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“What are you doing here?” I croak out.
He brushes a strand of hair off my face, his eyes holding infinite kindness and patience. “I knew today would be hard for you. I’ve been outside the whole time. When I saw your mom come out, but not you, I decided to come in and see what happened.” He holds my face, brushing my tears away with his thumbs. “It kills me when you cry, Sunshine. What did she say?”
I shake my head because I’m not ready to break down the whole short but painful conversation. And like the amazing friend and boyfriend that he is, he doesn’t pry. He just holds me and lets his strength seep into my body until all the cold I felt when my mom left is replaced by warmth and possibility.
This right here is love.
Whatever my mom thinks love is, she’s missing out on the real thing.
Thirty-Two
I’ve put this off long enough. Laney saw him calling me the other night—and me promptly ignoring said call—and told me I couldn’t avoid it forever. She thinks I need to hear my dad out or else I might regret it when he’s gone and I can’t talk to him anymore. Her own conversation with her mom had her reeling for a few days, but then she admitted to me she was glad she did it because at least it gave her closure. She thinks I need the same thing with my dad. I don’t know if she’s right, but I’m sick of ignoring his calls, and I’d rather get this done and over with.
I pull up in my rented SUV outside his house. It’s not the same one I grew up in—he sold that one shortly after I moved out. I sometimes wonder if he only kept it for those last few months of my senior year after Mom died because of me. I wasn’t such a dick that I didn’t notice he was hurting too.
But he’d cheated on her. And that was unforgivable.
I haven’t been back to Idaho in a long time, but everything in our small town looks the same. It’s only the man who answers the door who looks different. I barely hold back my shock when my dad answers, looking frail, his dark skin ashy and slightly gray, bags under his dark-brown eyes, and his shoulders hunched like it’s taking too much energy to answer the door. He looks nothing like the man I remember. His eyes grow damp with tears even as a smile lights his face.
“Dom,” he says, with awe and something that sounds strangely like gratitude in his voice. “You came.”
“I figured we should do this face-to-face.”
He steps back, opening the door wider so I can walk past him. I’m taken aback when I see pictures of me—many that I recognize from the media—plastered on his walls. One from our most recent Super Bowl win, another from when the Fierce Four were featured in a popular sports magazine. My entire career is hung on the wall followed by all my school pictures that my mom used to display. I halt in front of another picture, my heart aching with a deep pain that never seems to go away, but is especially intense when I’m confronted with pictures of my mom.
I remember when this one was taken—only two weeks before my mom was diagnosed with cancer. It was before my whole life started spiraling out of my control. It was after we won the homecoming game, my mom on one side of me, my dad on the other, both of them beaming with pride.
“She loved watching you play.”
I startle, ripped from my memories, and turn my head to find my dad staring at the picture with the same kind of pain I recognize every time I think about my mom. It’s hard to find my voice over the emotions threatening to choke me.
“I’m surprised you have her picture up.”
He turns his sad expression to me, and it’s like being hit by a bulldozer to have the full force of his pain directed at me. “We have a lot to talk about.”
He shuffles to the living room and I follow, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. This is not the man I grew up with. That man was larger than life, confident. He walked with a mix of swagger and grace. He always had a smile on his face and a kind word to say. For the first time since I heard his voicemail about his illness, it really hits me that my dad is dying.
He takes a seat on a large, cushioned chair and gestures around the room for me to pick where I want to sit. I choose the beige couch across from him, sitting on the edge, my back stiff and my legs tense. I have to force myself to sit back and attempt to relax in his presence.
“Where’s Kim?”
I didn’t go to their wedding. I refused on principle. There was no way I could condone him marrying the woman he’d had an affair on my mom with—the woman who’d been my mother’s nurse and had become her close friend and confidante. That kind of betrayal didn’t deserve to be rewarded, and there was no way in hell I wanted anyone to think I actually supported them. In all honesty, I didn’t even think the marriage would last this long.
“She’s running some errands.”
Good. I’m not eager to see her. I must not hide my disdain well enough because my dad’s expression turns sad and disappointed, almost scolding.
“She doesn’t deserve your hate. She never did anything wrong.”
I scoff. “Yeah, okay. Whatever. Can we just get this over with? What’s so important that you needed to harass me for months with calls?”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, wincing slightly from an unseen pain at the motion. “I tried for years to find the way to tell you this, but I chickened out and thought I’d have more time. But time is something I’m quickly running out of.” He takes a deep breath and on an exhale once against twists the perspective of my world.
“Your mom knew. About Kim,” he adds. He leans back in his chair, seemingly trying to find a comfortable position, his cancer clearly already taking a toll on his body. “It was her idea.” He shakes his head and looks out the window beside him, but I don’t miss the shimmer of tears in his eyes or the way his voice grows hoarse when he speaks. “We’d been together since college. I knew the minute I saw her that she was the woman for me—that I’d marry her and be the happiest man on the planet.” He turns back to me, his gaze locking on mine. “And I was. Until she got sick, and I felt completely and utterly helpless. We knew it was terminal, and I think she saw how lost I was starting to feel at just the idea of not having her in my life. I was trying to be strong for her, but your mom…” He stops, a tear escaping down his cheek that he doesn’t bother to brush away. I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he tries to get his emotions under control. “She knew me better than anyone,” he croaks out.
“She fell in love with Kim when we hired her to be her in-home nurse, and she got this harebrained idea that I should date Kim after she was gone. I thought she’d lost her damn mind. The idea of being with anyone else…” He shakes his head. “It was inconceivable. But as the months progressed, she kept pushing for it. Kim and I would find ourselves set up in situations that were orchestrated by your mother. A fancy dinner that she wanted and then claimed she was too tired for, but encouraged Kim and me to enjoy together. A movie night on the couch. A backyard date where we’d lie under the stars. And there was no escaping it because she’d find ways to throw us together. But despite knowing what she was doing, I couldn’t quite commit to it. It didn’t feel right. Not that I didn’t enjoy Kim’s company—I did immensely, which made me feel no small amount of guilt.
“But then things took a turn, your mom worsened, and she begged me. Begged.” He stares out the window again, more tears coming out and his voice hoarse when he finally speaks again. “I was never able to say no to her.”
