Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“You were a kid, Hellen. And then you had to be something else, for Mom, for me, so you became that, and you never got to go back.”
I returned my gaze to her. “It was who I was meant to be anyway. So maybe I got there earlier. It was where I was going, so it’s no big deal.”
“Still, thank you.”
“We’re family.”
“Just shut up and let me be grateful.”
I gave her an irritated side eye.
She grinned at me.
“Girls.”
We both looked up at Dad.
But only I sucked in a quiet breath.
Because…fucking hell.
How hadn’t I seen it before?
Product in his hair. Carefully-crafted stubble. Pink button down under a blazer. Dark wash jeans.
Bryan was my father.
“Whoa,” Li said under her breath.
She saw it too.
She slid out of the booth, I came out with her, and we’ll just say the hugs were tortuously awkward.
We slid back in, Dad opposite us.
He looked down at his menu. “You two pick what you want to eat?”
Ummmmmmmmm…
I glanced at Li.
She was glancing at me.
We were both surprised at this opener.
She turned to him first. “Yeah, Dad.”
“Place has a magnificent surf and turf,” he muttered, surveying the room. He found what he was looking for and jerked up his chin in demand of attention.
Right, did Liane and I spend two years out of his company because we were fed up with his shit?
Or had I been in a fugue when we all enjoyed a movie together last weekend so us meeting up for dinner was no big whoop?
The server came.
Dad asked for a Jack and Coke.
After that, he demanded to know where the bread basket was and why it wasn’t yet at the table, explaining to her his history with this restaurant and how that had never happened before. This was delivered in the manner he was a neurosurgeon, and she was his surgical nurse, and her incompetence had cost his patient their life.
He finished berating our server by ordering oysters on the half shell as an appetizer.
Man, I forgot how mortifying it was to be around him when he had someone he thought was lower than him to treat like shit.
Now, I was remembering.
“You girls want anything to start?” he queried magnanimously, still going for the “nothing to see here, just a dad with his daughters” look.
So, was he nervous?
Or was he crazy?
“I’m good,” I said.
“Those mozzarella things,” Li ordered.
The server smiled tightly, promised the bread basket would be there soon and walked away.
Dad looked at us.
And then his lips turned down.
“Really, Liane, this is a nice place.”
My back shot straight.
“You couldn’t put on some mascara?” he inquired.
Liane made a noise.
Now, I hadn’t forgotten that.
No, I had not.
Dad needing to be in control of every nuance about us. What we wore. Our grades being better (I was all As, Liane was an athlete and never slipped off the honor roll either, so what he expected was unknown, and when you’re a kid and a teen, doing very well, and someone expects more, it was immensely and harmfully baffling). Harking back to Li’s sports, lecturing her about her performance in a game he might catch if she was unlucky, and he’d never played lacrosse in his life. Lecturing to me about practicing my flute (I used to love playing, he made me hate it, and as such, I hadn’t picked up my flute in two years), and he’d never played any instrument.
Us being painstakingly appropriate for every occasion because we were a reflection on him.
That last being what he expected right now.
“Seriously?” I asked.
Dad’s attention cut to me, he took in my expression, lifted both hands and pressed down.
“You’re right. You’re right.” His eyes moved between us. “I have two beautiful girls. Makeup or not. That wasn’t the way to start.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I confirmed.
Dad shot me a look I also remembered very well.
I was annoying him.
He buried that and declared, “It means a lot you agreed to tonight. I’ve missed you. Your grandmother really misses you. Your grandfather is in a bad place, and we all want to mend the rift in this family.”
I took a sip of my wine, put the glass back to the table, began twisting it back and forth again, then asked, “What did you miss about us, Dad?”
His lips thinned before he pointed out, “Being like that won’t help, Hellen.”
“I’m sorry, but I feel the question is valid.”
“You’re my daughters,” he returned. “I haven’t seen you in years. I wasn’t invited to your graduations—”
“Because you told me, and I quote, ‘A woman of your intellect should be an attorney, you need to study pre-law. I’m not going to throw money away on you studying something nebulous, like business.’ And then you threw not one cent away on me studying business.”
So, maybe that wasn’t a direct quote. But it was the gist.
His gaze moved over me, and he forced out, “I see I was wrong about that. You look like you’re doing well. I hope you are. Though your mother says you’re seeing a lawyer?”