“I was scared. I’ve always been scared. It’s why I gamble. I crave the thrill, the risk. It makes me feel alive in ways nothing else does.” A bitter laugh slips from his lips. “Ironic, isn’t it? The thing that makes me feel alive almost got my daughter killed.”
“Yeah. Ironic,” I snap sarcastically.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t deserve it.” He steps closer. “But I want you to know how much I love you. I’ve always loved you. You’re the best thing I ever did, and I failed you.”
I try hard to keep the tears from falling. But they pool fast with nowhere to go.
“You did fail me.” The words rip out of me, along with a loud sob. “You failed me and Mom and everyone who ever trusted you.”
“I know.” His eyebrows knit together. “But I’m here now. Please tell me that counts for something. I know I have so much to make up for. And so much to be grateful for. But you’re the thing I care most about. And it would destroy me if we couldn’t repair what I broke so carelessly.”
We talk for hours.
He tells me about the island. The fear and the loneliness he felt while he was hidden away, knowing his actions shattered our lives and tore apart everything he’d built with Mom.
Mom told him about Leon, the truckyard, my stalker, and the warehouse shit show.
She also told him about Declan.
“He sounds like a good man, from what your mother told me,” Daddy says. “Flawed. Dangerous. But good. I admit that Idon’t love you being involved with a mafia family, but if you love him?—”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I say in a terse voice. “He pushed me away. Said I’d be safer without him.”
“And you believed him?”
“No. But what was I supposed to do? Force him to want me?”
Daddy is quiet for a moment.
“When I met your mother, I was terrified of her. She was brilliant, ambitious, completely out of my league. I almost let her go because I didn’t think I deserved her.”
“What changed?”
“She didn’t give me a choice.” He smiles, but it’s sad. Maybe because he’s remembering why he loved her so much in the first place and realizes what he gave up. “She decided she wanted me, and that was that. Cloris doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“I’m not Mom.”
“No.” He takes my hand. “But you’re strong, just like she is. You always have been. Don’t let fear dictate your choices. not yours, not his. If you love him, fight for him.”
“What if he won’t let me?”
“Then you’ll know you tried. And that’s more than I ever did.” He squeezes my hand. “Don’t be like me, baby girl. Don’t run from the hard things.”
“What’s going to happen between you and Mom?”
“I don’t know yet. Your mother and I... we have a lot to work through. I don’t know if we can. But I’m not running anymore. Whatever happens, I’m facing it.”
“That’s a start.”
“It’s all I’ve got.” He tentatively reaches for me, and I lean into his open arms. “I love you, Marlowe. Whatever happens.”
“I love you, too, Daddy.”
After he leaves, I sit, surrounded by the animals, and think about what he said.
Don’t let fear dictate your choices.
Fight for what you want.
