Forgiven (22 page)

“Your mother was the love of my life.” His voice quivers. “It was like I was a different man when I drank. Like I had two personalities, or something.” He glances away and pauses. I lift my heel and do this bouncing thing when I get really nervous, and it starts. Bradley reaches over and places his hand on my leg. As pissed as I am at him for earlier, my leg slows, and I feel slightly calmer. I put my hand on his. “Anyway, you looked so different from Sam when you were little. You look just like your mother.”

I put my head down and try to choke back the tears. I don’t talk about it often, but I know I am the spitting image of my mother. I always assumed that Sam must have been a spitting image of my dad. She does resemble him.

He continues. “I always questioned whether you were my child.”

I know my eyes must look like deer caught in headlights. I can’t believe that my mother would have ever had an affair. I have to ask Sam about this. The thought that she may not be my real sister makes bile rise from my stomach. I grab my belly. “Excuse me,” I mutter as I rush from the table to the bathroom, covering my mouth to try to fight back the vomit. Luckily, the shop is small, and I reach the bathroom door relatively quickly. It’s not a large bathroom, just a single stall. I reach the commode in time before I am unable to contain myself any longer. Thankful that I didn’t eat or drink anything, I pull the toilet paper and wipe my mouth before pushing the lever to flush.

There is a knock at the door, and it opens slightly. “Gabby?” Bradley asks, “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”

“I’m fine, and no.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I just need a minute.”

“I’ll be right outside of the door waiting, then.”

“Yep.”

I can’t believe that my mother would have had an affair. Surely, there must have been something else that happened to make him think that I wasn’t his child. Does he have proof she had an affair? Had she been seeing someone else? All of these questions flood my mind. I push back the tears that are threatening the backs of my eyes. I say a silent prayer that everything I thought about my life, about my mother, wasn’t all a lie. I wash my face with a cool paper towel and toss it into the trash before exiting the bathroom.

Bradley is facing the bathroom door, leaning up against the wall with his legs crossed and hands in his pocket. He straightens his body when I come through the door. He moves forward and pulls me into a hug. I don’t even have time to wrap my arms around him. Not that I would have. I’m still reeling from him treating me like a child earlier with the water. I realize as I stand there in his embrace that I almost feel numb. I am definitely going to need some time to process all of this information. Bradley puts his hands on my shoulders and surveys me before asking, “Do you want to leave? Finish this another time?”

“Why would I want to do that?” I ask.

“Because, never mind that it’s late, I’m pretty sure you just got sick in the bathroom.”

“Yeah, finding out everything you thought about your life might not be true will do that to you.” I push away from him and head back to the table. “I said I was fine. Good thing I didn’t drink that water,” I hiss as I glance back to see him standing there looking at me. I can tell that I just pushed every one of his buttons, but I’m glad. Tonight, he’s pushed enough of mine.

When I get back to the table, my dad looks concerned. “I’m sorry, Gabby. You didn’t give me a chance to really finish. As soon as I said that, your entire face turned green.”

“It’s fine.” I look away. “Why did you think I wasn’t yours? Was she having an affair?”

“No. Well, I don’t think so now.”

“Why did you then?”

“There was a guy that she worked with. He always seemed overly interested in your mother. She always assured me that there was nothing more there.”

“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t.” I am well aware that just because someone tells you it’s all in your head and there’s nothing there, doesn’t mean that’s the truth. Ian was very good at covering up his little tryst with the person I thought was my very best friend. I’m sure as an adult, someone could do an even better job.

“I know.” He takes a swig of a bottle of water he must have gotten while I was in the bathroom. “I’ll get to that in a little bit. Let me continue, if you want?”

“I want to know.”

“Okay. So I wasn’t sure you were mine. I had convinced myself that because you looked nothing like me at the time that you must have been someone else’s. You were always quiet, shy, and almost slow. I had no patience for you, Gabby. Especially when I was drinking.”

