Controlled by His Voice Box Set (Erotic Romance) (21 page)

"Punchy!" said my Dad from the kitchen. On the counter behind him was a package of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and onions.

I shut the door behind me and ran toward him. He didn't have an opportunity to even start his punching routine before my arms were locked around him. I held him tight.

"I love you, Dad," I said.

"What's this?" he said as he hugged me back. "You okay?"

"Yes," I said, my voice muffled in his red-and-green plaid flannel shirt. "I just wanted to say I love you because I haven't said it in a while."

"I love you too, Punchy. What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing. I just want to thank you." I leaned back and looked up at him, still holding his arms.

"Thank me? For what?"

"For being you. You're a good dad."

"Seriously, what the fuck's gotten into you? You're not pregnant, are you?"

"Dad!" I backed up. "No! Can't I just say how much I appreciate you once in a while?"

"Sure. If you say so. You want some corned beef dinner?"

"I had a feeling you'd be cooking that today," I said. "And I have a surprise for you. You can leave the Pabst Blue Ribbon in the basement. I bought some Guinness for us!"

"Are you sure you're not pregnant? You're warming me up for some bad news, aren't you?"

"Dad!"

I went out to my Ford Fusion, which I had told my dad I won in a contest, and brought in the Guinness.

I cracked two open and poured them into pint glasses. I still had a nice buzz going from the ones I had with Nikki and I didn't want to lose it. Plus, I wanted to get the image of Ralph and Louisa Sladzcyk out of my mind.

"Can I help?" I said.

"No!" he said a little too quickly. "I'm no fancy chef but if there's one thing I learned at my mother's side it was corned beef dinner."

He was right about that. Not to mention he knows I have no cooking ability whatsoever.

We laughed and drank while he cooked. We talked about sports (of which I know nothing so I just let him ramble) and politics. He tried converting me into a conservative like he always does. I just drank more.

By the time we sat down to eat at the tiny kitchen table, we were a couple of Irish drunks.

"Dad, this is fantastic!" I said.

"Of course it is," he said. "Your grandma was from County Cork, remember. She taught me right."

Emboldened in my current state, I said, "Dad, I'm sorry Mom treated you the way she did."

"What the fuck?" he said between mouthfuls of cabbage and boiled potato. "This is a happy day. Don't start."

"No, Dad. No. I have to say it. I hate the way she treated you. You never did anything but love her and she just yelled at you and put you down. You didn't deserve that."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Punchy."

"You're a good man, Dad. I had a college professor recently try to tell me that all men are bad. But you aren't. You're one of the good ones."

He kept his head down, staring at his food while he chewed.

"Not as good as you think," he said.

"Dad, stop putting yourself down! You're the best man I know. I just wish Mom could have seen that."

"Hey! Can't we just have a nice fucking St. Patrick's Day dinner without all the gobbledygook?"

"Fine."

We ate in silence for a while.

"Dad," I said as I put my fork down. "I have to say it, I'm sorry, but I do. I really
hate
when you put yourself down. I won't let you see yourself the way you always have. I loved Mom, but she sucked the life out of you. You became somebody else... all distant. All because of the way she treated you."

My dad stopped eating. He slammed his fork down on his plate and got up, taking the plate with him.

"Dad, don't leave! I'm talking to you!"

"You're full of shit!" he said. "I was having a good day and you had to go and fucking ruin it. It's the same with all you broads. You just want to talk talk talk. Let's talk it out. Talk talk talk. Hey! Let's NOT!"

He slammed the plate down on the countertop. A potato rolled onto the floor. He stormed into the living room, limping as he went. He turned the TV on loud.

I sat there, picking at my corned beef and cabbage.
Now I've done it, haven't I?
Oh well. Too late. Just shut up and eat your dinner, Meghan.

A few minutes later, I felt a presence. I turned around to see my dad leaning on the divider between the kitchen and the living room. He stared at me.

"Meghan," he said.

Uh-oh. He never calls me Meghan.

"Meghan, I..."

He couldn't seem to speak.

"I'm sorry, dad," I said. "You're right. I never should have brought any of that up. Come on back. Let's just eat and talk about sports. How are the Bruins doing?"

