AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Roger closed his eyes again. I wasn’t sure if he was avoiding me or if the pain meds had overtaken him.
“I was protecting my son,” Roger eked out. “She wasn’t the first girl to try and trap him.”
“Dad,” Dean warned. “That’s not fair. Joanie was telling the truth.”
“I didn’t know,” Roger choked out, his eyes still shut tight as if he wished this was only a nightmare and when he opened his eyes it would all be better. “I thought someone else would help you. You had grandparents,” he wheezed. “They should have done more. She should have taken the money.” He was getting so worked up his heart rate increased more than it should have. His heart monitor started beeping loudly.
“Maybe I should go,” I said to Dean. Despite what Roger had done to me, I wouldn’t torment him in this state.
“Please don’t go,” Roger begged through labored breathing.
Dean adjusted his father’s oxygen and helped calm him down. I watched as my father tenderly cared for his father. As sad as it was, there was something beautiful about it. It even made me think that someday I might get to care for Dean. It hit me full force that I had a parent. I never thought I would have one again. In some ways, I felt like I never had one. Tears filled my eyes.
Dean noticed the tears. “Are you okay, honey?”
“Yes.”
“We probably shouldn’t stay for too much longer.”
That’s when Roger reached out for me. His hand was bruised from what looked like old IV lines, and his skin was so translucent I could probably scratch him and he would bleed. “Please, you have to forgive me before I see her again.”
I looked up at Dean. “See who?” I whispered.
Dean knelt next to the chair and brushed some of my hair back, like I had seen Jonah do many times to Whitney. “My mother. She would have loved you.”
I wanted to ask my father if he could ever love me, but the words never came because I was afraid of the answer. Just like I had been afraid to love Jonah.
“Please take the money,” Roger begged. He reached out farther. “I’m sorry I didn’t help you. Please forgive me,” he pled with all the breath he could muster.
I stared at his hand begging for me to take it. It was the hand I had wanted so desperately throughout my childhood to rescue me. And now here he was, needing me to rescue him from himself.
In that moment, I found I didn’t want to punish him, he had already done a good enough job of that himself. And withholding my forgiveness would only mean that I was giving him permission to continue to hurt me. I may have haunted him, but I wasn’t going to let Roger Stanton haunt me any longer. And just because you forgave someone, it didn’t mean that you had to love them. It didn’t even mean that there wouldn’t be times when I still hated him for what he had taken from me. But I wasn’t going to let him take anything else from me. I knew the only way I could do that was to let this go.
I took Roger’s cold hand. It felt nothing like Dean’s. His was the hand I had truly wished for all my life. It was the hand mine belonged in. “I forgive you,” I whispered.
Roger held onto my hand with all his might, tears trickling down his face.
Dean kissed my forehead. “Thank you, daughter.”
And for the first time in my life, I felt like one.
~*~
I was glad I’d thought to bring all my winter gear while I walked with Dean on the Green Trail that ran behind his home. It was like a winter wonderland. Snow blanketed the ground and icicles formed in the trees, giving it an ethereal feel. There was even a frozen pond. A few teenagers were braving the cold and skating on it.
Dean and I walked in silence for a moment, partly because I was too afraid to breathe deeply for fear my lungs would freeze. But mostly because it had been an emotionally exhausting morning.
“Thank you for forgiving my father. I can, in some ways, relate to how hard that must have been for you. It’s been difficult for me. He stole a lifetime from us, didn’t he?”
Was it weird how happy it made me to hear that he felt that same pang? I tried not to tear up. I didn’t need my eyes to freeze shut during such an important moment. “He did.”
“You know, my father isn’t a bad man. He’s always been controlling, but he always wanted what was best for me. And I was the only person he had left after my mother died. He didn’t want me to go away that summer and be a camp counselor. I had an internship with a colleague of my father’s, but I wanted adventure. For one summer, I didn’t want to be Dr. Stanton’s son. I’d convinced him to let me go to Camp Alpine because the volunteer hours would look good on a resume. I had no idea how life changing that summer would be.” He took my gloved hand.