I gulp and close my eyes for a moment to keep the tears back. I can’t believe I don’t remember any of this. I don’t understand how that’s even possible. “What did you do to me? What was so bad that Mom would have taken us and just left for good?”

“You girls had broken something while I was supposed to be watching you. I knew when your mother came home, she would nag the hell out of me. I was sick of it. When you are in that place, you don’t want to hear anything from anyone. You don’t want anything coming between you and the bottle.” He looks down and fidgets in his lap.
Exactly the way I do
. “I lost it. I lost control. Your mother had always told me it was one thing for me to be a deadbeat dad, but the moment I laid a hand on either of you, she was gone.”

“So you hit me?”

“I hit you multiple times. It was more than hitting, though. She should have left me long before that. Gabby, I’m so sorry. When I was drunk I would say horrendous things to you, about you.”

I have nothing to say. It’s hard for me to believe that I would have blocked all of that out, or that I would have been that traumatized over words, but then again, I have always been extremely sensitive to people saying ugly things to me. Maybe it’s why I reacted the way I did to Bradley telling me to drink the water. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have done this. Maybe I should have just left this buried inside of me.

Dad starts to talk again. “Anyway, your mother came home and saw me hitting you. Sam was terrified. That was it. She left. That was my rock bottom. I started going to AA meetings several weeks later after I realized she wasn’t coming back.” He starts to bounce his leg like I do. It is becoming more and more clear as I watch him that he has to be my father. We may not look that much alike, but we certainly have the same mannerisms.

“That’s why you call me angel?”

“That’s why I call you angel. As much as I thought I hated you, despised you, I realized had it not been for you...I don’t know where I’d be now.” He looks up to me through his lashes. “Gabby, you saved me.”

“So you don’t drink anymore?”

“I’m a recovering alcoholic. Every day is a struggle. I attend meetings regularly, have a sponsor, and all that jazz.”

“Wow.”

“After I started going to the meetings and met my sponsor, I joined a local church.” He smiles for the first time since this started. “That’s where I met Cindy.”

“Cindy, your wife?”

“Yes.”

“How did you find out Mom wasn’t having an affair?”

“It wasn’t long after I started getting my life on track, that I hired a private investigator to try to find her.” He shakes his head. “It was obvious that she wasn’t seeing anyone. I had him watch you all for a long time. He would bring me pictures of you and Sam...and Grace.” A tear slides down his cheek. He looks away as he swipes it. “I thought about trying to go back to her, but you all looked so so happy, Gabby.”

I feel my chest and throat tighten, and I know that fighting back tears is a useless waste of energy. Both of my eyes well up and overflow like a fountain. “So you just watched us...just let us go?”

“I know. It was wrong.”

“You’re damn right it was wrong! You should have tried to make it right.”

“I don’t expect you to understand, Gabby. I just knew that I didn’t want to mess up your new life.”

“So you never spoke to Mom ever again?”

He shakes his head. “No, I didn’t.”

“How did you know she passed away?”

“I always read the obituaries. There isn’t a day that passes that I have missed them.” He clears his throat. “I know that had to have been really hard on you and Sam.”

“Oh you have no idea. And you knew, and you still didn’t come back?”

“What was I supposed to do? Show up at your door and say ‘Daddy’s back’?”

I don’t know what to say to that. I guess he has a point. I mean, it’s not like Sam’s even receptive to him now. There’s no way she would have been then. “I don’t know.” I sigh as I put my head into my hands. “I guess I just can’t believe that you had this other family and you got your crap together, but never came back for us.”

He reaches his hand across the table a little closer to me. “Gabby...”

I glance up and notice the gesture. I’m not sure I’m ready to be consoled by him. “Huh?”

“I can’t go back. I can’t change those decisions. I have to own what I did in every aspect.” He retracts his hand and runs it through his hair. “I have dealt with it in every way I could. The only thing left to do is to ask for your forgiveness and move on. We can’t change the past, but we can sure as hell make sure the future is better.”

