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“I don’t think he’s gonna get around to it.”
Pain from the truth of his word nearly took me down, but I managed to shove it down. Mr. Dixon had asked me if I could forgive his son, and although I still didn’t really know what had happened to break him, if he wanted me to forgive him, asked me to wait for him, I knew in my heart I would. Deep down, I loved the man, but until things were cleared, I wouldn’t give him those words. That sting of rejection would be hard to recover from. But he needed to know that not only was he wanted, but that his happiness mattered too. That I wanted to be part of that happiness.
I cupped his face. “Take the time you need. You have a lot of things to make up your mind about, including where you want to be. Only you can figure out what’s best and stop waffling. When you do, come back to me, Grease Monkey.”
His eyes dimmed. “I’m sorry, Easy. But I can’t do it. Not even for you.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Holt
“Son.”
Dad caught up to me as I crossed the lobby.
“Good wedding, wasn’t it?”
“Have a drink with me?” He gestured toward the bar.
“Sure.”
We settled in at a table away from the other patrons and ordered whiskey. Dad toyed with the napkin the server left on the table.
“I’m sorry she did this,” I said.
“You’re sorry? I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. That was a hell of a bomb she dropped on you.”
It still made me dizzy with hurt and anger and confusion.
“That’s putting it mildly.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “I love you, Dad.”
His eyes glassed over and he patted my hand. “I don’t give a damn what DNA or biology or God or anybody says. You are my son.”
I swallowed around the knot in my throat. Everything I’d longed for had been right in front of me all along. “I couldn’t have asked for a better father. I still can’t grasp the magnitude of raising three kids completely on your own. But you did it without complaint, with infinite patience.”
“I wasn’t perfect. But I love you all more than anything. I tried to be both parents, though I fell short. When I realized I could only be me, I think I did better.”
He did love the three of us more than anything. He’d done nothing but show it over and over.
“You were the best. You wouldn’t talk about her, so I never considered how much it hurt you when she walked out. Not until I was older, when I felt my own pain over it.”
He cupped his glass, but didn’t take a drink. “If I’m being honest, I didn’t deal with it well at all. I tried to shield you from that.”
“You did.”
His shoulders sagged as if I’d lifted a weight off of them.
“It seems like a betrayal to you that all this time I wanted her too,” I said. “At first, I thought I just needed an explanation. Then it grew to wanting more. Except in my deluded fantasies, the relationship would be like ours.”
Desperation. That’s what I’d felt all these years. Maybe I hadn’t known how to find her though somehow she’d seemed closed enough to touch, but just out of reach.
“I don’t fault you for needing your mother. I’d been a pawn in her manipulations and still had a difficult time seeing her for what she was. And if you want a relationship with her, you have my full support.”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at him in disbelief. This man . . . how did I ever get lucky enough to have him as a role model, a best friend, and most important, a father?
“Will you tell me what happened? Back then?”
He took a long sip of his whiskey. “Did you ever get the feeling something was off, but you didn’t realize it until you looked back?”