"Meghan," he said, "I didn't love your mother."

The potato I had been swallowing stuck in my throat. We both just kept looking at each other. The hockey game he had turned on made an odd contrast to the tone of what he had just said.

"I was in love with your Aunt Shirley," he said.

I just stared at him. He stared back with an odd expression I'm not used to seeing on his face.
What is that? Regret?

"Aunt Shirley?" I said. "
My
Aunt Shirley?"

"Yeah. But your Aunt Shirley married your Uncle Jack because he was a fancy college boy. He was going to
be
something. I was never going to be anything and Shirley knew it. But Shirley and I had gotten to know each other in a way that..."

"Oh no, Dad, no. Don't tell me."

I felt a rumble in my stomach.

"We were in love," he said. "We made love. A lot." The thought of my dad with my Aunt Shirley was just gross. "Shirley loved me, I know she did. I even bought her a ring." Tears were in his eyes now. "It was the most beautiful ring I've ever seen before or since. Cost me a goddamned fortune. And you know what she did, Meghan?"

My stomach flip-flopped.

"She gave it back to me," he said. "She left it at my place of work. With the girl at the desk."

I dropped my fork.

"I immediately got drunk and went to your mother," he said. "She had always been in love with me. Ever since I met Shirley. So me and your mother had sex that night. I didn't know what I was doing. I was so broken up over Shirley, not to mention two sheets to the wind."

I felt a wave of nausea spreading through me.

"Nine months later you were born," he said. "Your mother and I married even though I still loved Shirley. Because I wanted to do the right thing. Besides, Shirley was engaged to Jack."

I put my hand on the table to steady the room. It was no use. It was starting to spin.

"Dad," I said, "I never knew."

"Of course you didn't," he said. "We all stopped talking about it once you and your cousin Kenny were born. Then Shirley married Jack, who turned out to be a fucking fairy and ran off with his barber, leaving me to take care of you and Kenny."

"What do you mean leaving you to take care of me and Kenny? What does my cousin Kenny have to do with you?"

"You were both born around the same time, about two weeks apart. Think about it."

My head was unclear. I had put too much information into it today. And too much Guinness. I couldn't handle any half-hints right now. I needed things spelled out for me.

"So Kenny and I were born the same time," I said. "So what? You had sex with Mom and got her pregnant. Uncle Jack had sex with Aunt Shirley and got her pregnant."

"No," he said, "your uncle Jack hadn't yet had sex with your Aunt Shirley when she got pregnant."

It took a second but it finally clicked in. My stomach made a big roll. I put my hand to my mouth. The entire room took a turn to the right.

"You get it, Meghan?" he said. "Your cousin Kenny ain't your cousin. He's your brother. Well, half-brother anyway."

The room went into a full-on spin.

"So how do you like your dad now?" he said. "I got two sisters pregnant at the same time. Broke one of their hearts after the other one broke mine. I'm a great man, ain't I? Your mother never got over it. And I don't blame her. She deserved better than me."

I ran to the little bathroom off the kitchen but didn't make it. I threw up all over the kitchen floor.

I swear Meredith Zycroft had a face-lift. I wasn't sure, but her skin glowed with a refreshing shine. Half of her wrinkles were gone. The red lipstick was gone too, replaced by a glossy pink that complemented her rosy cheeks. Her hair was a shade lighter and she wore a spring dress that was almost sexy. If I had passed her on the street, I probably wouldn't have recognized her.

"You look fantastic!" I said as I sat down.

Fantastic was a stretch, but it sounded better than saying
You look somewhat better than you did before.

"Thank you," she said. "So Meghan, how was your week?"

"One of the strangest of my life," I said.

She did the head-tilt nod thing. I almost did it with her.

"I learned that the relationship between my Mom and Dad wasn't the relationship I thought they had. Not at all. Not even close."

Another head-tilt nod.

So I told her what I learned from my dad.

"Do you find that you are still angry with your mother?" she said.

"No," I said. "Not anymore. I feel bad for her now."

"Do you blame your dad?"

