“It’s not a reality show. It’s a nature documentary-slash-survival show?”
He sits back in his chair and stares, waiting for a proper answer.
I rest my head on my seatback and sigh. “I’ve spent my entire life being nothing more than a memory of someone I never knew. I needed to figure out who I am and what I’m capable of, instead of always letting other people decide for me.”
“Is this about the red dress?” he asks, squinting his eyes. “Arthur’s been adamant that if I’d have just okayed the stupid dress, none of this would have happened.”
“No, of course not,” I say, shaking my head. “Well, yes, I suppose in a way. It’s not just about the dress, though. It’s about the Equal Everywhere campaign and being pushed into finding a husband I don’t want, and … and never having any control over my life. I’m an adult and yet, I never make a single decision for myself.”
“I see,” he says, nodding slowly.
“I didn’t intend to cause an uproar,” I say. “But, surely you, of all people, must understand why I needed to escape. You spent years running away.”
He gives me a sad smile. “That I did. Which is why I was so scared when I read your letter. I was worried you were going to turn into me. For so long, I had this irresistible need to get away from this life, and all the restrictions that come with it.”
“Exactly!” I say, excited to find a kindred spirit in the one man I never would have expected. “I felt like I was suffocating. And then, it was mother’s fiftieth birthday, and all that malarkey started again about how I’m her spitting image, and I just couldn’t do another day of it.” Tears fill my eyes. Tears of exhaustion and regret and guilt and anger. I wipe them away before they can fall. “I’ve spent my entire life being terrified that I’m just like her—weak.”
Reaching out, he places his big hand over mine. I stare down at the tufts of blond hair poking out of his reddish skin. “Arabella, my sweet girl, you are nothing like your mother in spirit. Looks, yes, but it ends there. For one thing, where she was impulsive, you are thoughtful. Where you are forgiving, she was hard-hearted. And I don’t mean to disparage her. I know I was a lousy husband, and she had reason to hate me, but the truth is, she was never going to love me, no matter what I did.”
Tilting my head, I say, “I don’t understand.”
“She wasn’t exactly excited about marrying the future king. She’d already met the man of her dreams, and I was not him.”
“Oh,” I say, my heart breaking as I picture the young man my father once was.
“I was stupid. I thought I could make her love me, but there was no room in her heart for anyone else.”
“So, she fulfilled her royal duties, then …”
Nodding, my father says, “Very soon after you were born, she had found out he was getting married. He had moved on just at the moment when she thought she could petition my parents for a divorce and go back to the life she always wanted.”
Tears roll freely down my cheeks now, and I don’t try to stop them. “So, she was going to abandon us and marry him?”
My father squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry. I’ve upset you when you’re meant to be resting.”
“No, it’s okay,” I whisper. “It’s good for me to know the truth. It helps me understand why you could never seem to look at me. And why you kept leaving all the time.”
“Don’t forgive me for that, my lamb. I certainly don’t deserve it.” He sniffs and his eyes fill with tears. “I was so selfish, trying to escape my own pain, instead of trying to heal yours and Arthur’s.” Shaking his head, he says. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“All this time, I thought you hated me because you hated her.”
“No,” he whispers. “It’s because no matter how hard I wished I didn’t, I could love no one but her.”
Getting up, he steps around the table, crouches down, and hugs me. I do the same and we stay like this while I cry into his shirt. When I’m finished, he pulls back gently, but stays near. Cupping my cheek with his hand, he says, “I’ve been so scared since you left. I spent the entire time thinking of all the things I wished I had said and done to show you what you mean to me.”
“You’ve really been so much better the last couple of years.”
“I’m trying, but I don’t think anything can make up for me not being there for you when you were little.”
“I forgive you, Dad,” I say.
His face crinkles up and his eyes overflow with tears. “I love you so much, Arabella. Enough to fill the entire world.”
“I forgive you, and I love you, too.”
“Thank you. Please don’t feel like you need to run away from me. I’ll do anything to make you happy, okay? If you want to have your own TV show, I’ll make that happen.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head and laughing. “It wasn’t about being on the telly. The fact that it was being filmed was a deterrent, actually. I was looking for freedom and adventure.”
“Christ, we really are in trouble then, because it turns out, you’re exactly like your old man.”
We both laugh and hug again.
After we pull back, he says, “When I saw you come over that hill, absolutely filthy with mud, and pulling that young man behind you …” His shoulders start to shake with laughter. “I’ve never seen anything like it in all my days. You were a force to be reckoned with.”
“Was I a little bit scary?” I ask with a grin.
“Terrifying. You were like … that blond woman in that post-apocalyptic movie with all the cars and that crazy Max fellow.”
“Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road?” I ask, puffing up with pride.
“That’s the one!” He smiles. “Furiosa. I might call you that from now on.”
“I’d like that.”
“Then, I shall,” he says, getting up and sitting back in his seat. “You should rest. We have a whole lifetime to find a way to make things work.”
I pull the blanket onto my lap and lean my pillow on the window next to me. “What are you going to do?”
“Watch you sleep,” he says. “And think of ways to make sure you have all the freedom you need while simultaneously keeping you close to me.”
32
Whiny Wills and the People Who Love to Team Up on Them
Will - One Month Later
Paradise Bay, Santa Valentina Island
“So, when are you going to tell me what really happened out there?” Harrison asks.
It’s his day off and I’m sitting on a lounge chair under an umbrella next to the kiddie pool. He and Clara are playing in the water together while I spend another afternoon wishing I could rip off this cast and dive into the ocean.
It’s been four long weeks since my surgery and each day feels like an endless abyss of boredom, frustration, and failure. My surgeon figured me for the type who couldn’t be trusted with a boot alone, so she casted my leg, then put a boot on it to keep me from doing any damage. She’s not wrong. I totally would have ditched it by now if I could have. Just for a few minutes to have a quick swim. Or maybe do a little scuba diving. But nothing that would hurt my ankle. Okay, I definitely would have gone surfing yesterday, but only because the waves were perfect.