Father Figure

by Rebecca Daniels

  “Is this about Dylan?” Josh asked quietly, pausing in the open doorway.

  Despite the warm summer sun, a cold chill traveled through her. “Why do you ask that?”

  Josh stepped down onto the patio, slipping his hands into the pockets of his baggy shorts. “It’s pretty obvious something’s happened.” He shrugged, walking to the steps and sitting down. “I didn’t ask ‘cause I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

  Marissa felt hot tears sting her eyes. “I appreciate that, and yes, you’re right, something has happened.”

  “You’ve broken up.”

  She struggled with the lump of emotion in her throat. “Yes, we have.”

  Josh looked away, taking a deep breath. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, putting her head down and knotting her hands nervously together.

  Josh slammed his fist down hard. “He promised me he wasn’t going to hurt you.”

  “Don’t blame him,” she said quickly, coming to her feet. “It’s more complicated than that. That’s why we need to talk. I need to tell you something I probably should have told you a long time ago.” She walked across the patio, sitting down beside him. “But first just let me say that no matter what, I love you. I’ve always loved you. If I made mistakes—and believe me, I have—just know that what I did, I did because I loved you, because I thought it was best for you.”

  The story seemed to spill out of her then. Sixteen years of holding back, sixteen years of keeping up appearances and living a lie, all came rushing out like water over a dam. At times the tears spilled down her cheeks so furiously she had no time to wipe them away, and sometimes the emotion in her throat grew so thick she could hardly speak. But despite all this, she persevered and struggled to get the truth out.

  “You mean you and…Dylan?” Josh asked, visibly shaken. “You had Dylan’s baby?”

  Marissa nodded, and closed her eyes. The look on his face was too much; it tore at her heart too painfully. “And the worst part is, I never told him…I never told him about the baby.” She drew in a deep breath, opening her eyes. The wave of emotion had passed, and her voice became flat and stoic. “It was a terrible thing to do, I realize that now. But at the time, I was hurt. He’d been so angry when he’d found I’d pretended about being Mallory. He’d said such awful things.” She paused again, feeling empty and spent inside. “When I found out about the baby I just couldn’t face him. He’d said he never wanted to see me again.”

  Josh moved close, slipping a comforting arm around her shoulder. “Auntie Mar, don’t. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes,” she insisted dully, turning and looking into his beautiful eyes. “Yes, I do. Josh, that baby—my baby—” A sudden spasm gripped at her, and she closed her eyes again. “Josh, that baby—”

  “Is me,” Josh said simply, finishing for her.

  Marissa’s eyes flew open, and she felt a sudden rush of cold through her entire system. “You knew.”

  Josh slowly nodded his head, the hand at her shoulder tightening just a little. “One night, it was after Dad had died, Mom was drinking and crying, sort of talking crazy— about you and Auntie Mal, how you two were Gram and Gramp’s favorites and how they spoiled the two of you, how they gave you everything and ignored Dad.” He slipped his arm from her shoulder and caught her hand up in his. “She was especially angry with you—you know how she used to get.”

  Marissa nodded, remembering her sister-in-law’s anger and defensiveness all too well. It had been a stumbling block over the years—sometimes making it difficult for her to see Josh or visit him.

  “Then she started laughing,” he continued, “and kept talking about how I shouldn’t think too much of you, and how she could put you in your place any time she wanted— that no matter how much Gram and Gramp gave you, she had something of yours she was never giving back. I usually didn’t pay much attention when she got talking crazy like that, but when I tried to get her to go to bed, she started crying again and made me promise never to leave her, wanting me to say I loved her more than I loved you.”

  Marissa moaned, reaching out and cradling his cheek in her hand. “She was in a lot of pain then.”

