
“How did you eat?”
“Well…sometimes, we didn’t. Other times, my mom would get a day’s work here or there, and her employer would send home food for us. There was a guy in Chinatown who owned a restaurant. He’d give me rice and lo mein if I went in. Every now and then someone would give me a half-eaten sandwich or something.”
“You ate leftovers?”
“Yeah. I even dumpster dived a few times. Not when my mother was around. She hated that. She’s a classy woman. Being homeless didn’t change who she is.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“It didn’t. She was determined to find her own way and get us out of there. She never resorted to prostitution or selling drugs, like a lot of homeless people do. And she was determined no one would touch me. Ever.”
As a mother should be, of course. But when I found out about my father and what my mother had been through at his hand, I truly understood her determination.
“She sounds amazing.”
“She is.” I force a laugh. “She agrees with you about my oenology degrees, though.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. She wanted me to go to trade school right out of high school so I could start making money. She didn’t want me ever to be in the situation we were in when I was a kid.”
He smiles. Sort of. A half smile.
I’ll take it.
“But I worked my ass off in high school and got great scholarships and grants. The fact that we had virtually no money helped a lot. There’s a ton of college money available for those who really need it.”
He says nothing.
Of course, he never needed it. Didn’t matter anyway, since he didn’t finish college. I want to ask why, but that’s a question for another time. This is about me opening up. Not pushing him to open up.
“I read all the time. I still read a lot, but not like when I was a kid. When you grow up without TV and everything, books are your best friends.”
“Books?” he says.
“Yeah. Books. You do read, don’t you?”
“Not much. I mean, not for a while. What’s your favorite book?”
“Kidnapped.”
Dale goes rigid. Over a book?
I’m not sure what to do, so I say, “Anyway, back to my…”
“Your what?”
I draw in a breath. “My father. Back to my father.”
“You said he died.”
“Yes, and he did, in a way. But before I came here, my mother told me the truth about him. He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please. Don’t be.” I draw in another breath. “I don’t let myself think about what I’m about to say, Dale. It’s something I’d rather forget. In a way, I wish my mother had never told me, but I understand why she did. We have to know where we come from. We have to keep ourselves from making the same mistakes as our parents. Not that I’d ever do what my father did…”
He brings the back of my hand to his lips and kisses it gently. A sweet gesture, and I think I fall in love with him a little bit more, if that’s even possible.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Tell me.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Dale
Homeless.
Ashley was homeless.
When she told me she sometimes went to bed hungry, I never imagined…
My sweet Ashley.
She’s opening up, probably hoping I’ll do the same.
Unfortunately, she’s going to be disappointed.
“My father wasn’t a good man,” she says. “He died years ago. In prison.”
I lift my eyebrows. For some reason, though, I’m not overly surprised. A person doesn’t “not talk” about a parent if he or she is a paragon of society.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“I didn’t know the man, and once my mother told me the truth about him, I’m glad I never knew him.”
“You mean he was a criminal.”
She clears her throat. “Yeah. And what he did. To her.”
A bad feeling lodges in my stomach—kind of like I ate some rank food and the acid is trying to digest it but can’t.
A feeling not unlike…
I shake my head to clear my thoughts. “Ashley, what did he do?”
Her neck moves as she swallows slowly. “He raped her, Dale. And I’m the result.”
That acidic lump in my stomach balloons into nausea that threatens to prick its talons through my flesh.
Ashley’s mother and I have something in common, then. I don’t want to go there, but I can’t help thinking about it.
This beautiful woman—this woman I love more than anything—only exists because a criminal forced himself on her mother.
What must it be like to go through life with a child of a rape? Did she remember the horror every time she looked at Ashley? Beautiful Ashley?
Ashley has nothing but good to say about her mother, though. Clearly, then, her mother loved her daughter more than she hated her rapist.
An amazing woman. Well, she had to be to raise
such a wonderful daughter in such horrific circumstances. Homelessness. Hunger. Trauma.
And I know what all of those feel like.
I can probably relate more to Ashley’s mother than I can to Ashley herself.
