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After trying to please him her entire life and everything she’d been through with her early pregnancy, difficult marriage and painful divorce, she couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted to scream and run out of the room. But she forced herself to stay and speak calmly. “Don’t you care if I’m happy, Dad? Ever wonder if I get lonely or why I don’t date?”
“Of course I want you to be happy,” he said as if she was being ridiculous. “As for whether or not you date, I figure that’s none of my business.”
None of his business or something that suited him just fine? If she lived with him for the rest of her life there’d never be any competition for her time and attention, and no one who would ever contest what he said and did. “That’s just lip service—you don’t live it,” she said, unable to control her agitation any longer. “You have plenty to say about whether I work on something at a motel. Who told you I was there, anyway?” Someone had to have said something to him, or he would’ve gone after her first thing this morning. He wasn’t the type of person who could hold back.
“It was Glenda, of all people!” he said. “Which makes it even worse! She saw your car there, said it didn’t move all night.”
Patience felt her jaw drop. “And she was keeping an eye on the motel, why?”
“How should I know,” he replied, sounding exasperated. “I’m guessing she happened to drive by.”
“No way did she just happen to drive by,” Patience scoffed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“It means now that she’s done with Jack she’s hoping to move on to Kanon,” Patience replied. “She was probably driving by the motel to see if he was there, spotted my 4Runner and turned green with envy.”
“Maybe that’s the case. After what she did, I’m not saying I trust her any more than you do. But your 4Runner shouldn’t have been there. Period. You can work on the festival during daylight hours.”
Patience folded her arms. She’d work on the festival whenever she decided to. But she didn’t say that. She was more interested in learning how her father’s conversation with Glenda went. “Did she call you?”
“No, she pulled up to the pump next to mine while I was getting gas.”
The anger flowing through Patience turned into a tidal wave. “So she saw you and stopped. I bet she was trolling around town, hoping for just such an opportunity.”
“Let’s not make this about her,” he said.
“Why not?” she responded. “It is about her. She’s catty and jealous, and she’s trying to cause trouble for me.”
“Then why make it easy for her?”
“Because I have the right to live my own life!” she yelled and slammed her chair into her desk before marching out of the room.
* * *
Patience had merely been passing time as she went about the daily grind and hadn’t realized that she’d fallen into a terrible rut. Or more likely, she hadn’t been willing to acknowledge it. But she could see it clearly now, especially when she looked at herself through Kanon’s eyes. She was giving up her best years because she’d felt she had to, that she’d screwed up so badly when she was seventeen she didn’t deserve anything better.
But Ari was fourteen—only three years younger than Patience had been when she got pregnant. A lot would change in the next four years. Did she still want to be living with her father when Ari went to college? Is that all she saw for herself, simply getting old in Hard Luck, working at the church for peanuts while continuing to try to cope with her father’s strong and often difficult personality?
He was living his dream. He loved being a pastor, felt like an Important Person in this town. So what about her dreams?
It’d been a long time since she’d allowed herself to have any, but she used to wonder what it’d be like to live in Denver, Portland or LA. Back when Jack had been starting his trucking business, she’d considered getting a degree in accounting, so she’d have her own career. As it turned out, however, she never had the chance to pursue that. Not only did she have to care for Ari, she’d had to help Jack start the trucking business that was now his sole support.
But it wasn’t too late. She could attend college online…
Or maybe she’d pursue some aspect of photography—become a professional food photographer for magazines and restaurants or something like that.
“Hey, you okay?”
She blinked and looked up. She’d found safe haven at the coffee shop when she left the office at the church, and now Demin was standing over her wearing a puzzled expression along with his usual Buzzworthy T-shirt. “I’m fine, why?” she asked.
“You’ve been sitting there, staring off into space for several minutes. I could tell something was going on inside your head.”
There was too much going on in her head. She’d heard about prison inmates becoming institutionalized after a while and feared she’d fallen victim to a version of that. She’d grown so used to her life that she felt safe in its routine and was afraid to walk away from it even if it meant freedom and, eventually, greater happiness. “Just trying to figure out a few things,” she mumbled.
“Don’t tell me this has something to do with a man,” he teased. “Have you finally met someone?”
“No,” she said, but Kanon had certainly been the catalyst. Because of how much she was starting to like him, how good it’d been to sleep next to him last night—and the desire that’d curled through her veins, making her feel more alive than she’d been in ages—Patience was starting to change her mind about sharing her life with someone. Marriage didn’t have to be as hard as it’d been with Jack, did it? Some people succeeded at it. Why not her? She was older now, wiser. What if she moved away and met someone in LA?