  “I know,” he said, nodding sadly. “Losing Dad just hurt her too much.” He paused for a moment, deep in thought. “It was just a lot of little things after that. Things that gradually began to add up. Like how nobody ever wanted to talk about my adoption. And I started thinking about my kindergarten graduation and how you flew in from D.C. just to take me out for pizza afterward, and all the presents you always sent at Christmas and my birthdays, and all those silly drawings of mine you kept…and the hundreds of photographs you always took during your visits.”

  Marissa smiled sadly. “I wanted to take as much of you with me as I could.”

  “After a while, it just sort of started to make sense.” He looked at her, smiling just a little. “And we’d always been so close—you know, like there was a connection or something.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me?” Marissa whispered. “If you suspected, why didn’t you say something?”

  Josh shrugged. “I didn’t want Mom to think that I might know, and I guess, I don’t know…” He shrugged again, glancing away. “I guess I was a little afraid.”

  “Afraid? Of what?”

  He looked back at her. “That maybe I was wrong.”

  “Oh, Josh,” she cried, pulling him close. “My boy. My son.”

  Suddenly she was crying again, and Josh was, too, and they both succumbed to a kind of flurry of hugs, kisses, laughter and more tears, as mother and son talked and shared all those things that had been denied for so long. They sat for a long time on the step, arm in arm, just holding each other and letting the emotions of the moment run their course.

  “I take it all this has something to do with why Dylan hasn’t been around the last week,” Josh said finally, after a long silence.

  “Oh, Josh.” Marissa sighed, feeling tired and defeated. “He’ll never forgive me. Never.”

  “He knows, then? About me?”

  She nodded her head slowly. “It all came out so badly there in the emergency room I just sort of blurted it out. He was very hurt.”

  “Was he…upset?”

  She looked at him, seeing the question and the doubt in his eyes. “Only at me. Only because I’d lied to him—again. He hates me, Josh, and I don’t blame him.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  Josh leapt over the rocks, carefully balancing his tackle box in one hand and his fishing pole in the other. “It wasn’t hard. Where else would you be?”

  Dylan watched as Josh leapt over the rushing water, making his way across the stream. “Marissa didn’t bring you, did she?”

  Josh shook his head. “Nope.”

  Dylan glanced back to his line, left dangling in the water. “You didn’t try to drive up here by yourself, did you?”

  “Driving without a license is against the law,” Josh said with a small smile. He set his tackle box down on the rock and flipped open the lid. “And just for the record, an Officer Young was kind enough to offer me a ride.”

  “Kim,” Dylan murmured, casting out again.

  “Yeah, Nico’s aunt,” he said conversationally as he picked the fly he wanted from the selection in his box. “Having any luck?”

  Dylan continued casting. “Not much.”

  Josh nodded, tying the fly to the end of his line. “Well, good thing I showed up. I can tell you where the fish are hiding.”

  Dylan reeled his line in, stepping up out of the stream. He looked at Josh, trying to read something in his young face. Had Marissa told him the truth? Was he angry, shocked, disappointed? Had he come to confront the father he never knew he had…or had Marissa decided to continue living the lie?

  But Josh’s face was like a sphinx, revealing nothing of what might be on his mind. Still, Dylan did see something in the young face that had emotion swelling in his chesthe saw Jos
h’s whole history in his face—the resemblance was unmistakable. Why had he not seen it before? This kid looked just like him; this kid was his son.

  Dylan stepped over the rocks, coming to the rock where Josh sat. “Why did you show up?”

  Josh smiled, flipping the end of the fishing line through several loops of the fly and tying them tight. “Come on, Sheriff, I’ll bet you can figure it out.”

  Dylan leaned his pole against the rock and sat down. “She told you.”

  “Yeah, she told me.”

  Dylan turned and looked at Josh. What were they supposed to do now? How were they suppose to act? They were father and son. Did they hug, shake hands, pretend it never happened? Josh just sat there quietly tying his fly to his line.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Josh looked up at him. “If you want.”

  “If I want,” Dylan repeated, standing up. “What about you? You’re so calm, so laid-back.”

