Page 134 of Fierce-Hyde

“How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” her father said. “Can we get you anything after your drive?”

“Can I use the bathroom quickly?”

“You know where it is, if you remember,” her father said.

She remembered.

She walked in and it’d been updated from when she was here last. It was a soft yellow rather than the dark blue. She went to the bathroom and washed her hands in a pretty glass bowl. There was an old pedestal sink here before.

When she walked back down the hall, she’d passed the door to her old bedroom and curiosity had her looking in. The door was open anyway.

Her bed was still there. She remembered the headboard. There was a different comforter on it though. Nothing of hers was there, just like there wasn’t much when she was a kid.

“There is a box in the basement with your stuff in it,” her father said.

She turned her head and didn’t know he’d been standing there.

“I don’t even know what it could have been,” she said.

“Some books. Clothing. A stuffed bear. You probably don’t want it, but I never got rid of it.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Kevin, come sit down,” Shelly said. “I’ll give you two privacy to talk and make some lunch.”

She followed her father back to the living room.

“Why did you want to see me?” she asked.

“I know if I don’t ask now, I might not get a chance to again. And if I asked later, then I might not be in a good enough place. I wanted you to make that decision.”

She weighed those words “So it was for me and not you?”

“I wanted you to come,” he said. “But I wasn’t going to say that and put pressure on this situation. You needed to come to the conclusion yourself.”

She nodded. “I don’t have any grand ideas of you being my father or coming into my life to be this figure that I never had.”

“I wouldn’t expect that,” he said.

“But I think I’d regret if I didn’t tell you what I think or what this did in my life too.”

Her father leaned back in his chair to get comfortable. “Just lay it on me,” he said. “I have it all coming to me and then some more. I’m not going to dispute it. I think if anything, this will give you closure and maybe get Shelly off my back.”

“I heard that,” Shelly yelled from the kitchen.

Her father laughed. “I have to give her a hard time on principle.”

She didn’t remember her father having a personality like that. But she didn’t spend a lot of time with him either.

“Why did you stop reaching out to me?” she asked.

“Going right at it,” he said.

“Why waste our time?” she said. “Might as well start with the hard question.”

“And I owe you answers,” her father said. “I never planned on getting married or having kids.”

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