Page 83 of Family Bonds- Kelsey & Van

“True,” he said.

“You’ll get more answers when you’re ready,” Kyle said. “You asked about the pictures and why your mother and Barry didn’t talk. That is what I told you. If you ask me other things, I’ll answer as well as I can.”

“You want me to figure it out on my own, don’t you?” he asked.

“I think you need to do that for yourself more than anything,” Kyle said.

23

WHAT YOU WANT

“Are you more frustrated than anything else?” Kelsey asked on Saturday.

She’d just listened to what Van had told her about the conversation with her father.

There was this teeny tiny part that was annoyed he didn’t tell her last night when she’d asked him three times what was wrong.

No. It was more than teeny tiny.

It was humongous, but she also knew she couldn’t push Van.

She wasn’t sure what caused him to even bring it up today.

“Yes,” he said.

They were sitting out on his deck. She was going to spend the night here since they’d stayed at her place last night.

It was morning and they hadn’t made plans for the day yet.

Frankie was snoozing in the sun and she had her second cup of coffee in her hand.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “I mean I understand you’ve got to have a ton of questions. Do you think you’ll ask your father?”

“No,” he said. “Not right now at least.”

Which meant there might be a time he’d do it.

“Does your father even know you’re here? On this island? Didn’t you say he didn’t know you even moved?”

“He doesn’t know where I am the last I knew,” he said. “It’s not like I’ve changed my cell number. He could reach out and hasn’t.”

She frowned. “What an asshole.”

“He is that,” he said. “But one could argue that I haven’t reached out to him either. I’m starting to understand why my mother was able to write her father off for so long.”

“Barry doesn’t sound anything like your father,” she argued.

“I have no idea. I just know my mother was able to do it and now I am too. The world saw my father one way. Who is to say that you guys didn’t see Barry one way on the outside and then he was someone else different at home?”

She didn’t like that he pointed that out.

“You could be right, but I don’t think so,” she said. “My father is a good judge of character. You can’t hide that much from someone you are partners with.”

“I want to say you’re right, but there are plenty of married couples out there that will say that they were blindsided by their spouses. There are serial killers living normal lives and going home to their wives and kids and no one suspects. Not everyone knows everything about another person.”

“You sure know how to be a Debbie Downer,” she said.

She never thought like that and couldn’t understand why anyone would.

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