He wasn’t sure he could agree with her.
“Four months after Mom died, I was sent to military school. Kim was sent to boarding school. I gather her experience there wasn’t much better than mine at military school. That’s where she started drinking and dabbling in drugs, anyway.”
“Poor Kim,” she murmured. “And poor Ryan.”
“We needed our dad—and each other—but he couldn’t be bothered with either one of us. It was easier for him to send us both away.”
“Were you able to still see each other during summers and school breaks?”
He studied Lydia, now twirling in a circle with her arms outstretched. Before he could answer, Audrey came by with a couple of other girls her age.
“Hi, Holly! I didn’t know you were here. Is Lydia here, too?”
She nodded out to the castle. “She’s over there.”
Audrey looked delighted. “Can I go show her a couple of other things we found on the other side of the park?”
“We weren’t planning to stay long.”
“We’ll be quick, I promise,” Audrey said.
“Why don’t you meet us in ten minutes back at the parking lot?” Ryan said.
By now, Lydia had caught sight of her friend and she hurried over to them and threw her arms around Audrey.
Chattering to each other, Audrey and her friends led Lydia down the illuminated path.
As if in tacit agreement, he and Holly rose together and walked down the path back toward the big Christmas tree in the middle of the park.
“I’m sorry for the interruption. You were telling me about your school breaks,” she said.
He didn’t want to talk about the past. He wanted to focus on this moment, with this lovely woman. But she had asked and he still wanted her to know the truth.
“We saw each other during the summer and over the holidays. I wouldn’t call it pleasant, though. Whenever we were home, Dad would treat us like we were new recruits who needed a firm hand. I’m not sure he knew what else to do with us.”
“Probably true.”
“When Kim was seventeen, she refused to go back to boarding school. She ended up basically running away and moving in with her boyfriend, Audrey’s father.”
“From what she’s told me, he didn’t treat her well.”
He felt again that deep resentment toward the man, all wrapped up together with his anger toward his father. “No, though she never talked about it to me. I wish she had. We were always close. We needed each other, you know?”
She nodded. “Hard times always feel easier when you have someone to share the burden with.”
“If our father hadn’t sent us away, we could have made it work. It’s not like we were infants who needed supervisionfrom him twenty-four-seven. We were teenagers who could have mostly fended for ourselves at home. Together. We could have leaned on each other. Grieved together. He could have still fulfilled his military obligations and Kim and I could have muddled through.”
He sighed. “Instead, he took the path of least resistance, without caring whether it was the best thing for his children.”
She rested her fingers on his arm. Despite the layers of cloth between them, he almost thought he could feel the warmth and sympathy of her touch. “I can see why you’re angry with him,” she murmured. “That must have been rough for all of you.”
He wanted to kiss her. That interrupted moment earlier on Kim’s porch had teased him all day with the possibility of what might have been.
The urge to pull her into his arms was as tough to ignore as the ache in his leg.
“For the record, I don’t usually whine about my childhood. I know I should be over something that happened two decades ago. It happened, it’s done. I’ve moved on.”
“You still have the scars, though.”
