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Frankly, I’m starting to wonder the same thing.
He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at us. “What are you girls doing here?”
“We were hoping we could talk to you,” Elise says, finally finding her voice.
“About what?”
She swallows and glances at me, unsure, before facing our dad again. “We have some questions. Do you have a minute?”
“Now’s not a good time.”
“It won’t take long,” I say. “We don’t have any intention of sticking around, but I think after over twenty years of being a deadbeat dad, we deserve a few minutes of your time.”
He glares at me but doesn’t say anything, and after what feels like an eternity, he takes a step back and gestures inside. I walk in, my head held high and my shoulders back like my hands aren’t shaking with nerves. Elise follows me, and we head into his living room. My jaw drops when I see how nice the inside of his house is.
From the foyer, we can see what looks like a formal living room with a beautiful chandelier. Down the hall, I can see part of the kitchen and what looks like high-end stainless steel appliances and white-and-gray marble countertops. Everything is spotless, and while I’ve seen fancier houses in California, this is still so much more than I had growing up. I’m having a hard time reconciling the fact that my dad left us in poverty and has essentially been living a life of luxury, even if he’s probably only solid upper-middle class. I’m having trouble catching my breath, but like hell I’m going to let him see me as weak.
“So what’s this about?” he asks, joining us in the living room and gesturing for us to take a seat.
Elise and I look to each other as we sit down, and it’s clear from the shocked and saddened look in her eyes that she still held out hope that this would be a happy reunion.
I held no such expectations.
“We have some questions for you,” I say, ready to move things along.
His eyes turn to slits as he watches us carefully. “What kinds of questions?”
“Why did you leave?” Elise spits out in one quick breath that I’m pretty sure she holds waiting for his answer.
He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms, his stare still calculating. “Because I wanted to.”
That…was not the answer I was expecting.
I was expecting him to say some bullshit like he wasn’t cut out for fatherhood, or he needed a change, or he freaked out, but to hear that he left simply because hewantedto feels like the biggest slap in the face yet. A glance to Elise and her parted mouth, wide eyes brimming with tears and heartbreak written all over her face, tells me that wasn’t the answer she was expecting either.
“Did you ever think about what we—your kids—might want? That we might want our dad around?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes. “Your mom could handle you. She’s the one who wanted kids anyway.”
“You didn’t want kids?” Elise’s voice cracks, and I wish I could shield her from his venom.
“Of course not. Kids were never in the cards for me. I tried it because I loved your mom, but after we had the last one, I knew that wasn’t the life I wanted.”
The last one, like he doesn’t know that Elise is his youngest child—or I hope she is his last child. God knows what he’s gotten up to in the last twenty-two years.
Elise stands up abruptly, a torrent of tears cascading down her face. “I’ve heard enough,” she says, her voice hollow, and then storms out of the house. I watch her go, knowing I’ll follow shortly, but I have a few more questions and I never want to see this man again, so I need to make this visit count.
“You said you loved my mom, but you still left.”
“I did.”
“Why did you leave her if you loved her?”
I hold my breath waiting for his response. Somehow it feels like his answer will unlock the truth about why men have always found it so easy to leave me. Or it might explain my need to leave them as soon as my insecurities get the better of me, something I wasn’t even fully aware of until I started therapy—although it didn’t stop me from having that knee-jerk reaction with Trent yesterday. Once again, the need to fix things with him surfaces as I face the man who made me this way.
“Because, as it turns out, I didn’t love her. I wasn’t willing to give up the life I really wanted for the one she wanted, so I left. She wanted you kids. I didn’t.”
“You only ever loved yourself,” I say, my own voice coming out soft while my brain wraps around his response.