  “What do you want me to do? Would you feel better if I knocked off a convenience store or torched a toolshed?” He laughed, his smile broadening. “Come on, Sheriff, you should feel good. I’ve been rehabilitated.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “At what? I knew I was adopted,” Josh said simply, setting his fishing pole aside. “I went years wondering who my birth mother was—what she looked like, where she was. She could have been anybody. So I’m supposed to be upset now because the blanks have been filled in? That the aunt I’ve always adored, who’s been there for me my whole life, is really my mother?”

  “But she lied to you.”

  “To hurt me?” Josh asked poignantly. “Or to make my life better?”

  Dylan took a deep breath, looking up to the sky. “So you’re saying you’re okay with it?”

  “Look, it’s kind of hard to explain.” He stood up, pausing for a moment and running a hand though his hair. “You know how Auntie Mar and Auntie Mal have always had this thing between them—this way of telling each other stuff without really saying anything?”

  “Yeah.” Dylan nodded his head, remembering Marissa’s special “radar” with her sister, and how he’d teased her about it.

  “It isn’t exactly like that, but there has always been something between Auntie Mar and me, too, something special.”

  “You’re saying you knew?”

  “I guess I’m saying I think I might have always known, or at least suspected.” His smile faltered and he turned away. “What I didn’t know about was you.”

  Dylan watched Josh scoop up a handful of pebbles from the banks of the stream and begin tossing them into the water. Had it only been a week ago when they’d stood together on this very spot and thrown rocks into the river, when they’d talked about friendship? “How…how do you feel about that?”

  “I think the real question is how do you feel?” Josh laughed dryly. “I mean, it’s got to be a little embarrassing for the sheriff to wake up one morning and find out one of Jackson’s most notorious juvenile delinquents is his son.”

  Dylan began to wonder at that moment if he’d suddenly been endowed with some kind of special insight himself. It was as though he could see beyond Josh’s laughter, beyond the flippant remarks and calm facade. He could see so clearly now how Josh used the humor and the jokes to cover up, how he used them to cope with those things that were too tough to take head-on. Dylan saw it, and understood it, because it was exactly what he did himself.

  “You think I’m embarrassed?” he asked quietly. This was too important, too significant, for joking.

  Josh stopped as he was about to send another pebble sailing into the water, and turned around. “Are you?”

  “Yeah, I am,” Dylan admitted after a moment, taking a few steps forward. “I am embarrassed. But not because of you. I’m embarrassed because I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say to you, or how to act.” He stopped, trying to find the right words. “You had a father—a great dad you loved and looked up to. I mean, you’re my son, Josh, but do you want another father?”

  “What I want,” Josh said, making his way over the rugged stream bank, “what I need, is a friend.” He stopped in front of Dylan, slowly extending his hand. “Be my friend?”

  “I already am,” Dylan whispered, looking down at Josh’s outstretched hand. He reached out to shake his son’s hand.

  But somehow he just couldn’t do it—they were father and son, and a safe, staid handshake was too impersonal, too detached. Opening his arms, Dylan embraced his son, feeling his eyes sting and his throat become raw with emotion. And, just as he’d thought it would be, it was awkward and uncomfortable afterward. They both stumbled back a step, looking everywhere but into each other’s eyes.

  “Okay, kid,” Dylan said loudly, bending down and picking up his rod. “You’ve been bragging about knowing where those fish are. How ‘bout putting your money where your mouth is?”

  “Sure,” Josh murmured thoughtfully, watching as Dylan worked to straighten his line. “Dylan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We were almost a family, you know that? Even without knowing the truth, we started to become a family—our own family—you, me, Auntie Mar.”

  “Josh—” Dylan started, but Josh cut him off.

  “She says it’s over between the two of you.”

  Dylan’s heart lurched painfully in his chest, and he suddenly understood why he’d felt so empty for the last seven days. “That doesn’t mean it has to change anything between you and me.”