He has a point. I mean, we can sit here all day long and talk about what he should have done. They say hindsight is always twenty-twenty. This is all just too much. My head has started to throb, and all I want to do is go to sleep. It has all of the sudden hit me that I am emotionally and physically exhausted. This little meeting, the puking...it has hit me so quickly.

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” I glance over to Bradley, who is staring impassively at me, before looking back to my dad. “I really appreciate you doing this. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you, either.”

“You’re welcome.”

I turn to Bradley. “You ready? I’m so tired.”

“Yep.” He scoots his chair out and extends his hand and I place mine in his.

“I’ll let you two out, and then lock up,” Dad says as he gets up and heads towards the door. After he unlocks the deadbolt, he opens the door. “You two be careful. If you have any other questions after all this has settled for you, just call me. You know how to find me.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

Bradley puts his arm around my back and leads me out of the door. I don’t want my dad to see that I’m still upset with him. After he shuts the door back and locks it, I scoot out of Bradley’s grasp.

He opens the door for me to the car, and I slide in silently while and he does the same. We’re completely quiet on the way back to the house. I appreciate his help and support, but I’m still pissed that he was so rude and demanding. He totally ruined my mood. He made me lose my cool. I was nervous enough as it was. I didn’t need to deal with his being macho.

When we get back home, I let myself out of the car, and we both quietly walk to the bedroom. The tension between us is palpable. Our chemistry and need for one another is pulling us together like those huge magnets we had as kids on the fridge, yet our brains are trying to pry us apart. Both of us are stubborn as a mule, and I refuse to give in to it this time. For some reason I feel like I have to stand up to him.

I walk to our closet and strip out of my clothes to where I’m down to just my light pink lace bra and matching boy short panties. When I go into the bathroom to take my contacts out and wash my face, he follows me and acts like he’s busy. He’s pissed me off even more than I already was. I turn on my heel to leave the bathroom, and he grabs my elbow right as I think I am out of his reach. He pulls me back and crushes my body against the wall, pinning my arms above my head. He has his other hand on the wall beside my face. His body is so close to mine that I can feel his heat radiating onto my exposed skin. He glares at me, still silent. I lift my chin and narrow my eyes at him. My desire has pooled between my legs, and I am literally bound and determined to not say the first word.

He shakes his head to the side and rolls his eyes. “You’re so damned set on ignoring me tonight.”

“Hmph.” is all I give him the satisfaction of hearing.

“Why couldn’t you just drink the damn water?”

“It wasn’t about the water,” I spat as I break our eye contact for the first time. He’s so sexy like this that I can’t even think straight.

He uses the hand that was on the wall to move my chin back up to where I have to look at him. “Oh really?” He licks his lips. “If not the water, then what?”

“You were being rude and bossy,” I pout.

He chuckles. “I noticed you pouted there, too. I must say, you’re sexy as hell when you pout fully dressed, but you just took sexy to a whole new level.”

I inhale and exhale sharply, trying to get a grip on the raging heat that is consuming my body. “It was hard enough without you being a dick.” I look away again.

“Gabby,” he whispers as he moves a piece of hair behind my ear. “Do you know how hard it was for me to watch you do that to yourself? To subject yourself to that?”

I shake my head and gulp. “No,” I mutter.

“You know I crave control, and I don’t know that I have ever felt so out of control in my life. You have no idea how hard it was for me to sit there and watch that unfold. To watch your heart being sliced open and served on a damn platter right in front of me.” He looks up to the ceiling and I can tell he’s trying to contain his anger, or maybe it’s frustration. I don’t know what I’m seeing in front of me right now. “I had to try to do something to help you. And you shut me out, Gabby Girl.” When he turns his head to look back at me his blue eyes are intense. They sear me. “You shut me out, and you shut me down.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I bite my lip to keep from crying.

“Partners. You gotta quit shutting me out.”

I close my eyes for a minute. I hate myself at this moment. How did I ever get so lucky. I tip my head and rest my forehead on his, and move our lips to where they are touching. I want to kiss him so badly.