Page 65 of Hero for the Holidays

“I get that.”

“Maybe my sisters feel differently. It’s okay if they do. Like you said. Being the youngest is different than being the oldest.”

“Yeah. I did not have the best understanding of who my father was. It took a long time. Denver and Daughtry were my idols, and they worked with him. They believed in his...mission, I guess. My dad seemed like a good guy to me. It seemed wrong that our mom left him. He painted himself as the victim and I believed it. Then I wondered why I felt bad after I spent time with him. And I wondered why I made so many mistakes and made him angry at me. Everything that he did I felt like was my fault. When I found out that you were pregnant, that was when I realized I wanted to be a different kind of dad. That was when I thought...”

“What?”

It was painful. To think. To feel. “I wanted it to save me. I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t him. Because when I tried to imagine the stuff he did to me being done to a child of mine, it made me so angry. It was when I realized that what happened was a kind of abuse. That the reason I didn’t want to be alive half the time was because of the way my dad treated me. And that no parent should ever make the child feel like that.”

The car was silent.

“I am... I’m really sorry I didn’t understand that,” said Fia.

“I barely understood it, Fia. Why should you?” He breathed out heavily. “You and I didn’t know how to talk. We knew how to fiercely defend our own feelings. Our own space. We didn’t know how to let each other in, not really.”

“I don’t think I know how to do that still,” she said. “I’ve been an island for a long ass time.”

She said it with a kind of bland humor that resonated with him. He laughed. “Yeah. I get that. My whole family is made of violence. So I get it. I mean, we’re close. We get together. We eat together. But we don’t talk about the past. In some ways it’s a lot like us. You and me. What we did back then. We just constructed a new reality to live in, and we don’t really go over the one we left behind. What’s the point?”

“And now we’re both having to do a whole lot of dealing with the past. No wonder we feel uncomfortable.”

He chuckled. And just then they pulled into McCloud’s Landing. He was kind of grateful for the reprieve. Because the conversation was nothing if not heavy.

Gus was out there waiting for them, along with Alaina and the baby. Fia smiled and took her niece into her arms, and Landry knew a moment of tense emotion.

Because it was a reminder of what they’d never had. It didn’t matter. Like they’d just talked about. The last thirteen years hadn’t been nothing. They hadn’t been a blank space. They’d grown, they’d changed. They had made Four Corners better, and they had made themselves better. And what was the point of any of it if they didn’t make the most of it now. If they didn’t let go of the regret to the best of their ability.

“Thanks a lot, Gus,” said Landry. “You’re really helping us put on an extravagant birthday. We’ve got a lot to make up for.”

Fia ducked her head and pressed her cheek against the baby’s head. He wondered if what he’d said had felt pointed. He honestly hadn’t meant it to be. But he supposed he had to earn her trust. Why should she believe that he wasn’t taking shots at her?

“I’ve got three horses for you to consider. They just came in from a rescue. All older. Very docile.”

They walked over to the stalls with Gus and spent the next few minutes meeting the new horses. There was a paint, a black quarter horse with white socks and a star on her forehead, and an Appaloosa with a bright blue eye. Normally that breed wouldn’t be his pick based on temperament, but she seemed like a total sweetheart.

Fia seemed drawn to her too.

She was pretty. Gray and speckled, unique looking.

“I think we’re both fans of Genevieve,” said Landry, stroking the horse down her nose.

“I think so,” said Fia.

It was the easiest agreement that the two of them had come to...maybe ever.

And that was a relief.

Because of all the things, they didn’t need to be having a fight over something they were trying to do that was good.

With the choice made, they said goodbye to Gus, who agreed to bring the horse over on the day of the birthday party. And it felt like something. Felt like doing something to heal some of the wounds. Some of the scars of the past.

He wanted to. Lord knew he did.

And not just with Lila. Not just with himself. Fia had needed him, and he hadn’t been there for her.

He made a promise to himself then and there that that would never be true again.

In some fashion, she was his, and always would be.

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