Page 111 of Love Me Tomorrow

“Areyouhappy to see me?”

Another thing I’ve ruined this morning. This moment was supposed to be for them only and here I am sitting like an interloper. Amelie specifically told me to find myself a new island, and so I avert my gaze to the window and watch the I-10 highway speed past us. Nothing to see here.

“I am,” Dad says softly, and if I could see his face, I know it’d be etched with remorse. “A Rose has his thorns and I . . . I have my pride. I wanted to include you, Amelie. All these years, I wanted you to feel as though you were my daughter, my baby girl—and when you told me that you would rather do anything else over working for ERRG, I . . .” He swallows, audibly. “It felt as though you were rejectingme. I lost my temper. Years of feeling inadequate—”

When he cuts off roughly, Amelie leaves my side to climb into the passenger’s seat. “Why would you feel inadequate, Pops? You have the world, don’t you? Money? Success? Anything you want is yours.”

“Your father . . . I mean, your biological father”—here, my dad’s voice turns bitter—“No, we should wait for your mom. We can’t have this conversation without her.”

But Amelie will not be dissuaded. “Have it with me now, and then let me have it with her later. There are always two sides to every story—you told me that when I used to lie about doing the chores around the house. So, give me your side, Pops. Mom will give me hers when we get home.”

Try as I do to make myself as small as possible, it’s utterly futile. I find myself staring at Amelie with my own pride ballooning in my chest. The woman sitting up there, staring at our father and begging him to talk, will never again be the little girl who used to pull on my untamed hair or beg for sister nights when I was a freshman in college.

I loved that Amelie with every corner of my soul.

But I respect this one sitting diagonal from me now—and then her hand flattens on the center console, her fingers drumming a silent beat, and I know she’ll always need me, even just a little bit.

I drag my butt over to the uncomfortable middle seat, scoot forward to the edge, and slip my hand under hers.

The Rose sisters against the world.

Dad pulls off at the Esplanade Avenue exit, curving the SUV along the off-ramp. Finally, he confesses, “Your mother left me.”

My hand tightens around Amelie’s. “I don’t remember that.”

He looks right, checking for oncoming traffic—but, also, I think, to sneak a peek at the two of us. “It wasn’t for very long. I had . . . I had loved your mom for a long time, though she didn’t much notice me. I was lanky and a bit of a nerd. Dropped out of high school. Why finish when I would end up at ERRG in the end? No one convinced me otherwise, but the one thing I missed about school was Marie. She was beautiful and smart and the sweetest soul I’d ever met, and so I convinced her to tutor me. It was a way to see her, in between working in the kitchens.”

“You’ve never told us this story,” Amelie says, giving voice to the confusion I’m experiencing in my heart.

“It was a long time ago.” Dad slows the car for a red light, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel. “So, the tutoring went on. I pined after her. She fell for some boy at school. It was messy. They dated and we ended up going our separate ways.” The light turns green, and he accelerates. “I saw her again when I was in my late twenties. She was just as beautiful—turns out she’d been traveling the world. She’d lived in Prague and Paris and, for a time, in London. And, this time, it seemed she liked me too.”

Wetting my lips, I clutch the back of Dad’s headrest. “I don’t understand how it goes from y’all liking each other to her leaving you.”

“He came back,cherie. That boy from high school that swept her off her feet—and I was still that lanky nerd who spent too much time in the kitchen, except this time, that meant I spent too much time away from your mom. I . . .” He blows out a sharp breath, shaking his head. “She was looking after you, Savannah, and the house, and I was always doing something else. Always working on the business. Always focusedelsewhere.Her leaving is on me.”

Amelie’s hand leaves mine to land on Dad’s forearm. “Pops, it’snoton you.”

He nods sharply. “It is. The night she packed her bags, she begged me to reprioritize. The work had to stay at work, but the family was for always—and instead of falling to my knees and asking her to forgive me, I told her that being a Rose would always come first.”

My throat thickens. “Pops,” I whisper, my voice strained. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

In profile, I watch his face grimace. “I did. So, she left to stay with your aunt, just for a few days.”

Amelie’s mouth twists. “I hear abutcoming.”

Another grimace, this one deeper, more severely drawn. “But she was ripe for the pickings, emotionally distraught, so angry at me that I swear she could have lit up an entire power plant with all her fuming. Aunt Bea took her to a bar and guess who happened to be there?”

“My dad,” Amelie says, which she hastily amends to “my biological dad” whenourdad coughs awkwardly.

“Yes, he was there. They . . . they slept together, only once, but I guess the once was all it took. She was home within a week. I-I begged her to come back, and she was always upfront. She never hid what happened that night at the bar. We just never expected—”

“Me.”

My sister’s tone is forlorn, and one look at her face reveals so much heartache that I nearly launch myself into the front seat so I can hold her to my side and protect her the way that I always have.

“You weremine, Amelie,” Dad grinds out fiercely, his gaze tracking from the road to her face and then back again, lightning quick. “From the day your mother told me, I have never felt any differently. I’d loved her for almost half of my life, and I would be damned if I stopped then. You were a Rose. Youarea Rose. I will always have one regret in my life, and that was eight months ago when I allowed my own insecurities to boil over onto you.”

“You don’t regret the day you didn’t beg Mom to stay?” I ask.

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