"I feel like I should, but all he did was make a mistake. And he paid for it. He did the right thing. He could have cut and run, but he didn't. We all make mistakes. Not all of us do the right thing. But he did."

"It seems to me," said Meredith, "that you had built up a vision of what the ideal wife should be and blamed your mother for not living up to that expectation. Is that correct, Meghan?"

"Yes, definitely."

"Now, with this new information, do you think that perhaps your expectation of what kind of wife you would be, has changed?"

"I hadn't thought about it, but yes I guess it has."

"Think back to the night Jake asked you to marry him. Would you still do the same thing?"

"Throw up in the bathroom of the fancy restaurant? Probably. In fact, definitely."

"Why?"

"Because it wasn't about my expectations of myself. It wasn't that I wasn't ready yet. It really was Jake. I didn't love him like that. I realized that the day he showed up drunk in the snowstorm and we had sex. I guess I just thought I
should
love him because he fit the checklist for the perfect man."

"And Tristan? Does he fit the checklist for the perfect man?"

"Hell no, he fails the checklist completely. If you put the checklist down in front of him, it would incinerate."

I told her about the weekend adventure. I left out licking Isabella's pussy. Meredith would have leaped down that road but it's a dead end and I only have fifty minutes, all of which I need today!

I did tell her about my epic rant and walking out his door forever. As I did so, I felt tears forming and then falling down my cheeks.

Shit, I promised myself I was NOT going cry like a whiny little bitch again!

Fuck it. I reached for some tissue and blew my nose.

"Well, Meghan," she said, "it sounds to me like your fears of losing your strong self were unfounded."

"I guess so," I said. "I mean, I'm glad but I'm not glad. It's good to know I still have it in me. I don't want to take shit from anyone. Ever."

Head-tilt nod.

"And that's it," I said.

"Is it?" she said.

"Yes."

Long pause.

"Well, okay, no," I said. "I guess while I'm happy I'm still me, I'm disappointed that Tristan is still Tristan."

"How could he possibly be anyone else?"

"I wanted him to change. I wanted him to meet me halfway. I wanted him to rush after me as I was going to the door, grab me, kiss me, and tell me he's going to change and be what I want him to be."

"What do you want him to be?"

"Normal."

"You like that word, don't you? But you still haven't figured out how it applies in your life."

"Actually, I have. It means meeting halfway with another person. Nobody is ever going to be the perfect match. I stepped up and met him halfway, sticking one foot in his world while keeping the other one in mine. He wouldn't meet me halfway. He stayed firmly planted, both feet in his world."

"What do you mean by his world?"

"I mean... look, I'm never going to be Anastasia Steele to his Christian Grey. You know who they are, right?"

"Yes, I've read the books."

"Okay. Had a feeling you did. When I read them, I found the whole BDSM thing intriguing but my best friend Dan pointed out to me that it's just not me. And he's right. I'm a thrill-seeker who'll try anything once but I'm not a committed submissive. But it's not Tristan either. He just uses the whole
submission training
thing as a replacement slash therapeutic exercise for his inability to control his emotions."

"And how did you think you could get him to plant one foot in your world?"

"By showing him how... by helping him to... by being the person he loved enough to help him get past his trauma!"

"Sometimes it takes more than love to recover from trauma. Sometimes people never recover at all."

"I know."

"So what are you going to do, Meghan?"

"I'm going to record my demo tapes and get a job at any television station anywhere in the country besides Boston."

"Why not Boston?"

"Because I have to get out of here."

"Because of Tristan?"

"Well, that's probably part of it. Jake too. Besides, I've been here my entire life. I feel like I really just need a big change to help me forget this experience."

"You want to forget it?"

"No, not really."

"Here's an idea. How about you put it in a place, a folder in your mind, where you store
happy
memories? You did enjoy your wild adventures with Tristan, didn't you?"

"Yes, they were... great. Oh fuck, they were goddamned incredible. Part of me fears I will never find a man who pushes all of my buttons like that again."

"No you won't. But you'll find someone else who will push other buttons you may not yet know you have."

The thought made me sad for some reason.

"I guess so," I said.