“Drugs?”
“A bit. Yes.”
“Do you still do drugs?”
“Not since my twenty-first birthday.”
“The night it happened.”
Her face darkened as she nodded.
“Did you do coke?” I asked. It was none of my business, but for some reason I cared. I had to know.
“No. Pot only. I tried mushrooms once. An experience I would never wish on any type A personality.”
“Oh I’ve seen it, trust me.”
“I bet. Anyway, my biggest rebellion, really, was leaving Dallas and moving here last year.”
“Why did you leave your dad?”
She shifted, another flicker of nerves on her face. She didn’t like talking about her dad.
“Tell me, Sunny.”
“After my mom died, my father… went off the deep end. The first time I noticed his grief was going beyond ‘normal,’ was when he started having whiskey with his morning eggs.” She wrinkled her nose.“Whiskey.Can you imagine?”
I shrugged. “Worse things to have with breakfast.”
“Guess so. Anyway, after hissecondDUI, I talked to him, told him I was worried. We got in a big fight, nothing changed. It got worse. I started staying the night at his house some. Some nights he wouldn’t come home at all. I started watching him. Even followed him a few times.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why not just let him be? People grieve their own way.”
“That’s not how I work, Jagg. I’ll never forget how he and mom took care of me after the incident with Kenzo. Despite our strained relationship, my father was there for me. He was the one who took me to the doctor, to the police. Sat by my side. My mom took care of me physically, but my father took care of all the legal crap. He even amped up the home security system to make me feel safe.”
“The number one thing dads are supposed to do is protect their daughters.”
Her soft smile was brief, quickly fading.
“But it’s so obvious there’s tension between you two. So, again, why did you leave Dallas? All the years later?”
She chewed on her lower lip. “I just needed to let things go. My father just wasn’t my father anymore. I left.”
“Something happened.”
She looked down.
“Tell me, Sunny.” I wasn’t proud of the desperation in my tone. I wanted to know. I wanted to know everything about her.
“He just started making bad decisions, that’s all.” She shook her head, wanting to end the conversation. “He’ll find his way. Redemption is real.”
Her neck was flushed almost purple by this point, a physical reaction to her discomfort in the conversation.
So I backed off. Sunny had made me a picnic and I wasn’t going to ruin it for her by pressing any more than I already had. I made a mental note to follow up on the conversation at a more appropriate time.
