He winced. “Nothing.” His answer was barely awhisper.
“Nothing?That can’t be true. What happened the last time you sawher?”
At this, a shadow fell over his brow, and he lowered hisgaze.
“Dad.” He didn’t look up.“Whenwas the last time you sawher?”
She watched his right brow raise and lower before he shook his head slowly. “The last time I saw her was in a hospital room in Louisville the day after Ray Charles wasborn.”
Rainey felt like she’d been struck. Like a croquet mallet had connected with her head and sent it spinning down a wide, greenlawn.
“What?” She didn’t know how she’d even formed the word. It sounded more like a rush of breath. Her face had gone numb, and she couldn’t feel her lips. Rainey racked her brain to remember what Larry had said the week before. “Larry said you took care of them. That you looked in on them until shemarried.”
Her father’s mouth was a flat line. “I took care of them, and I would have kept doing it if she’d letme.”
Rainey frowned. None of this made sense. “Dad, stop evading. What did you do? Why does she hate you somuch?”
With a gusty sigh, her father pulled out one of the office chairs in the control booth and collapsed into it. He scrubbed his face with his hands before dropping his elbows to hisknees.
“I told her we’d get married,” he saidfinally.
“Youwhat?”
Her father shrugged. “Gloria had nothing. She was barely twenty, waiting tables and putting herself through beauty school. When she told me about the baby, she said she didn’t know how she’d manage. I promised her I’d take care ofher.”
He planted his hands on his thighs and nodded with resolve as though this course of action was noble,admirable.
“But that wasn’t good enough. She wanted to be a family.” He gave a little shake of his head that seemed to suggest Gloria’s wishes were ill-advised. “Even though she was young, I knew she’d be a good mother. She was just scared. Once the baby was born, I knew she’d be fine as long as I paid the bills. So, I got her a little place, visited when I could, and told her everything would bealright.”
Rainey pictured a young Gloria, scared and vulnerable. The father of her child a blues legend offering to marry her. He would have been everything to her. “Let me guess. She fell in love withyou.”
He blinked once, a flash of something like regret passing over his face before he shook himself. Not, she knew in denial, but in dismissal. “Like I said. She was young. I knew she’d get overit.”
Rainey felt the betrayal as though it was her own. “So you kept seeing her, you told her you’d marry her, and you let her fall in love with you.” Her voice was low, but angry. “And then she gave birth to your son, and she never saw you again. Do I have all thisstraight?”
Her father folded his arms over his chest and tucked his chin, a defensive posture if she ever saw one. His eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t like I left her on the streets,” he hissed. “I gave her a nice place to live. I gave her a car. I paid all her bills. I made sure she had everything that I’d given to your mother and youthree.”
He stood from his chair, shaking his head and holding out his hands in frustration. “And it wasn’t enough. Just like with your mother. Melinda could never understand that writing the blues and putting together an album just doesn’t mix with loading the dishwasher and dropping kids off at school. Those things just wreckcreativity.”
Rainey flinched, his words jabbing at old wounds. Memories of her parents fighting. John Lee, in tears, sneaking into her room at night. To hear her father tell it, he sounded like the wronged party. Was this supposed to make her feel sorry for him? He couldn’t be bothered to parent his children? To be a husband to his wife? Because itwrecked hiscreativity?
Rage seemed to pool under her feet like a lava flow. It rose up her bones into her chest. When she spoke, she might as well have breathed fire. “So you walked away from your infant son the day he was born.” She spat the words. She could have shouted them. She could have shouted down the walls. Instead, she kept her voice level. But her tone was lethal, dripping with disdain. “How long did you string her along, Dad? How long before you had Larry intercept her calls? Before her only contact with you was a check in themail?”
Hot tears threatened, but Rainey fought them. Gloria and Ray’s betrayal felt immediate. It felt personal. She knew all too well what it was like to wait for him. To call. To come home. To simply bethere.
And he never hadbeen.
She lost her battle with a lone tear that streaked down her cheek. And although her throat was painfully tight, she forced out the words. “You weren’t there for me,Dad.”
Dylan Reeves blinked at his daughter, seemingly surprised by her shift in subject and her raw and suddenemotion.
“When John Lee died, I needed you. And you weren’tthere.”
Her father frowned at her, and it was not the frown of a penitent man. Rainey thought saying the words would have shattered her. Her voice shook as she spoke. A tear had escaped, but she didn’tshatter.
She flicked away the single tear, and when she spoke, Rainey’s voice held. Her throat ached, but maybe that was because she’d held back the words for solong.
“You’ve had four children, Dad. And you’ve let us alldown.”
