It was an amputation that no prosthesis in the world could replace.
And the poor man kept talking in that cracked and hurting voice. “I didn’t see him for twenty years. The only reason I knew he was alive was because I’d pay a private investigator every year to find him.”
I couldn’t help but tense up. Not that I was one to talk, buttwenty years?That was a lifetime.
Sure, I couldn’t say anything because I had left my house for almost ten. The only difference was: I knew no one gave a crap about me. Whether I lived, whether I died, whether I had somewhere warm to sleep or food to eat. Nobody I had left behind gave a single shit.
The longing I had seen on Mr. Cooper’s face when he looked at Rip suddenly made so much sense.
“By the time you came around the shop, everyone who had known Ripley as a boy had quit or moved on, so I stopped talking about him at the shop when there was no one around to ask for an update. The years… rolled by, one after the other, and before I knew it, I hadn’t mentioned him to any of you until he came back,” he explained.
I swallowed for him. For the way his voice wobbled as he told me this story.
“He showed up out of the blue one day, Luna, and said he wanted to buy into the shop… I didn’t mean to lie. Not talking about him… snowballed out of control until if I did tell you all the truth, it wouldn’t seem so innocent anymore.”
“I get it,” I told him, quietly. Because I did get it. I really did.
His sigh was sorrowful. “I don’t know how to get myself out of this mess.”
“I haven’t told anyone anything,” I let him know. “And I wouldn’t. Not ever. It’s your story and his, not anyone else’s. There isn’t a reason why anyone else should know either.”
The older man choked, rubbing his hand over his face as a couple tears escaped through his fingers. “He doesn’t want anyone to know I’m his father. He hasn’t in decades; that isn’t going to change any time soon. I could die tomorrow, and he would be perfectly fine with it,” he choked out, his chest hiccupping with emotion and maybe even a dozen other emotions I would never understand.
“I would care,” I told him. “I know I’m not a replacement for him, and I would never try to be, but you’re just about the only father figure I’ve ever had. And I would care a lot if you were gone. I would miss you for the rest of my life.”
The hand he had over his face shifted, and he peeked a glassy, red-rimmed eye at me.
So I kept going. “And I think Rip would care too. I was there while we waited for the ambulance, and I was there most of the time while we waited to hear what happened to you. He was worried, Mr. C. I don’t know if that will ever mean anything, but if he really hated you, he wouldn’t have sat there for hours to hear from your doctor.”
“He was probably making sure I really died.”
“Or you have a relationship with him that no one will ever understand.” I sighed. “Mr. C, I can tell you that if my dad had a heart attack, I would not have waited around at the hospital to hear how he was doing. I wouldn’t go visit period. And when the day comes and he passes away, I won’t be at his funeral. They could offer me a million dollars to go, and it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe Rip isn’t your biggest fan, and he doesn’t know how to forgive you for whatever it was that he blames you for, but it could be worse between the two of you. If things were that bad, he wouldn’t have come back, and he wouldn’t be able to look at you every day.”
My boss’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he nodded. His chest went up and back down. He sniffled and followed it up with another choke that made my heart hurt.
I didn’t know what happened with his wife. I didn’t know what happened with Rip. I didn’t know what happened tothem.
But I cared about Mr. Cooper, and even though I told myself that I wasn’t going to care about Rip the same way I had, a part of me still did and would.
I wanted the best for both of them.
I was just the wrong person to say anything about family relationships, and that was the truth.
He sniffed, and his sniff hit me right smack in the chest. “You know how to make an old man feel a little less like the scum of the earth, little moon.”
“You could never be the scum of the earth. And I know how to tell you the truth most of the time, and in this case, I didn’t have to lie. I saw Rip’s face.” Then I lowered my voice and added, “And if it makes you feel any better, he doesn’t like me much either.”
That had him wiping his face with his forearm. “I highly doubt that, honey.”
I smirked to myself, but he must have seen it because he kept talking.
“He doesn’t, Luna. I don’t know Rip—” He sucked in a breath. “—my son as well as I should, but I know you’re the last person he would dislike.”
Well. “We can agree to disagree, huh?” I asked and stood up. “I’m getting a glass of water. Do you want anything from the kitchen?”
His expression was wobbly as he dropped his other arm and showed me his pink, puffy face that was pulled into a partial smile. “How about a bag of chips?”
“How about some fruit?”
