I breathe sharply through my nose. “He used to. When he was little. When he was in school and all the other kids made Father’s Day cards and he didn’t have anyone to make one for.”
Miller doesn’t say anything, just listens.
“He’d ask why the other kids had dads and he didn’t,” I continue, swallowing hard. “And I’d tell him that some families look different. That he had me, and Aunt Alice, and Aunt Miller, and all the people in this town who loved him. That family doesn’t always mean a mom and a dad, that sometimes it means a mom who loves you so much she’d do anything for you. And I still believe that.”
Miller’s quiet for a long beat, then says, “And when he got older?”
I let out a slow breath. “He just…stopped asking.”
“But I bet he still wonders,” she says softly.
The thought makes my stomach clench. Because if that’s true, if Hudson does still wonder, it means I haven’t been enough.
I’ve tried my damn hardest. I’ve done everything in my power to give him a life that feels whole, a life that doesn’t feel like something is missing. But what if it wasn’t enough?
What if I wasn’t enough?
Miller squeezes my knee. “Don’t do that.”
I blink, pulling myself out of my thoughts. “Do what?”
She gives me a knowing look. “Retreat. Fold in on yourself like you do.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she cuts me off. “You’re a good mom, Lark. One of the very best.”
The lump in my throat grows.
“But you can’t be both.” She shakes her head. “You can’t be momanddad. No matter how much you try.”
I know she’s right.
I loved my dad more than anything. He was my whole world.
He’s the one who taught me how to ride a horse—not just sit there and hang on for dear life, but reallyride.Reins in my hands, back straight, eyes forward like I knew what I was doing. I didn’t. Not even close. But he made me feel like I could handle it. Like I could handle anything.
He taught me how to skip rocks across the lake, how to line up a BB gun and knock down tin cans like I was some kind of sharpshooter. How to sneak marshmallows into my hot chocolate when Alice wasn’t looking—two if I was lucky, three if he distracted her for me.
He showed me how to climb the oak trees behind the barn without catching my jeans, how to swing so high my stomach would drop and I’d scream, then do it all over again. How to spit sunflower seeds like I’d been doing it my whole life. He made everything seem easy. Like I could do all these little reckless things and not break.
He’s the one who convinced me Oreos are better with peanut butter. That cheating at poker’s not really cheating if you win. That the Big Dipper’s always there—you just have to look up.
He waseverything.
But deep down, I still wanted a mom.
I never said it out loud, but I used to get jealous as hell when the girls at school would talk about theirs. How they’d go shopping together, bake cookies, argue over curfews, watch ridiculous rom-coms and cry over the same predictable endings. I even envied the ones who rolled their eyes and said their mom was being soannoying—because at least they had one tobe annoyed with.
I wanted that. I wanted someone to teach me how to braid my hair without yanking half of it out. Someone to help me pick out a prom dress and tell me which makeup didn’t make me look like a raccoon. Someone to give me advice on boys and love and how to get over it when it all fell apart.
My dad did his best. But there were just some things he couldn’t be.
And maybe, no matter how much I love Hudson, there are some things I can’t be for him either.
“Think of it like this,” Miller says as she watches me, “If you were sitting here right now, talking to twenty-five-year-old Hudson, and he knew you had the chance to help him get to know his dad but didn’t, what do you think he’d say to you?”
I know exactly what that would look like.
He’d be upset. Maybe even furious. He’d want to know why I kept something this big from him, why I never gave him the option. And he’d be hurt. Because what if, deep down, he’s always wanted to know? What if he’s spent years wondering about the man who gave him his nose, his freckles, his jawline, the way he grips a baseball?