But Ashley will never know. Ashley can’t ever know those things I keep so bottled up inside.
I’ve let enough out already.
Ashley gulps again. “Are you going to say anything? Please tell me I haven’t made a mistake by telling you this.”
I rub my thumb into the palm of her hand. “Of course not. I just… I hate the thought of you ever being cold or hungry. And your mother… What she went through…”
I can say no more without letting negative emotion overwhelm me, and I’m already on that perilous edge, sitting here while my degenerate of a birth father has life-threatening surgery.
I know how I feel, yet I don’t know how I feel.
“Thank you,” Ashley says softly. “I just wanted you to know.”
I don’t want any secrets between us.
Those are the words she doesn’t utter but that I hear plain as day anyway.
But secrets… Some secrets aren’t fit for conversation.
Some secrets have to stay buried forever.
I open my mouth but am saved from talking by a nurse approaching us.
“Mr. Steel,” the young woman says, “Dr. Larson sent me to tell you that Mr. Jolly’s surgery will take longer than expected.”
I wrinkle my forehead, wondering what I should be feeling. “Why is that?”
“We found an anomaly in his cardiac anatomy. His aortic valve has a deformity.”
“Didn’t you do an echocardiogram?”
“Of course, but it’s a minute deformity that wasn’t detectable. The doctor has to repair it before she can complete the bypass.”
“Did this deformity contribute to his heart attack?”
“There’s no way to know that without testing. Mr. Jolly isn’t in any further danger. The surgery will just take longer.”
“How much longer?”
“Probably several more hours.”
“You’ve already been in there for two.”
“This is a complex surgery, sir.”
“I understand that. But—”
Ashley takes my hand. “How much longer?”
“Probably at least four hours. Possibly five.”
“All right. Come on, Dale. We should get some lunch.”
“That’s a good idea,” the nurse says. “Make sure reception has your number so they can call you if anything comes up, but otherwise, it’s a waiting game at this point.”
Things jumble in my head. What does this mean for me genetically? If he has a heart deformity, do I?
I open my mouth to ask, but the nurse turns and walks back through the double doors.
Fuck.
More shit to deal with.
“You need to eat something,” Ashley says again.
“Not hungry,” I grumble.
“Doesn’t matter.” She tugs on my hand. “Let’s go.”
I sigh. Why not let her take charge? I sure as hell don’t know what to do at this point. My father abandoned me. If he hadn’t, maybe Donny and I wouldn’t have been sitting ducks that horrible day.
Now the asshole may have given me a heart deformity.
What next?
Yeah, pity party for me. It’s not my style, but what the hell? The man lying with his chest cut open fathered me.
I should feel something.
But I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.
If he dies on the table, I won’t shed a tear.
If he doesn’t, I’ll probably never see him again.
“Come on.” Ashley tugs once more.
I relent and allow her to lead me out of the waiting area.
Chapter Forty-Three
Ashley
After dragging Dale out of the hospital and to a nearby sandwich shop, I stood over him while he ate his roast beef on sourdough and drained a full glass of iced tea.
He fought me at every step.
We’re back in the waiting room now. After four hours of excruciating silence—Dale didn’t ask me any more about my father, and he didn’t volunteer any information about his own past—we just got word that the doctor will be out soon to talk to us.
“Dale.”
I jump at the voice.
It’s Talon.
Dale stands. “Hey, Dad. You didn’t have to come down here.”
“I’d’ve been here sooner, but I had meetings that couldn’t wait. I see you haven’t been alone. Thank you, Ashley.”
“It’s no problem,” I say. “This is where I want to be.”
Talon smiles at me. Does he know? Did Jade tell him I didn’t spend the night at home?
Get over yourself, Ash. None of that even remotely matters.
“We all appreciate it,” Talon says. “Any news?”
“Actually, yeah,” Dale says. “The doc should be out soon to talk to us.”
Dr. Larson steps through the double doors.
“Here she comes now,” I say.
“Mr. Steel,” she says to Dale.
“How is he?”
“He’s doing pretty well at the moment.” She eyes me and then Talon.