  “It changes everything,” Josh said sadly. “She’s a part of both of us. She’s what links us together.” He dropped his gaze to the ground, his hands balling into fists at his side. “And what happens to our family? Are we just supposed to forget about it, just let it go?”

  “Josh,” Dylan said, setting his pole aside again. “You can’t let go of something that wasn’t there. We weren’t a family, not really. It was just an illusion, based on a lie.” He drew in a deep breath, struggling through what felt like a sea of emotion. “Marissa lied to me. She lied to you, too. You don’t keep the truth from people you care about.”

  Josh settled his hands on his hips, looking up at his father. “Then why didn’t you tell me the truth the night I brought Skip in?”

  Dylan jerked to a stop, the Jeep’s oversize tires screeching against the hot pavement. But before he could push the door open and call out, she’d disappeared through the open doorway of Scaletti’s deli.

  He leapt up the high curb, making his way down the narrow sidewalk of Jackson’s historic main street. He’d been leaving messages on her answering machine for three days, her office had been closed up tight, and no one had answered the door at her condo the few times he’d gathered up enough courage to stop by. Until he’d spotted her just now, he’d almost begun to wonder if she’d taken Josh and left.

  He could see her through the store window, smiling and laughing with Dom Scaletti, and felt the muscles in his stomach twist tight. She looked beautiful in the sleeveless blouse and long, flowing skirt cinched tightly at the waist with a silver-and-turquoise belt. Her hair fell loose and free down her back, and her skin glowed rich and golden—a stark contrast to that awful wan, pale way it had had in the hospital ten days ago.

  He gave his head a shake, not wanting to think about that terrible day in the emergency room—or the awful things he had said to her. There was too much he had to make up for as it was. It wasn’t the first time he’d lashed out at her, that he’d said mean, hurtful things in order to cover up and assuage his own pain. She’d managed to forgive him once, but could she again? The fact that she hadn’t answered any of his telephone messages wasn’t a good sign.

  Dylan’s jaw clenched tight. He didn’t want to think about that now—he couldn’t. He’d made so many mistakes already. It was all so clear to him now, but it hadn’t been until his son—their son—had helped him to see what had been right in front of him all along.

  There had been something in Josh’s eye
s that day up at the stream, something wise and insightful, that had demonstrated to Dylan better than anything else just how foolish and self-righteous he had been. He’d been blaming Marissa for everything, holding her responsible for crimes he was guilty of committing himself. He’d accused her of holding back the truth, of covering up, and living a lie. And yet how many times had he done that very thing himself?

  He’d spent sixteen years telling himself and everyone else he didn’t love Marissa Wakefield and she hadn’t really hurt him at all. But that hadn’t been how he really felt. He had loved her, and he had been hurt. Maybe if he’d been honest with her back then, all of this could have been avoided. Instead he’d lashed out and covered up, and he’d ended up living a lie.

  So why hadn’t he told Josh the truth when he’d found out, why had he held back? To hurt and manipulate his son, or to protect and avoid hurting him? And was what Marissa had done so different?

  He walked up the step into the deli, the rich aromas of garlic and spice hanging thickly in the air. But he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about the woman who stood with her back to him, and how he was going to convince her to forgive him one more time.

  “We’re going to talk, and I’m not letting you leave here until we have,” he said, taking her by the arm and spinning her around.

  She whirled around, the packages of deli meats in her arms falling to the floor and scattering around their feet. “Dylan James. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Surprise had him unconsciously taking a step back. He stared down at the woman before him, feeling dazed and off-balance. She was so endearingly familiar—the hair, the eyes, the shape of her face—and yet this woman wasn’t who he thought she was, this woman was a stranger.

  “Mallory?” he gasped in a coarse voice. “Mallory, I— I’m sorry. I thought you were—”

  “I know what you thought,” Mallory muttered, starting to reach for her packages.