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My father was there, smoking a cigar. He saw my tears but didn’t mention them, choosing to overlook them like he did so many other things.
I wasn’t sure if that made me happy or angry.
Maybe both.
“That’ll kill you,” I finally said, nodding at the cigar.
“Something else with me first,” he said with a shrug. “And if not, what a way to go.”
I shook my head, then leaned against the porch railing. “We really should tell her,” I said.
“Kayla, we talked about this. She doesn’t need to know. And besides, this will all be over soon. What would be the point of telling her? It would only hurt her to know that we’ve kept this from her. Or put her in danger,” he said.
“I know,” I responded on a deep sigh.
Before, when I had agreed to work for Elias, I’d wanted to tell my mother.
My father had convinced me not to.
At the time, it seemed like the right thing, but now I wondered. Had he done it to spare her, or to spare himself?
My father was prideful, and I could only imagine how much shame he’d felt at the thought of telling his wife of more than three decades about the position he had put himself and his family in.
And who was responsible for getting him out of it.
Even still, I hated the deception and didn’t want secrets between any of us.
But he was right.
We had done this for so long, and one way or another, that debt would be repaid.
Telling her now would just create a mess, open up wounds, and neither my father nor I had the stomach for that.
Not on top of everything else that was going on.
“Thank you,” my father said.
“For what?” I asked.
“I can’t imagine what that man makes you do. And it’s not right that you have to do it for me, but thank you,” he said, his voice quiet, something much too much like shame in his tone.
I hated that sound, wanted to take it away.
“Don’t worry about me, Daddy. He’s…fine,” I finally said.
Things between Elias and I were infinitely more complicated than “fine,” something I knew my father understood.
But I wouldn’t tell him more than that, and he wouldn’t ask.
And once again, I was grateful for his silence.
“It’ll work out,” he said.
“I know,” I responded.
“Then maybe after…you can get back to Todd and your real life,” he said, sounding hopeful, asking me without saying the words to agree.
“Maybe…”
