“I watched the Broncos win two Super Bowl rings on that couch. Look at this.” He moved around to the front of the sofa and picked up one of the cushions, holding it up so she could see the underside of it. “See that stain?”
Sienna stifled a grimace. “Yes.”
“You had reflux as baby,” he told her with a grin. “Seemed like you threw up more formula than you kept down some days. That’s from you.”
“Oh.” She had no idea how to respond to that or the pride in Declan’s voice, like he should be awarded some kind of gold star for his knowledge of her.
“I understand things about you, baby girl.” Her heart ached at the term of endearment. More memories whispered into her mind, hazy and fine like a wisp of smoke. She could make them out as if through a fog, smell them, taste the past on the tip of her tongue but if she reached for them, tried to hold them in her hands, they disappeared like mist.
In their place, anger rose like a wave inside her. “You don’t know enough. You have this tiny scar, but Mom has the rest of me. She was the one who held back my hair when I got the flu and puked for three days.”
She pressed a hand to her stomach. “Would you like to see the scar from when I had my appendix out senior year of high school? I sure don’t remember you being in the hospital or sending a card.”
“I didn’t know,” he said, placing the cushion back on the sofa.
“You don’t know anything about me. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself you were a decent dad when I was young, but a good father wouldn’t let his daughter go the way you did.”
“Your mother didn’t give me a choice,” Declan argued, but his voice was weak, shaky.
“There’s always a choice.” Sienna paced to the far side of the room, drawn by the framed photographs displayed on the narrow bookshelf. One showed Emily’s son, Davey, holding up a trout on a dock in front of a mountain lake. One was a photo of Declan and Jase that looked like it had been taken at that same lake.
The third was Sienna as a toddler. She wore a pale yellow dress with a pattern of sunflowers across the front of it and her blond hair was pulled back into two pigtails. It was a photo she hadn’t seen before. Her mother didn’t have many pictures of Sienna before they moved to Chicago.
“That was your favorite dress,” her dad said from behind her. “You’d wear it for days at a time before your mom would force you to take it off so it could be washed.”
Studying the photo was almost like looking at a stranger, even though she clearly recognized herself. She squeezed her eyes shut and combed through her memories, trying to recall the dress.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said after a moment, more to herself than Declan. “You let me go.” She whirled around to face him. “Why didn’t you fight for me? I can’t imagine I was so precious to you if you didn’t even come after me when Mom moved away.”
“She needed you,” he said, holding up his hands. “I knew there was no way to make her stay with how unhappy she was here. I loved your mother, but we were toxic together.”
“All you needed was Jase,” she said, the words like sandpaper scraping across her tongue. “As long as you had him—”
“He chose to stay,” Declan argued. “Dana would have taken him, too, but—”
“He was a kid,” Sienna shouted. “Just like me. Neither of you had the right to make the choice you did for either of us.”
“Your mother was the one to cut off communication. This is her fault.”
“You didn’t fight for me.” Sienna pounded an open palm against her chest. “Because I wasn’t worth it to you.”
“Not true.” Declan ran a hand through his hair. “I thought about you every day. I loved you.”
“Don’t say that. You don’t get to use those words with me.” The emotion she’d kept at bay for so many years poured forth. The walls she’d built around her heart bursting open. She wanted to hurt her father the way she’d been hurt.
“This was a mistake,” she said, drawing in a deep breath. “I have nothing to say to you because you mean nothing to me. Less than nothing.” She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying. That’s how his tacit rejection had made her feel—less than nothing. For years, she’d taken scraps of affection from everyone around her because that’s all she felt like she deserved.
She started toward the front door. Fresh air and sunshine would remind her that there was a big world still spinning despite the pinpoint of her own problems that seemed to be all she could see at the moment.
Her fingers had just gripped the knob when the crash had her spinning back around. Her breath caught as she saw Declan land on the floor, eyes closed and body limp. The lamp and side table he’d knocked over during his fall lay on the ground next to him.
“Dad!” she screamed, already reaching for her cell phone to dial 911.
