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I look up into his face. His kind, loving face. The face of the man whose shoulders I used to ride on, who kissed my scraped knees, and who carried me to bed when I fell asleep, listening to Mom play the piano.
He is as handsome as ever. His skin is a tad weathered, and there are soft lines around the corners of his gray eyes and mouth. There is less hair on his head, and his eyebrows and beard are white as snow, but he is still formidable and I feel like a little girl in his presence. He’s my safe place.
That’s the point. Betrayal never comes from an enemy. That’s why we are blindsided by it. We never think a person we love could hurt us that way.
When I don’t answer him, worry creases his forehead.
“Is something wrong, sweetheart?” he asks.
I drop my head again and begin to tap my feet nervously as I gather my thoughts.
“Did you really threaten Garrett with jail if he didn’t leave me in that motel?” I ask without looking at him.
Several moments of silence tick by, and then he sighs.
“You were both so young,” he murmurs.
“I wasn’t that young, Daddy. I knew what I wanted, and it was him. How could you do that? How could you let me walk around with a broken heart, thinking he’d left me?” I ask.
“I thought it was what was best for you. You were seventeen. You hadn’t even graduated yet. Do you know what it was like for your mother and me to wake up to you gone? We had no idea where you were. We didn’t know if you had run away or been kidnapped. So many terrifying things ran through our minds. Then, your mother found that note. I was furious with you. Furious that you would be so cruel as to run off like that and with Garrett Tuttle. He was a punk of a kid.”
“No, he wasn’t,” I object.
“He was to me. He was a boy with no respect for you. If he’d had respect, he would have come to me, man-to-man, and told me of his plans. He would have asked for your hand. He would have made an honest woman out of you, not whisked you away to Nashville in the middle of the night, like a coward.”
“We weren’t ready to get married, but we were in love and chasing dreams,” I explain.
“His dreams, not yours,” he insists.
“His dreams were my dreams.”
“And that was the problem. You were facing a future of living on peanuts, being dragged from bar to bar for him to play his guitar and try to make it. How could I sit here while I worried if you were okay? If you had food?”
I shake my head. “No, you were worried about what the town would think,” I press.
He laughs. “I’m a man of God, but I’m human. I did my best to raise you morally, but I’m a father too. You’re my baby girl. I was worried about your well-being and safety first. Your soul, too, but mainly, I just wanted you here, where I could protect you.”
“It wasn’t fair. You shouldn’t have threatened him. I knew what I wanted, and now, I’ve wasted the last decade of my life, longing for something that I had. I’ve been afraid to let anyone else close,” I tell him.
“I know. I’ve prayed that you would heal and find love again. And I think you have.”
“With the same man. We could have had a life. A family by now!” I shout.
He nods. “Yes, or the pressure of his life and career could have been too much. You could have ended up losing each other to the fame and even brought children into the mess. Look at him. Why is he here in Balsam Ridge now?”
“It wasn’t his fault. A woman lied about him being the father of her child and that was the cause of what happened that night.”
He presses his lips together and gives me a stern look. “Ansley, be honest with yourself. He might not have been the father in the end, but he was sleeping with women who weren’t his wife. He got into public fights. He drove while intoxicated. All of that was his fault.”
I look away from him because he’s right. It’s all true.
He takes his hand and gently tugs my chin so that I’m facing him again.
“But I do believe he is changing. I’ve watched him since he’s been home. I’ve seen the way he treats people. I see the way he is with his family. I see how he is with you. Now, you might think that I made a mistake all those years ago, and maybe I did, but I think that God wanted you two to have the space to grow. To grow up and become the beautiful people that you are so that all that nonsense wouldn’t be between you. Perhaps now, you two are ready for each other. He needs the anchor, and you need the sail.”
My eyes fill with unshed tears at his words.
“You don’t think it’s too late?” I ask.
“Do you love him?”
“I’ve always loved him. I don’t know how not to love him,” I confess.
“Then, it’s not too late.”
