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I shook my head. “That’s the thing,” I told him. “I guess I know that. But I don’t believe it. Her last years were complicated and unhappy because she married me. I loved her, and I let myself get so wrapped up in it, I couldn’t see it wasn’t good for her. I wasn’t good for her. I wasn’t what she really wanted but I married her anyway because I thought she was what I wanted. We trapped each other, and we were almost getting to a point where we could admit it, give it up and move on. But we stayed together, and she never got the chance to find someone else to make her really happy. It was like being with me killed her.”
“Dude,” Tuck scoffed. “Now you’re just being arrogant. You don’t have that power, friend.”
The fear and pain I’d held since Jess’s death felt lighter somehow, just for having been made real by words. The feelings were smaller now than they’d felt inside me, now that I’d shone a light onto them—the way the monsters in my closet when I was small disappeared when Dad took the flashlight in there and swung it around.
“You loved her, and she loved you. Sometimes that works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. That’s life, man. And you were there for her when she needed you. You took care of her.”
A choked breath caught in my throat as I thought of Jess at the end. I had loved her. I had tried.
“Don’t let what happened with Jess color what happens next. Learn from it for sure. Let the understanding of those emotions become part of the foundation of your next relationship. Every connection is different, though. Don’t let one outcome predestine another.” Tuck’s face was solemn as he delivered this wisdom and I couldn’t help but smile. He was part Buhddist monk, part surfer, part giant kid.
“Thanks for that, oh great yogi.”
He put his hands together in front of his heart and bowed to me. Then he stood. “We making a movie, or what?”
Chapter 16
HARPER
Icalled my dad to pick me up at the airport just before I left Austin. We needed to talk—both about my changing plans and about the things that still ached between us. He’d answered eagerly, been happy to make the long drive if it meant spending time with me, and once again I had to think about whether the man who’d supposedly abandoned me as a little kid would be so eager to pick things up now, to change his plans to spend three hours driving to and from the airport unexpectedly.
He was there waiting at the end of the long terminal hallway in Fresno when I returned. I saw him before he saw me—tall and thin, his hands tucked into his jeans pockets and his silvered hair striking in the afternoon light flooding the terminal. I let myself really look at him, and the memories and emotions I’d walled up stirred around inside me a bit. Daddy had been good to me once. He’d been the warmth and the fun at home when I’d been little. Mom had been…something else. Distracted, mostly. So why had she been the one to take me when they divorced?
“Hi Dad,” I said when I was close enough for him to hear me.
“Harper,” he said, his face breaking into a warm smile. “How was the trip?”
“It was good,” I said. “Really good.”
He nodded. “Have a bag?”
“No, I didn’t check anything.” I indicated the wheeled bag next to me and he reached for it, taking the handle.
“Ready?”
I followed him outside to his black compact, and once we were on the road, I cleared my throat, ready to get down to business. “I’ve been wanting to ask you something,” I started, and watched his shoulders stiffen slightly as he gripped the wheel and kept his eyes on the road. “I know you’ve been wanting time to talk, so I thought maybe this would be good.”
He nodded. “I’m glad for the chance,” he said a little hesitantly.
“Thanks for coming to get me,” I said, not wanting to forget to thank him before I approached the other things.
He looked at me then. “I should have come to get you a long time ago.” His eyes met mine and I was reduced to a little girl once again, sitting next to my daddy, relying on him, believing in him. I nearly broke into tears, but focused on my breathing and pulled my eyes away from his. He didn’t get to control this conversation. I wasn’t going to regress. I needed answers.
I swallowed hard and found my voice again. “That’s what I want to talk about. Why didn’t you? Where were you?”
I watched his knuckles whiten on the wheel and then he sighed, a low exhausted breath rushing out of him. It sounded like resignation. I was finally going to have answers. “Your mother loved you,” he began. “But she didn’t love me anymore.” He let that sit for a minute, hanging between us. “And the longer we stayed married, the more angry she became at me.”
“Why?” I breathed, wishing I could remember anything about them together during those early years—but in my memories, they weren’t together. Not ever, really.
“Your mom and I grew up together in Los Angeles,” he said, his shoulders relaxing a bit. I swiveled in my seat to watch him as he spoke, not wanting to miss anything since I’d waited so long to hear this. “You mother’s family lived a few houses away from mine. Your mom and her sister were my best friends when we were little. Then, as we got older, things changed.”
“Mom has a sister?” I’d never heard my mother talk about a sister. Shock slid through me, cold and slick.
“Had. Yes. Allene.” Dad glanced over at me then, and then went on. “She and I were the same age. Your mom was a couple years younger. And you know, in those years, when you’re in school, it feels like it matters a lot, those couple years.”
I nodded, remembering that from my own life.
“I was always in love with Allene.
