Page 48 of Mason

She’ll be crushed.

Renee and I avoid the topic of Dad like it’s the bubonic plague.

I’m convinced that careful avoidance is the secret to our half-sister sibling success.

But even I know she worships him. Renee is daddy’s girl—has been since he first held her in his arms. I don’t know that he ever looked at me the way he stared at her, his eyes glistening with tears. A humbled man.

Mom and I never saw that.

Over the years, I just accepted it. Everything happens for a reason, and maybe Renee needed a dad more—even if he was mine first. I was letting go, had let go. And now—

No. I’m not willing to let him back in.

“I understand this is difficult to accept right now,” Mom says. She keeps talking, but her voice turns to white noise, drowned out by thoughts of Renee’s anguish, the tears I know she’s going to cry.

“Your father is the love of my life,” Mom is saying now. “We belong together, Liv. Can’t you see?”

I really can’t.

“And if we can work this out—if I can forgive and forget—maybe someday, you can too?”

The tears I’ve been holding break free. I swipe at my eyes with the back of my hand. “No, Mom. I don’t ever think I can.”

I hang up before she can respond.

Chapter 27

Renee starts to laugh when I tell her about our father reconciling with my mother.

“That’s in really bad taste,” she says, and then she sees the expression on my face, registers my tear stained cheeks.

“Renee—“

“You’re not fucking joking, are you?” she says.

She’s standing in the entrance of our apartment, still flush from being outside in the streets of New York City, looking glamorous and perfect for this time and place.

And I’m breaking her heart.

“I’m as shocked as you,” I tell her. “I don’t know how anyone can stand to be around him, let alone bring him into their home after all he’s done.”

“Your mother has always been intent on getting him back,” Renee says, her voice strained. “And it looks like she got her wish, finally. At my mom’s expense.”

“That’s not fair, Ren,” I say. I can’t believe she’s taking it this way. Lashing out at me. “We should be sticking together, not fighting amongst ourselves. We’re all victims of his behavior.”

Renee drops her purse on the table. “I’m so tired of hearing you badmouth him, and insinuating that everything he’s ever done is bad because he fell in love with my mother.”

“And left his family!” I say, my voice rising despite myself.

“Shit happens, and you need to get over it,” she replies. “Instead you and your mother act bitter and treat me and my family like second class citizens. We have as much right to happiness as you.”

“I’ve never said any of that.”

“Well now you have him back. Happy?”

“No. I never wanted him back.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” she says, rolling her eyes and then turning away from me and walking to the couch, sitting down and texting on her phone.