“Sorry,” Dale says. “This is my father, Talon Steel, and you met my friend Ashley. It’s okay to speak in front of them.”
“Certainly,” the doctor says. “As you know, your father—er, Mr. Jolly—has an abnormal aortic valve that we had to replace while we were in there. That’s part of what took so long. He’s recovering in the ICU, where he’ll be for the next few days. He’s still unconscious, which is normal. We keep heart patients intubated for several hours after surgery, and we keep them pretty sedated as well.”
Dale’s lips move slightly, but nothing comes out, almost like he doesn’t know what to say.
Talon steps up then. “Can we see him?”
“I can let one of you in if you’d like,” Dr. Larson says, “but he won’t know you’re there.”
Dale shakes his head. “It’s okay. Let him rest.”
Dr. Larson nods as she hands Dale a card. “Here’s my information if you have any other questions.”
“How long will he be here?” Talon asks.
“At least four days, possibly longer. Then no driving or heavy lifting for two months. He’ll get all of that information in his discharge instructions. Will one of you be staying with him?”
Dale lifts his eyebrows. More like makes them nearly fly off his forehead.
“We’ll see that he has adequate care,” Talon says.
That seems to satisfy the doctor. She nods and then turns back toward the double doors, disappearing through them.
Suddenly I feel like a very visible third wheel here. The air is thick, and I’m almost suffocating. “Since you’re here now,” I say to Talon, “I think I’ll find my way back to the ranch. I don’t want to miss another day of work tomorrow.”
“Nonsense,” Talon says. “I’ll book all of us into the Carlton for as long as necessary.”
“Dad, I don’t think—”
“No argument,” Talon says to Dale. “This man is responsible for bringing you into the world. The least we can do is let him know he’s not alone.”
Now I feel really weird. “I came here to work,” I say.
“She’s right, Dad,” Dale agrees. “It’s harvest time. Not just for me but for you too. We can’t stay here.”
I don’t want to stay here.
Those are the words Dale really wants to say. I hear them floating on the velvety burgundy of his voice.
Talon stays quiet for a moment, his head cocked as if he’s in thought. Finally, “All right, Dale. Take Ashley home. See to the harvest. I know how much it means to you.”
“You’re not saying…” Dale begins.
“Yes. I’ll stay here with your father.”
“You’re my father, and the ranch needs you now.”
“We’ve got the best staff in the business,” Talon says. “The orchard will get along fine without me for a couple days.”
“Dad…”
“Did I not just say no argument? Go. Both of you. Someone should be here when the man wakes up.”
“The nurse will be here,” Dale says without feeling.
Talon’s jawline tenses. “You’ve made your feelings clear. Go. I understand. But do not attempt to sway me. I will stay here so Floyd is not alone when he wakes up. The man is responsible for bringing two of the people I love most into this world.”
“Neither one of us owes him a damned thing,” Dale says.
“You do. You owe him your life. Literally. And I owe him for giving me you and your brother.”
Dale says nothing.
The words hang in the air, and though I haven’t seen colors in other voices since I met Dale and his voice had such an impact, a new shade cloaks me now.
Talon’s voice is dark blue—a calming dark blue, like the night sky. It’s the voice of authority, and also the voice of a father’s love. This man loves his child so much that he also loves the man who’s responsible for his existence.
A lump catches in my throat.
Does my mother feel that way about my father? The vehicle that caused her such pain and torment but that also brought me into her life?
I hate what he did to my mother, but other than that, I have no feeling at all for the man.
Before I can contemplate the thought further, Dale grabs my hand. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll call you if there’s any news,” Talon says.
Dale nods.
“Wait, wait.” My thoughts are muddled. Love fills me. Love for Dale. And this man, who just went through surgery… This man is responsible for Dale being in the world. Talon’s words have made me see everything differently.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m overemotional because of the situation. Because of my love for Dale. Because I told him about my childhood. My father. Everything’s on the surface now, and I don’t know how to deal with any of it.
Except I can’t leave.
I feel the same way Talon does. The man in the ICU brought the man I love into this world.
Anyone who loves Dale should be here.
“For God’s sake,” Dale says. “What is it?”