“That sounds like a good idea,” my father added, following them from the room.
I sat back on the couch next to Liv and clutched the box, waiting to see what Gabe wanted to do.
“He really is an asshole,” Liv muttered. “All these years, and now he wants to give gifts? Do you know how many years I gave him presents only to hear him grumble about hating holidays?”
“Was he always like that?” I asked as she tore the paper off her box.
“No. When Gabe was small, he would celebrate with us. It really wasn’t until Mom’s mental health slipped further that he started having business trips at Christmas.”
“Was he cheating on her?” I didn’t know where it had come from, but the thought was there.
“Nah,” she said. “He just didn’t want to be around us. I think we ruined things for him.”
Gabe stayed quiet, his eyes still on the gift.
Liv opened the box, her jaw dropping. Hand shaking, she pulled a diamond necklace from the box. Her eyes went to Gabe.
“He said he got rid of everything.” Her words were so low they came out as a whisper. “Two days after the funeral, every trace of her was gone.” She ran her finger over the necklace. “I used to play dress-up in her jewelry box. She had so many beautiful pieces, and she would do my makeup and let me try onher gowns. I wanted her jewelry, and he told me he had given it all away.”
She pulled other pieces from the box—earrings, bracelets. A collection of jewels and a curt note. She would have wanted you to have these, and it’s time I let her go.
“What the hell does that mean?” she asked, but the picture that was slowly forming of their father was a more complex one than I thought they knew. “Open yours, Gabe.” She shoved the jewelry back in and slammed the lid over it.
His throat bobbed when he looked up at us.
“Go on,” she said. Every day, she revealed more of the commanding big sister and helped me see what torment Gabe had gone through when he’d let himself fall in love with me that first time.
With more finesse, he removed the wrapping paper. While Liv’s box had been a long rectangle, his was a larger square shape. The lid popped off, and his hand trembled when he dropped it.
He looked up at me, so vulnerable, with emotion splayed across his face, his hazel eyes a myriad of shades. Handing me the note, he said, “You read it.”
I opened it. “This was my favorite picture of the two of you with her,” I read. “The others are ones I could never share.”
When I looked up, I saw the photo in his hand. Tears welled in his eyes, and he swallowed them back.
“That's Mama,” Liv said, leaning over to see the picture. “I think that’s in Italy. Remember, we would go every year to visit her family?”
She looked at me, and a reflection of the young girl she must have been before her father’s verbal abuse and having to witness his physical abuse against her little brother had hardened her. Her eyes were vibrant with the memories. “We would go every summer. There was so much family, so many people and thefood and laughter. And my mother was happy. It was the happiest I remember her.”
She took the picture from Gabe and handed it to me. “That’s Mom. She was the most beautiful woman, elegant almost regal.”
The woman in the photo was indeed beautiful. With long auburn hair in curls that cascaded down the front of her dress. Her smile lit the photo, and her hazel eyes were identical to Gabe and Liv’s. It was obvious they had taken after her. In her arms was a baby with a head of brown curls, the spitting image of Reid when he’d been a baby. Gabe. And at her skirts was a little girl who looked like a miniature copy of her mother. The photo was creased; the edges frayed.
“Like he kept it in his wallet,” I said, not realizing I’d spoken out loud. My eyes jumped to Gabe’s, thinking about the flower he’d kept all this time.
This man had held onto his past so much that he’d let it damage his present.
Gabe rifled through the other pictures, mumbling about how his father had told them he’d burned them all. Almost like he’d wanted his children free of the past that haunted him, never knowing how much he was hurting them.
“What did he give you?” Gabe asked, stuffing the pictures back in the box.
I handed the picture back to him and looked at my box. The smallest of the three. Fear crept up my spine. My chest was already aching for them. I didn’t want to bring them anymore pain.
“Open it, Tori,” Liv told me.
With a sigh, I removed the paper, finding a ring box. I glanced up at Gabe. Tension sat in his shoulders, his muscles taut under his T-shirt. Opening the box, I stared at the ring. A cluster of diamonds surrounding a sapphire gem set in a whitegold band. No note accompanied it, so I picked it up and showed them.
“Mom’s ring,” Gabe said, his brows cinching.
