“I don’t know.But I wouldn’t leave town if that’s what you’re asking.”
“She doesn’t understand.”
“It’s hard for anyone who hasn’t been there to understand.”
Ryan opened the door and Steven stepped out, turning back to him before he left.“Thank you.”
“Give her some time.Don’t leave town.”
“I won’t.Yet.”
*
“Do you believehim?”Aria asked when she came back from putting the baby down.
Ryan tilted his head, considering her.“Do you?”
“I want to know what you think.”
“I believe him.That might not have been exactly how it happened, but he was awfully messed up for a long time.”
“It doesn’t seem reasonable to me.”
“What?That he has post-traumatic stress?Or that he waited so long to see you?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe he has it.But why decide now that he needed to see me?”
“He told you.He’s dying.”
“Unless he isn’t dying and wants to con me.”
“He hasn’t asked you for anything, has he?”
“No.Not yet.”
“Why are you so suspicious of him?”And why was he defending the man instead of being the impartial observer he should be?He knew the answer to that question.
Because Steven was a veteran who had PTSD.Who’d been treated in a psychiatric facility and who had managed to come out on the other side.Being diagnosed with cancer after all that was adding insult to injury.
“Why shouldn’t I be?He’s my father.I accepted that.He’s the man who left my mother and me high and dry when I was a young child.It’s not inconceivable that he’d come back to hit me up for money.”
He’d better tread very carefully.Unless he was ready to tell Aria his history.All of it.And he wasn’t.Not yet.Maybe never.
“I think you need some time to think about what you’ve learned.It’s a lot to understand.”
“Why do I get the feeling you think I should take him at his word and forgive him?”
“I never said that.But I think you should give him a chance.Not for his sake but for your own.You’ve wondered about him all your life.You wanted to know why he left and why he never came back.Here’s your chance to know him again, but if you don’t take the chance now you never will.”
“Because he has cancer.”
“Because he has metastatic pancreatic cancer.He’s going to die, Aria.From what he said he doesn’t have long.”
She paced away and with her back to him she said, “I don’t know if I can forgive him.”
“No one is saying you have to, least of all him.”
“Does it make me a terrible person if I can’t forgive him?”
