He grinned at me, leaning back in his chair. “You know what I mean.”
“Still no. You’re amazing. Not crazy.”
Raking a hand over his head, my dad regarded us through the glass doors. I noticed his clothes. Sweatpants and a thermal long-sleeved shirt—he paused just outside the door to slip his feet into a pair of black slippers.
A low growl started in my throat.
“Where’s your robe, cigar, and newspaper?” I asked as he opened the door. “You look more at home than you ever did at the new-new house.”
He stiffened and then stepped out and shut the door behind him. I looked for the bags under his eyes that I saw last night, but they were gone. The bastard looked almost refreshed.
“You’re angry.” He sat across from Ryan.
I snorted. “What gave it away?”
Fuck him.
He got the new job.
He wanted to take it.
He made the decision to move.
He was the one who brought us to this town.
I leaned forward and hissed, “You promised us a better life.”
He looked at the floor.
Ryan coughed, sitting forward too. “Uh, Mr. Malcolm?”
He was a lot nicer than I was.
My dad looked up, and I saw the anguish on his face. It was real and genuine. He mirrored everything I was feeling inside. Torn and twisted.
The bags under his eyes might’ve disappeared, but a grayish tint had settled under his skin, making him look almost half-dead.
He tried for a kind smile. “Yes, Ryan?” The smile faded fast. It’d been only a small blip.
“I don’t know my place here, but I feel like I should speak up about something.”
This was it. My heart started to press into my chest. He was going to tell him about Willow. I was slipping to the mental side.
Ryan folded his hands together on the table, and looked at them. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with your daughter—enough to know I shouldn’t have been.”
What?
He looked up then, staring right at my dad and not looking away. “I’m aware of the hell your whole family has been put through, but if you were still doing your job, your daughter wouldn’t have been in my bed half those nights she was.”
Good Lord. What in all the Willows was he doing?
My dad’s face went flat. “You think so, huh?”
“I know so, sir.”
“You think you know how I should’ve been parenting more than I do?”
Ryan didn’t flinch, grimace, cringe, or look away. His tone was soft but strong. “When it comes to Mac, yes.”
My dad was the one who twitched. My nickname acted like a repellant. I could almost see my dad shriveling, and I knew he was going to make an excuse, stand, and ask us to leave.
It was coming . . .
He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Maybe you’re right.”
Uh, what?
I sat straighter in my seat. I hadn’t heard that right. I should’ve been halfway to the door by that point.
“I have been messing up this whole time, and it takes a seventeen-year-old to set me straight.” He laughed, the sound bitter and weak.
“I’m eighteen.” Ryan grinned, shaking his head. “Not that it matters.”
“Oh. Well.” My dad tried to grin back, humoring him. “That one year makes me less pathetic, I’d say.”
I didn’t know if I should laugh, make an inappropriate joke, or what? Dissolve into tears again? What would Willow do?
I’d attack, sweet cheeks. I could hear her again, and I relaxed.
“Willow talks to me,” I announced.
They both looked at me.
I kept on, needing to do this. “She’s around me all the time. I have conversations with her. I dream of her. And I hated it at first. I didn’t want to think of her, feel her, hear her, but she wouldn’t go away. She haunted me, until today.” My voice broke and I let my eyes drop. “She went away today, and I fell apart.” Keep going. “I hate her, and I love her, and I need her. But Dad . . .” A break. My throat ceased to work, just for a moment. “You’re the one alive. I need you more, and you left.” I wasn’t talking about just the night he moved out. “You stopped checking on me. You stopped knowing where I was.” I faltered again.
I heard sniffling and my dad clearing his throat over and over again.
“Mackenzie.”
His chair scraped against the floor. I couldn’t look up. I didn’t have the heart, and then I felt his arms around me. He knelt beside me, holding my head to his chest, and he took a deep breath.
“Mackenzie, I am so sorry.” His arms tightened around me.
I could’ve fallen apart then. I could’ve stopped, contented myself with the confessions I’d given, but that wasn’t all the truth inside me.
“I couldn’t bear to see myself, so how could I make you look at me?” I whispered.
I missed her.
I wanted her.
I didn’t want my dad’s arms around me.
I wanted hers around me.
“I don’t want her to be a ghost, Dad.”
“I know.” He patted my head and pushed back some of my hair like my mom used to, like Willow did at times. “I know. Trust me.” His voice grew thick and hoarse. “I miss your sister so much that I can’t bear it some days.”
It was right to be crying to my dad. But he wasn’t the one I needed. I thought it was him. I thought it was my mom. It wasn’t Robbie either.
There was one person I needed to hold me, and she couldn’t.
I pulled away from my dad, and he framed my face with his hands. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.” His hands fell from my face to my shoulders, and he pulled me back to his chest, wrapping his arms tight around me.
I looked at Ryan from within my dad’s hold, and he must’ve seen something in my eyes because he leaned forward in his seat again. “Uh, Mr. Malcolm?”
My dad eased back. “Yeah?”
Ryan watched me, and I nodded to him, smoothing out my shirt. There were stains everywhere.
“What’s really going on with you and . . .” He gestured inside.
“Oh.”
My dad looked at me, and I tried to smile. “I’m fine.”
He still paused.
“Really,” I added.
“Okay.” He sat in the chair closest to me and ran a hand over his face. “I’m not cheating on your mother. Mallory is a work colleague, and I came here because we have a project that needs to be finished as soon as possible. We’ve been working at it all day and had to call in more people to help. We have to work around the clock, and—” He looked up and found the clock on the wall. “We might get interrupted shortly. More of our colleagues are supposed to be coming here. They’re coming straight from the office.”
“You told me you were leaving us. You said you were leaving us for her.”
“I did, but I’m not.” He didn’t seem flustered by the accusation in my voice. “I mean, I said I was moving closer to Robbie, and that’s the truth. Your mother is with Robbie today, and I’ll be going tomorrow. Coming here wasn’t planned until my boss called me last night while I was on the highway. I thought I was cleared for the day off. That didn’t happen.”