He looks me in the eye. “I need for you to help me. They’re your nieces and nephew, no matter what your mother has taught you.”
I am stunned. Absolutely stunned. “You love them,” I say quietly.
He nods. “I do.”
“You love her.” The words fall on the room like cracks of thunder.
“I do.”
I lean back against the chair. “Can I ask you something?”
He nods. It’s a quick jerk, but I see it.
“What did they give you that we couldn’t?” I ask. I don’t even cry. I just ask it. I always wanted to know.
“Your mother made it really hard for me to be a part of our family,” he says. “After she found out—” He raises his hand to stop me when I open my mouth to complain. “Wait,” he says. “Hear me out.”
I nod. I couldn’t talk if I wanted to.
“I loved you and your brother and sister. But I loved Kendra’s mother, too, and I should have divorced your mother and made a clean break.”
“Without us,” I say.
“No, I would have taken you with me if I could. But I couldn’t. Your mother would have ruined me financially, and I could get over that, but she would have gotten custody of you all. And I couldn’t just leave you with all that hatred, without at least trying to be a buffer.” I don’t remember him as a buffer. I know him as that man I never knew. He balls up his fist and squeezes tightly. “That’s why I never left completely. Your mother is more than a bit vindictive, as you know.” He scrubs a hand across his perfect white hair. “Sometimes I think she would have been okay with it if Kendra’s mother was white.”
What? Kendra’s mother’s not white? My father had an affair with a woman of a different race?
“If you do this for me, your mother is going to be very angry at you.”
No shit. She’ll hate me. But I think she already does anyway.
“I understand if you say no,” he says on a sigh. “But they don’t have anyone else.”
“Where is their father?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Fathers,” he says, enunciating the word. “Seth has a dad who sees him once or twice a year, and the girls’ dad has a new family and not enough time for them.”
“So, what do you want me to do?” I ask. I throw my napkin into my plate. My manicotti is churning in my stomach.
“I want you to go and get them.”
“Did you ask Tim? Or Lydia?” They’re my brother and sister and both are older than me.
He shakes his head. “They have families of their own.”
“And I don’t.” Shit, I don’t have anyone. No one but a boyfriend I almost never see. My mother is a nutcase and my father’s heart lies with another family.
“You’re single. You would be wonderful with them.” He lowers his voice and looks around the room. “You won’t look at them like they’re unwanted, biracial children. You’ll love them. I know you will.” He glares at me. “Will you at least meet them? Please? I know it would be a challenge. You’d have to learn a lot, but Seth is sixteen. He helps to take care of the little ones. Hell, in two years, he can take custody himself. That’s what he wants.”
Dad’s pleading with me.
“I’ve never asked for anything before,” he says.
He’s right. He’s never asked for a good night kiss. Or any of the things fathers want. Well, he probably asked for them from Kendra.
“I’ll go,” I say. They’re just children after all. And children need to be loved. I wasn’t, but I can make it better for Kendra’s kids, can’t I? There’s a tiny little piece of me that wants to make my father proud. To make him love me.
He deflates like a balloon. “Oh, thank God,” he says. He lays a hand on his chest. Then he gets up, lifts me by my elbows, and pulls me to him. I can’t remember ever getting a hug from my father before, and I don’t know what to do with it. He holds me like that, breathing into the hair on the top of my head for a moment. Then he sets me back. His eyes are wet with unshed tears. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you so much.”
I nod. I can’t do anything more. I feel like somebody took my insides and shoved them up my throat.
I’m jerked from my memories when someone sits down on my left. I look up and instantly recognize Matthew Reed. He was a friend of Kendra’s from the cancer center. I went to visit, right before Kendra died, and to get the kids. Matt was waiting with her. He stayed with Seth so they could be there when she took her last breath. I took the little ones home; I didn’t think they needed to remember their mom that way.
His blue eyes gaze into mine, and he sticks out a hand to shake. He doesn’t say anything. I look up at him. He’s wearing a blue turtleneck covered up by a black button-down shirt with a pair of really nice trousers. He tugs at the top of the turtleneck, and I get a tiny peek of his tattoos.
“You clean up nicely,” I say. I smile at him because I don’t know what else to do.
“Thanks,” he says quietly. His blond hair is held back with a leather band at the nape of his neck, but a piece falls forward, and he tucks it behind his ear. He has a row of piercings up the shell of his ear, and I count them in my head. I have a suddenly insatiable desire to see his hair hang loose around his face.
He looks down at my black skirt and my white shirt. “So do you.”