Page 79 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

For the first time since we made our second child, I took Lily to bed. After we made sure everything was locked up and Declan was truly down for his nap.

It was the first time in my life that I ever just rocked into a woman slow and gentle while our gazes stayed locked, and the memory of that time together would forever live in my mind when I closed my eyes at night. That was the one. The one that got me through dark times, the one that pulled me through my own stupidity and made me see reason again when I would one day need a reminder. The memory of making love to my wife for the first time was magic and I cherished every damn second of it.

~*~

The following day, when I left to go to work, that’s not where I ended up. Instead, it was as if divine intervention led me straight to my father’s house. Ever since he’d bought the new place, Robbie hadn’t stayed a single night in his house across the street from ours.

“Merc? Is something wrong? Declan? Lily?” Rob asked in a panic when I shut the engine down.

“They’re all fine. I needed to talk to you.”

We went inside, where my father was brewing tea like some old hen about to serve up scones and shit. I didn’t mention it, and instead took a seat on their couch. That was what it was. It didn’t take a genius when glancing around at the place. They were both home here with little touches from each of them scattered everywhere, including a fuck ton of pictures of the two of them together, with my son, some with Dec and Lily too. I was in a few of the pictures, but it was the ones of the two of them together that really sealed some of my theories about them.

“What was it you wanted to talk about, Son?” Boone finally asked after noticing how my eyes trained on all the pictures.

So, I laid everything out for them that I’d found out yesterday. I was somewhat happy to see that neither of them knew about Lily’s books or her success until Boone got up and went to his bedroom and came back with a book and threw it on the coffee table.

“What the hell? I thought you didn’t know?”

“I didn’t. I thought the name was fucking hilarious and planned to give it to you as a gag gift, but you’re never at the clubhouse anymore.” He stopped then and pointed at me. “Make no mistake when I say that’s a good fucking thing too. You needed to be home more with your family.”

“We should have never been a family!” I yelled at my father. “What in the hell were the two of you doing? You thought you were playing God with people’s lives! You thought you could change me, and the shit you pulled just pushed me further away and made me hate her when she did nothing to earn that hate. It was all yours. You should have fucking let her go! You should have given her the freedom from me that she needed to be fucking happy! YOU LET ME COMPLETELY RUIN HER!” By the end, I was screaming at the top of my lungs, but I was also purging years of hurt, pain, and frustration. It came pouring out in angry tears in tandem with my pain-laced words.

“If that’s how you truly feel then you need to either fix the shit that you broke with my daughter or let her go,” Rob answered me quietly. “We already know the part we played and harbor our own regrets because of it. Hell, I can’t even see my daughter anymore and that’s all down to me – as you said – trying to play God and do what I thought was best for her.”

“We know we should have done things differently, Merc. There’s no going backwards though.”

“How in the hell am I supposed to undo years of what I did to her?” I whined like a little bitch, but honestly, I needed to know because there was no way to stop trying to patch it all back together and make things right. “Every time I think I’m getting somewhere; shit falls apart again.” I pointed to the fucking book on the table. “Look at that! That’s the name she chose to write books under. She chose to…”

“She chose to own her pain, Merc. From what you told us, it’s something she isn’t that upset over. It was a decision she made for her own reasons and the weight of that decision doesn’t necessarily apply in the same ways anymore.”

“I told her I wanted to be a real family.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that we already were and that my promises were no good. I have to show her I mean it every day.”

Rob smiled. “My daughter is a wise woman; you should listen to her. Sounds like you’ve already put in enough work to get her to concede to that, so why are you here and so upset?”

“We can’t keep going like this. Yesterday, when I told her I wanted to be a family. I included her and the kids, but it’s bigger than that. You are both essential parts of our family too. I need to know what the hell to do to get her to see that without losing her again. I need my family to be whole.”

“Now, he needs his family to be whole!” Boone teased.

“We’ll do whatever it takes!”

“Good, then I suggest you get some shit together because we’re going to have Christmas early. I think it starts with all of us fucking owning the fact that we fucked up and that she wouldn’t have gotten us those damn gifts if she didn’t ever intend for us to have them.”

“You’re saying it’s time we were worthy enough to open them?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” I laughed at the two men who were essentially both fathers to me. “It has to happen tomorrow though. We’re not letting this go any longer because we need you to both be there when Lily has the baby. Whether she realizes it or not, we all need one another.”

“Looks like my daughter finally got the man she always hoped you would be. Don’t fucking disappoint her again,” Rob warned.

“I’m going to do everything in my power not to,” I promised him. He nodded his head, and then it was time for me to get my ass back home to my wife and son.

26 - Making Amends

Merc

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