Wander raised her eyebrows and mouthed the word, “Scary.”
Whitney nodded in agreement.
“I read the cards,” I said, eyeing the stack of opened envelopes with warped polka-dots from my tears. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lisa softened. “Every time he’d write one, I’d put it on the shelf where we keep all your books. I always hoped you’d snoop around the house and find them.”
“Is that why you left the ultrasound photos in the box of things you gave me?”
“Yes. Shep . . . He used to keep one in the cab of his truck. The night he and I met, the first thing he told me was that he had a daughter. I saw the ultrasound and thought he meant a baby. And then he started talking about you and I swear he didn’t stop to take a breath for a solid twenty minutes.”
“You knew the truth the day we met for the first time.”
“I did. Shep and I argued about it for a long time that night. The whole time we were married, it was really the only fight we ever had. But we fought about it a lot.” Grief warped her words. “He believed that the way he loved you mattered more than the title. And that he wanted to be everything a father should be, even if he never got to hear you call him ‘Dad.’ Being Step Shep was everything to him because he was yours.”
The girls tightened around me, enveloping me in a group hug to keep me strong.
“Ask me anything you want to know, and I’ll tell you,” she said. “I just want you to know how much he loved you. How much we both love you.”
“I know.”
Wander gave me the “ask her” look.
“You gave the envelopes to Ryan?”
“I did. When he ambushed your mom and Amber, he came over to my place and asked me how much I knew. We talked for a minute and I gave him the envelopes. We talked about the best way to tell you. I’m sorry that you didn’t find out in a way you deserved.”
“Why didn’t he just tell me then?”
“He said you were about to finish writing your book. And after losing Shep, he wanted you to be able to celebrate that. He said he would tell you under the willow tree in Bev’s backyard the last night you guys were in town so you could visitthe graveside or come talk to me if you wanted to before you had to go. He knew how hurt you were after what happened with Greg and wanted to give you closure and good memories before you left. It was the whole reason he confronted your Mom and Amber in the first place. He wasn’t on a witch hunt for information. He didn’t go into that conversation already knowing. Apparently, Amber let it slip. He was just trying to get them to love you the way you deserve.” She sighed. “I’m not trying to defend him. He should have told you. Hell, it shouldn’t have had to be him. It should have been Shep or your mom. But I know he was going to tell you. He really loves you.”
Ryan had only said those three words once, and each one had been a knife to the heart.
“How do you know that?”
She didn’t skip a beat even though she sounded exhausted. “Because he loves you the way Shep loved me.”
After we hung up, I sat in silence, sandwiched by Wander and Whitney. Every conversation I’d had that morning played in my head in a loop.
“I think I made a mistake,” I admitted.
“Well, duh,” Wander said at the same time that Whitney said, “You were human. Give yourself grace to make mistakes.”
The look on Ryan’s face when I told him to get out of the car was burned into my memory. It brought me to tears every time it flashed in my mind.
I had been so hurt. So angry.
I wanted someone to blame it on. To take it out on.
When I was standing in Bev’s living room with the shrill ringing in my ears and my heart in my throat, I didn’t want to lash out at Mom, Amber, or Lisa.
It truly felt like they didn’t care. That I was just a problem to be swept under the rug. Why would I waste my anger on people who didn’t care?
The opposite of love isn’t hate. The opposite of love is apathy.
Ryan loved me loudly, even before he had said the words. It’s why the betrayal hit twice as hard.
It’s why I lashed out twice as much.
