“I assumed as much,” June said, smoothing the napkin in her lap. “Why else would you volunteer to drive me to the airport?” She gestured around the restaurant. “You really didn’t have to take me out for lunch though. I could have grabbed something while I was waiting for my flight.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
In all the years he’d been with Gianna, this was the first time he’d ever been alone with her mother. He always had other people there to act as a buffer, which gave him a good reason to keep the conversation light and casual. But that’s not the kind of talk he wanted to have with her today. He was finally ready to bare his soul.
“The reason I fell for your daughter all those years ago was because she radiated all the things I craved in my life. She was calm, confident, secure… positive. I know she is who she is because of you and David. You gave her a solid foundation.”
“Look, if you think you have to win me over to get back with my daughter—”
“I just want you to know what’s in my heart, June.” He leveled her with a look that begged silence. “Please, will you just give me a chance to tell you?”
She nodded sharply before reaching for her water glass.
“My mother gave me up when I was four years old.” He cleared his throat as he looked around the restaurant. There were a dozen diners, most casting curious glances in his direction, but respectfully keeping their distance. “My dad was never in the picture.”
“Four years old?” June asked, looking horrified. “I knew you’d grown up in foster care, but I just assumed…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, that must have been horrible.”
“It was, mainly because I still have memories of her. Just flashes. Like the color of her hair or the smell of her perfume.” He stared off in the distance. “She liked to wear red nail polish. Every time I see a woman wearing it, I think of her.”
June’s eyes welled with tears of compassion. “How could she do that? Why would she give you up after raising you for four years?”
“She lost her job,” he said, curling over the edge of his paper napkin. “She worked in one of those big box stores.” He bit his lip. “But she was late a lot, so she got canned. She tried to find other work, but it wasn’t easy because she had no one to take care of me.”
“She had no family?”
“None that I can remember.” Those days were a blur to him, but if he’d had grandparents or aunts and uncles, he couldn’t believe they would have allowed his mother to give him up to strangers. “She told me we’d both be better off if she left me with people who could take better care of me. She said she’d done the best she could, but we were going to get evicted from our little studio apartment and she didn’t want me to be homeless with her.”
“You remember all of this?”
“No, she wrote a letter and stuck it in my pocket. Then she left me on the steps of the women and children’s shelter and told me to go inside. She said they would take care of me, that they’d help me find a new home.”
“But that didn’t happen, did it?” June asked. “You never found a permanent home?”
“Not until your daughter came into my life.” He smiled. “We bought our first house together. Decorated the nursery.” He loved remembering how excited Gianna had been in the weeks leading up to Keegan’s arrival. “And for the first time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere, to someone.”
“If you felt that way, why didn’t you marry her, Gunnar? I always assumed you didn’t want to be tied down.”
“That couldn’t have been further from the truth.” He smiled at the waitress who set their sandwiches down in front of them. It still scared him sometimes, how easily he could compartmentalize his feelings. “I wanted to give her everything I had, and I did, materially. But I was always afraid she’d leave me once she realized how impossible it was for me to…” He still had difficulty admitting his shortcomings. “Open up or trust anyone.”
“I can certainly understand how that would be hard for you, given what you went through.” June looked at her turkey sandwich as though the sight of food turned her stomach, but she picked up a fry and nibbled on it.
“I guess I was trying to make it easier for her to leave. I thought if we weren’t married, she’d just be able to walk away when she decided she couldn’t handle it anymore.”
“Were you trying to drive her away?” June asked. “Subconsciously, maybe?”
“I didn’t think I deserved her.”
His stomach bottomed out whenever he thought about how perfect and pure and innocent she’d been when they first met. She went from being a virgin to an expectant mother in a matter of months and her life hadn’t been the same since. She’d lost her innocence. Her trusting nature. He took that from her and that was something he could never forgive himself for.
“Why not?”
“She was too good for me.” She’d been everything he wasn’t. Smart. Sweet. Funny. He’d been cold and hard, like something inside of him died a long time ago. Maybe on the front porch of that shelter. “But I wanted her anyways, for as long as she would have me.” He forced himself to take a bite of his BLT sandwich, needing a moment to collect his thoughts. “I know that makes me selfish.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said, watching him. “It makes you human. Everyone wants someone to love them.”
“I guess. But I get why you hate me for wanting your daughter to be the one… who loved me. I know how much it’s cost her. How miserable it’s made her at times.”
“You’re right, it has made her miserable. But it’s also made her happy.” She smiled. “And if that isn’t the very definition of love, I don’t know what is. It’s a roller coaster ride, Gunnar. Everyone who’s ever been in love knows that.”
