“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Her eyes widened, and I saw the bright flash of fear.
Gabriel rushed to soothe her. “Yeah. I’m fine. Nothing like that.” He glanced at me, and I hoped my smile was encouraging. I had no idea how Erica would react.
“Then what?”
“I spoke to my father the other day.”
Her jaw dropped. “He called you back? It’s been years. What did he have to say?”
“I called him. For once, he answered all my questions.” Gabriel rubbed his hands along his thighs. “Pour yourself another cup of coffee.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gabriel
“I don’t need another cup of coffee. I need you to tell me what’s going on.” When my mother used that tone, there was nothing else to do but lay it all out for her.
“Ronan and I were talking, and we agreed I still had a lot of resentment toward my father that I couldn’t get past unless I talked to him about why he never wanted a relationship with me.”
“Of course you do. Even when you didn’t want to talk about it, I’d say to Ira, ‘Gabriel still blames himself for his father’s behavior.’ No matter what I said or did, you couldn’t understand why one year you visited them in California and the next they cut you off with no reason. It was cruel and thoughtless, but I couldn’t control your father. And nothing I did was ever enough to make up for his neglect. Because you needed your father and I wasn’t him.”
It was a well-worn path we’d walked over the years, but the real heart of it was yet to come. Tension swirled in my chest. The last thing I wanted was to hurt my mother, but I was afraid there was no way I could avoid it. This conversation was a long time coming, but until two days ago, I hadn’t been able to come to the decision to confront my father.
“None of it was your fault, Mom. I always knew he was the one in the wrong. Who walks away from their child? Plenty of people get divorced but don’t abandon their children. That’s not how it works. It screwed with my self-confidence and self-worth. What did I need to do to make myself lovable?”
“You always were,” she cried out, and Ira put his arm around her, but I knew she didn’t feel him. “I can’t stand it that you’re still hurting.”
“You’ve always told me, but I had to feel it myself. To make it worse, because of his behavior, I doubted myself in my relationship with Ronan. I figured at this point the man owed me that much. So.” I huffed out a nervous breath and rubbed my hands on my thighs. “I called him.”
She blinked and nodded. “It was the right thing to do. I’m glad you took that step. Me saying it for years didn’t mean anything without you believing it in your heart.”
I took a gulp of coffee. “During the conversation, it became clear that he and Mariel never told Amanda and Marshall I existed.”
The blood drained from her face, and Ira tried to take her hand, but she shook him off. “I-I don’t understand. What do you mean they never told them? You went out to visit in the summer and used to tell me how you played with them in the pool. Marshall, especially, since he was older. You were always so excited to be a big brother.”
“He was older, yeah, but still young enough that when they started making excuses for me not to come, it was easy for him to forget my existence. He was only around four, Mom. Of course he wasn’t going to remember some random kid who came to play a few summers, then disappeared. And Amanda was just a baby.”
“Oh, my God. That bastard. How dare he?” Tears streamed down her cheeks, and I left my seat on the couch to crouch before her.
“Please don’t cry. It’s okay.”
“Okay? How can you say it’s okay? He cheated you out of a family. And how dare Mariel treat you like you didn’t matter?”
I hadn’t seen her this enraged in a long time, not since I’d told her that my relationship with DJ had needed to be kept a secret. Mentioning my father to her was always tricky. I knew she no longer loved him, but his total lack of interest in me pushed her buttons and set her off. And this? Her anger was next level.
“I know. He’s a weak man who allowed himself to be led by the nose. Yeah, he’s successful in business, but she runs the show at home.”
“So she cut you out, and he didn’t fight for you.” Ira’s disgust came through loud and clear. “But to never tell the kids? That’s so wrong on so many levels, I can’t even wrap my head around it.”
“Yeah. And here’s where it gets interesting. Ronan found them online, and I messaged them.”
“Did they answer?” Her trembling voice cracked. I’d never heard her sound so lost, and it hurt so bad. “I couldn’t bear it if they ignored your message.”
“Yes, they answered. Well, Amanda did. Marshall’s out of the country on business, but they talked about it first, and she said she was speaking for both of them. They’re not angry with me.”
“Why would they be? You had nothing to do with what happened.”
“They weren’t aware of my existence until I sent the message. But Amanda seemed really nice, and as blindsided by the news as I was. This is what happened: Mariel decided Amanda and Marshall would be too confused with me coming and going, and she persuaded my father that it would be easier if I was out of the picture completely rather than explain to their children who I was.”
