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All I know is now that I have Summer, I’m never, ever letting her go.
46
HUDSON
Telling Summer that I love her was the most important thing I’ve ever done. But there’s another important thing I have to do.
I’m in my car, driving down to the Boston suburb where I grew up. Where my dad’s house is.
I worked up the courage to tell Summer how I feel. Now it’s time to talk to my dad about how he hides from Mom’s memory, from his feelings. I still love my dad, even though things haven’t been perfect between us, and I don’t want to resent him anymore.
My car rolls to a stop in his driveway. I take a deep breath to steady myself before picking up the box that sits in the passenger seat and swinging out the driver’s side door.
On the porch, I hesitate when my arm twitches to guide my index finger to the doorbell.
Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe I should just turn around, get back in my car, and drive the three and a half hours right back to Cedar Shade.
No. It’s time to confront this.
I talked to Summer about this last night. She was totally behind me. Said it was a great idea, that she was proud of me for taking the initiative to face my feelings with my father, for being willing to have a hard conversation that we need to have if my relationship with my dad will ever be closer to what I’d like it to be.
Chickening out, going back home and disappointing my girlfriend? Not an option.
I press the doorbell and hear the dull buzz of it ringing inside the house.
Then the door opens, and my father is standing in front of me just beyond the doorjamb. He blinks and his eyebrows pinch together. “Hudson?” he asks. “What are you doing here?”
Trying to act nonchalant, I breeze past him, inside the house where I grew up. He closes the door once I pass and then turns to me, his features still furrowed.
“Just wanted to drop in.” I heft up the box in my hands demonstratively. “Found some stuff in my closet that I thought would look great down here.”
He just continues to look at me quizzically. So, I walk right to the big, polished coffee table in the living room. Then, I reach into the box.
“I saw this picture,” I say, my voice loud to carry to my dad who’s now several paces behind me still in the foyer, “and thought it would look perfect set up right here.”
My father pads over to see the picture I’ve just placed in the room where he spends much of his day.
It’s a picture of Mom, from before I was born. A picture my dad took. They were on a road trip, and she’s leaning against an old car on the side of a long, empty road in the middle of who knows where. The sky behind her is a bright blue, and the wide smile on her face is even brighter.
“Hudson.” My name sounds choked in my dad’s throat, emotion tight around it.
“And this one,” I say, briskly, picking up another picture from the box and walking over to the mantle. “I saw it and couldn’t get over the thought that it would look absolutely perfect. Right here.”
I set up a picture of my mom and dad together, sitting on a sandy beach in front of a lake. Smiling like they were the happiest people in the world. I hope that’s how Summer and I look when we smile together.
“How old were you guys here?” I ask my dad. He’s walked over to me, turned towards the picture I just set up.
“Hudson … why are you …”
Pressure swells in my throat, but I bite it back. I turn to my father and ask him what I’ve been avoiding asking him for so, so long.
“Why can’t we ever talk about her, dad?” His response to the question is almost a wince. “Ever since she died. You don’t have any pictures of her around. You always avoid talking about her, even when I try. Don’t you … don’t you love her anymore?”
He turns to me. His eyes, pale and icy blue like my own, are thick with emotion. “I’ve never stopped loving your mother, Hudson. Not for a single day. Not for a single second.”
“Then why?”
In his eyes I see a storm of emotion, thought, memory. Then, he strides forward and wraps me up in a hug, a tight hug that pushes the breath out of me.
