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He didn’t move his fingers much or push too hard, but there was a defined and raised section of skin as he did feel around. After a few seconds, he flattened his hand over the top of it.
“Thankfully, after my kidney was in him, he got better, but things got worse between us. In the heat of the moment and the depths of his pain, he said some things, things I didn’t understand. After that, he stopped talking to me, and things got seriously awkward. Once I knew he was okay and was going to be okay, I took off, hitchhiking here. I lived in the forest on the edge of town. Every night, after the bakery locked up, I’d go through the trash and find a few goodies. However, one night Sylvia caught me.”
Landon’s mouth fell open.
“Rather than turn me over to the police, she took me in. Gave me a small room in her place, and fresh food whenever I was hungry. She even paid me for sweeping the floors and washing the dishes, and I helped out with the baking – sort of – giving her tips and tricks that I’d learned.”
“All those chocolate flavours?”
“Yeah, it’s my blend. But I don’t tell anyone. Sylvia’s been so amazing, I don’t want to do anything to ruin that.” I faced Landon, my heart pounding so hard I figured he could see it beating beneath my shirt. “Please don’t say anything about that.”
His hand pulled down on his face and wiped over his mouth. “No. No. Of course not. Your secret is safe with me. I’d never do anything to hurt Sylvia. She’s a true gem.”
“Thank you.” I inhaled and released my breath in one fell swoop. I was starting to feel less burdened than usual. Such a strange feeling. “Then, a couple of weeks ago, my brother calls and drops a bomb on me.” It was crazy how that rocked my world. “Like I’m supposed to give two shits anymore since he told me to scram.”
“I think you missed a step, back up a little.”
“Our father is dying. Again. And there’s nothing more I can do.” It was the first time I’d vocalised it, and hearing it hanging in the air, it broke my defences, and I clutched a solitary breath. “He’s apparently got a few months left, and the kicker is, he hasn’t even asked to see me. He’s still so upset with me that he wants nothing to do with me.”
However, he’s super interested in seeing his other daughter. That part slayed me and even though we no longer saw eye-to-eye, I never wished ill of him, and he wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to live forever. Or to at least seventy. Or eighty. Not become terminally ill in his early fifties.
Landon wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “I’m so sorry. That’s a lot of stress to carry around.”
I allowed myself a moment in his embrace before I pushed out of it and hopped off the table. An fit of anger like a volcano flared inside, rolling and boiling, preparing for eruption.
“Yeah, well…. It’s not like I wanted to see him either.”
Tears ran like a river down my cheeks, and my nose threatened to join in because it was a lie – I did want to see him, to mend the bridge I’d burnt by leaving without a word.
Landon jumped off the table and walked toward me. “I speak from experience here when I say this, you’ll want that chance to say goodbye. It will eat you up for the rest of your life and leave you with nothing but regret if you don’t try.”
“But he’s still so angry with me.”
“No doubt the two of you still have issues to work through, but I can hear how much he did for you, and I hear the love in your voice when you speak of your years together. But if you don’t say goodbye, I promise, it will affect you, one way or another.”
I snorted and stomped my foot on the ground. “I doubt it. Besides, that’s not even the worst of it. Everest, that’s my brother, he has me doing all these final tasks for our father like I’m supposed to be so ready to help because he left the commune because of me, and now that he’s dying, it’s his final wish. Why couldn’t Everest go out and locate her and tell her? Why did it have to be me? I was better off not knowing more of the truth, but I did it, more to just shut Everest up than anything. I found her, and I told her the truth, and now my sister hates me too.”
Landon scrubbed his face. “Jesus. You have a sister too?”
“A half-sister, just like my half-brothers. Frank couldn’t keep it in his pants. It’s the way things were around there.”
“With everyone?”
Curiously, I stared at the disgust on his face and then took a deep breath, trying to hear what I just said as someone else may have said it. “Always with the consenting adults, but anyone who hadn’t started … blossoming … was a hard no.”
“Just the way… And your anger and… Well, I’m just glad.” He stumbled over his words and blinked rapidly while shaking his head, he waved me to continue. “Anyway, you were saying.”
“I just found out a couple of weeks ago about my half-sister. And the kicker is, she lives here.”
The beams of light circled around us, highlighting the area, and then throwing it into darkness, over and over again.
“Wait a minute. Wait a god-damn minute.” He paced off toward the lighthouse, and back again. He shook his hands in front of him, stopped, swiped them aggressively through his thick hair, and paced some more. “I suddenly have questions. Oh, so many questions.”
“I figured you would.” Yes, it was blunt, but I was no longer in any mood to sugar-coat things.
He rubbed the left side of his forehead with his hand. “First, oh my god, I can’t believe I’m going to ask because now I’m terrified of the answer.”
I waited as he put the words together.
