Page 105 of Downpour

Bree didn’t say anything as she pinched the plastic packaging and opened it.

“What’cha wanna talk about, squirt?” I asked as we went out onto the deck.

Bree closed the sliding door behind her. “I dunno. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you,” she mumbled. Her eyes softened as she sat in the deck chair across from me and stared at her quickly melting popsicle.

I took a bite out of mine before it turned into a slushy. “Don’t tell me you don’t like ‘em anymore. You can’t be too old for popsicles.”

Bree caught a drip of red syrup on her thumb and wiped it on her shorts. “After mom died, you’d always let me have a popsicle when I was sad.”

“Yeah, your dad still doesn’t know how much sugar I gave you two minions. So let’s keep that between us.”

Her eyes were watery as she looked up at me. “When I saw you on the ground in the arena, all I wanted was a popsicle. And you weren’t there to give it to me.”

“Bree—”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. Suddenly, she wasn’t the fifteen-year-old who was learning to drive and the young lady who was rumored to have a boyfriend. She was the broken-hearted three-year-old who I’d sneak a popsicle to when she was crying for a mom who wasn’t coming back.

When things returned to some version of normal after Gretchen’s death, Nate came home from his deployment and Ileft my girls. I convinced him to keep popsicles at his house, just so the girls would know I was still thinking of them.

“Why didn’t you let us see you?” she whimpered. “I … I watched it happen. Dad wouldn’t let us go to your hospital room until you woke up, and then when you did?—”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s not good enough!” she yelled, throwing her popsicle down on the deck slats. It broke into pieces, melting almost instantly in the mid-summer sun. “You promised to be there for us when we needed you. That we could always talk to you, even when you were on the road. And you lied.”

Regret and anguish boiled inside me. It was like being thrown back into that hospital bed, unable to move. “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

“I don’t even know why I came down here,” she muttered, storming back to the door.

“Bree, stop.” I never raised my voice with Christian’s daughters, but I needed her to hear me.

She froze with her hands balled in fists. “I never got to tell you about Cass. I meanreallytell you about her. And when you moved back to the ranch, I wanted you to talk to her and Dad because there’s a boy in the grade ahead of me that wants to take me on a date, but Dad won’t let me because he can drive and I can’t. And I wanted to sit and watch movies with you like we used to. And I wanted to color your tattoos. And I know it sounds stupid because I’m gonna be an adult in a few years, but?—”

“It’s not stupid,” I snapped. “I missed every single one of those things too.”

“Then why didn’t you let us come see you?”

“Because I was stupid. Because I was a coward. Because you and Gracie have always been the most important people to me. And I mean it.” I threw my popsicle down to melt beside hers. “You’ve always been more important to me than your dad. Thanyour Uncle Nate and Uncle CJ. The ranch. All of it. The only reason I ever came back was for you two. Because in some stupid way, I thought it was better for me to not be there for you at all, rather than being there as I was. As I am.”

Her lip trembled. “It hurt.”

“I know. And there’s not much I can do to apologize and make up for it. But I’m going to try.”

Bree crossed her arms. “Dad made us go to therapy when we lost Mom.”

“I know. You’ve got a good dad.”

“So, if you think you’ve lost yourself, then you need to go to therapy,” she said. But this time, she didn’t sound like a miniature version of her mom. She sounded like Cassandra.

“I go to therapy three times a week.”

“Not physical therapy, smart-ass.”

I let out a bark of laughter. “Excuse you, fifteen-going-on-twenty-five. Who said you’re allowed to swear?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s barely a cuss word.”

I sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

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