AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“One thing I can say with certainty about Dominic is that he loved you, Dana, and your mother.”
I’d never questioned my father’s love for my mother, but now I thought if he had really loved her, he wouldn’t have lied about Hank saying he didn’t want the baby. Hank had told me my father wanted to protect my mother, but I wondered if my father had lied as a way to worm his way into her life. That, to me, certainly wasn’t love. Love was putting the other person’s happiness above yours, not sabotaging it to get what you wanted. My shoulders stiffened. Hadn’t I put my happiness above Kyle’s and potentially sabotaged his future by withdrawing from our retirement fund? I had no right to judge my father. Still, I couldn’t picture the man I had known and loved my entire life telling such an outrageous lie.
“Did my father really tell Mom that Hank wanted her to get rid of me?”
Aunt Izzie chewed on her lower lip. As I watched her struggle to answer, the reason for her falling-out with my father became crystalclear. “You found out about my father’s lie. It’s why your relationship with him soured.”
She sighed. “I’m not convinced that Hank would have done right by you and your mom, but he never had the chance.”
I sank to the sofa. The photo album still sat on the coffee table. I thumbed through it until I reached the page with the prom pictures. The teenage boy my dad had been when he told his lie looked back at me. That awkward kid with his lanky body and nose too big for his face bore only a tiny resemblance to the sturdy man I remembered. The unkempt eyebrows that he’d never learned to tame were the same, and seeing them made me smile. I used to tease him about them all the time. “Thank God I didn’t inherit those from you,” I would joke.
“No, instead you got my nose hair.” He could never get through his response without laughing.
While he’d had fun with my comment, I wondered now if my words ever caused him angst. Was he ever tempted to tell me the truth?
“Dom stepped up in Hank’s absence. Though, honestly, your mom would have been fine on her own,” Aunt Izzie said. “I would have helped.”
“He never treated me any differently than he treated Dana.”
Aunt Izzie smiled. “He loved you as if you were his own. No doubt about that.”
“I guess I never knew him, because the man I thought he was could never have told such an awful lie.”
“Don’t be so hard on him, Nikki. He made a bad decision and did a bad thing. That doesn’t make him a bad person.” My aunt’s complexion had returned to its normal color, and her eyes shone brighter. “Sometimes when we want something so badly, we do things we’re not proud of to get them.”
I flinched, thinking she was talking about me lying to Kyle about getting a bonus so he would do another round of IVF, but then I remembered Aunt Izzie didn’t know I had lied about that. The hot, steaming mound of anger I’d been feeling toward my dad shrank. Hewas a man with faults like all of us. I wondered what my sister would think when she found out.Does she already know?The thought of her knowing made me queasy. I couldn’t take another person keeping secrets from me.
“Does Dana know?” I heard the terror in my voice.
Aunt Izzie shook her head. “I was the only other person who knew.”
“Why didn’t they tell me?”
Aunt Izzie looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know. It wasn’t a decision I agreed with.”
“How am I going to tell Dana?”
“You’re going to use your words. Simple as that.” She fiddled with a button on her blouse. “Nikki, Hank’s your father, but that doesn’t change anything about who you are. You’re still the same person Dana has known and loved her entire life.”
I didn’t feel like the same person. If I was being honest, I hadn’t felt like myself since I’d lied to Kyle. I needed to find a way to move past my lie, past Kyle’s mistake, and on with our lives. Knowing that my parents had survived my father’s lie gave me hope for me and Kyle.
“When my dad married my mom, did everyone know the baby—that I—wasn’t his?”
“There was some talk in town. People love to gossip, but your parents didn’t care. They were happy together, and they weren’t going to let anyone stand in the way of their happiness.” She pointed a bony finger at me. “You have to do what makes you happy.”
Chapter 46
On Sunday morning, I awoke to the sound of the doorbell ringing. I glanced at the clock, surprised to see it was after ten. I expected to find Aunt Izzie at the door with a bag of bagels or box of donuts, coming to check on me after yesterday’s revelation. Instead, Kyle leaned against the iron railing. He wore a gray T-shirt with the wordsMarconi Beachacross his chest. Seeing it made me think of Dana. I had called her last night, intending to tell her the news about Hank, but I couldn’t make myself say the words. I’d decided I would tell her in person when she came home after Labor Day, which was only a few weeks away.
“Were you sleeping?” Kyle asked.
I tugged at my pajama top, wishing I’d thrown on real clothes before coming downstairs. “Why didn’t you use your key?” The fact that he no longer felt comfortable walking into his own house made me wonder if we had waited too long to try to work things out.Start now,a voice inside my head screamed.
Kyle shrugged. “I don’t know. I just ...” He trailed off without finishing his thought and glanced across the street. “Mr.Abrams called this morning. Has a water stain on the living room ceiling and wanted me to take a look.” He pointed to our front lawn. “Noticed the grass needed mowing, so I figured I’d do it while I was here.”
“I actually had that on my list of things to do today.” By that I meant calling the high school kid around the corner who had been cutting my lawn all summer.
Kyle grinned. The cleft in his chin appeared. I’d forgotten just how handsome he was when he smiled. “Sure you did.”
