Page 66 of Terms and Traditions

Gabe’s expression morphed into flint as it often did whenever Hiram’s name came up. While his own relationship with Hiram hadn’t initially been terrible, it had soured after I came along and Gabe joined the Marines. Gabe had no patience or respect for the man who’d abandoned his own daughter. “Did Jackson say something about it?”

I shrugged. “Just that I deserve a better dad than I got.” My voice was light, almost breezy because my defense mechanisms were kicking in. The walls I used to be a professional at work. To keep my heart from getting beat up by my dad’s abandonment. To ward off the sharp words from the siblings who never thought I fit the Addams family mold. But it was harder to maintain today with the whispered vines of Hiram’s words last night choking my memory.

“It’s… noticeable to those who have their eyes open,” Gabe said slowly. He met my gaze frankly, his expression soft with understanding.

“I’m sorry your kid had to pick up on that at ten years old.”

Gabe’s hand cupped my shoulder. “Hey, don’t deflect on me. I know it bothers you. You don’t have to pretend otherwise. Not with me.”

Hot tears burned my eyes, but my smoldering relationship with Hiram wasn’t worth crying over. It wasn’t even smoldering. It was… gone. We shared blood and nothing else. For twenty-eight years, I’d fought to be someone my dad could be proud of. I’d reinvented myself so many times to try to be the version of Stephanie Addams he could approve of, brag about to his friends, and show up for. Instead, I got passive-aggressive criticism, late birthday cards (if they ever came at all), extravagant gifts, and a therapy bill. I didn’t hate him, even if I wanted to sometimes. I just wanted him to choose me for me. One time.

“Do you ever think about not coming back here?” I whispered, swiping at a rogue tear sneaking out from my lashes. Stand down, soldier. No crying.

Gabe hauled me into a hug, the perfect balance of gentleness and security. “We’ve talked about it. Stepping out to do our own thing with you and Nana and Hailey’s family. Like we’ve done on off years sometimes when we’re not with Ivy’s folks.”

“Hard to do when you never know where you’ll be sent though, huh?”

The hall echoed with silence, the murmur of voices in the distance a hundred miles from the moment. He was quiet. Too quiet, even for Gabe.

“Gabe?”

“I won’t be renewing my contract. Once my time in San Diego is up, I’m out.”

WHAT? I yanked back, nearly toppling over as I studied him, searching for the joke but not finding one. “You’re serious? But you love the military.”

Gabe nodded, his half smile sad. “True, but I love my family more. It’s been over twenty years, and I want to be more involved with my kids. As for branching out on our own for Christmas…” He sighed. “Maybe it’s overdue. Family is family. But…”

At what cost? “Family is what you make it, not what you’re born with.”

He huffed softly. “Something like that.” Hesitating for a moment, he added, “You going to be okay?”

My laugh was weak and watery, but I nodded and eased out of the hug. “Of course.”

Gabe fished his phone from his pocket and tapped something on the screen before refocusing on me. “Any other insight on my son?”

“Let’s just say that you have a little boy trying desperately hard to be a man… who misses his dad very much.”

Something flickered in Gabe’s face, but I couldn’t name it.

“I can’t tell you how to parent,” I quickly added, “because I’m not one. And I wouldn’t have dreamed of telling you to give up the military because I’m so proud of you. But I’m excited for you guys and this next chapter.”

Gabe pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. “Thanks, Stephie-Lou. I hear you.”

Something about the way he used my nickname and paired it with the words he used to tell me as a teen—his way of telling me he heard the words I said as well as the ones I didn’t—broke the dam on my tear ducts. But instead of hugging me, Gabe shifted out of my peripheral, and a new smell filled my nose. Something citrusy and… like home.

Nash’s presence cocooned me in safety as he led my crying self towards the west alcove, closing the door softly behind us as I fell apart in his arms. I didn’t question how he'd gotten there—Gabe probably—or why. Just let myself feel the tsunami of emotions that I’d kept walled up behind my façade.

I cried the tears of the little girl who didn’t understand why her friends had moms and dads and why she lived with her grandparents. The tears of the teenager who shuffled between her nana’s house and her brother and sister-in-law’s house in the middle of grief and loss, never feeling like she belonged in one place, though she knew she was dearly loved. The tears of the young adult who walled off her heart to all thoughts of her father, convincing herself that she didn’t care that he didn’t want to be a part of her life. The tears of the adult woman terrified to love a good man and take a chance on him because the people in her life who should have loved her and stayed decided she wasn’t what they wanted. If her mom and dad hadn’t wanted her, why would Nash?

I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. Nash just held me, securely and tenderly. Stroking my hair as I heard murmured snatches of words. Was he… praying? For me? Somehow that made me cry harder. But in this moment, I was content to break in the arms of a man who insisted he was the staying kind while he brought me to the feet of my Heavenly Father, who already loved me beyond measure.

“You wanna talk about it?” Nash asked when my tears lessened to muffled sniffles.

I felt like a wrung-out dish rag. Emotions were heavy things. Did I want to talk? Oddly… yes. To him. I swiped my nose with the sleeve of my hoodie. “It’s not pretty.”

“Heartbreak never is.”

I tried to breathe through my nose, but my clogged sinuses were having none of it. Gross. “Bet you didn’t expect to spend Christmas like this?”