Page 36 of You Loved Me Once
“I can, because if I don’t treat her, she loses. He married her and loves her. I know the stakes, Dad. I’m not that same girl who lost it years ago. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. He can’t hurt me. I know the rules.”
“Emotions don’t play by the rules.”
“Neither do you.” I smirk, hoping he’ll let this drop now.
He laughs and nods. He knows I’m right. I don’t think the man has ever played fair. He fights hard, loves harder, and is the most honorable person I know. “Rules were never my thing. It seems you’re more like your old man than I hoped. If you were like your mother, you’d do the right thing.”
“Mom wouldn’t want me to let someone innocent suffer. She’d push me to be stronger than I think I am. If this woman was anyone else, I’d have no issue with treating her. But because seventeen years ago I fell in love with her husband, now she can’t have a chance? It’s not right.”
Daddy places his hand on my leg. “Your mother was too sweet for her own good. I just hope it’s not your life that’s ruined. You are strong, I know that, but you have a bleeding heart, exactly like her, and that gets you in trouble. I think it’s telling, based on how you live your life.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re a fantastic doctor. You let people come and go without an attachment. You live alone and your boyfriend of the last two years has never met a single person in your life other than people you work with. You’ve closed yourself off from any chance of loving and losing. We both know that when you love, you don’t hold back.”
I don’t want to hear any more. He, of all people, should understand why I’ve lived this way. He lives up in this run-down house in the middle of nowhere with my brother. His friends who once swarmed this garage aren’t around anymore. When Mom died, so did he.
“Are we done for now?” I ask. I came here for clarity but that’s the last thing I feel right now. I need to stop with this conversation before I say something I’ll regret.
Dad looks at me for a minute and lets out a deep breath. “Why don’t you come help me with this alternator since your brother is no help these days?” My father’s arm wraps around my shoulder as we head into the bay.
Which reminds me, we need to talk about their living conditions. “Daddy, the house...”
“You were up there?”
The shame in my father’s eyes brings me to my knees. The last thing I ever want to see is his pain. At the same time, this is completely unacceptable. My brother is clearly too inept to handle running the house, but being a doctor and living just over an hour away doesn’t put me in the best position to pitch in.
“Yes,” I pause and he looks away. “Where’s the service I set up to clean the house?”
“I fired them.”
“Dad! Why?”
He shakes his head with his lips pursed, the anger growing in his features. “I don’t need strangers coming in here to clean your mother’s house.”
“Mom is gone, Daddy. She’s gone and you can’t live like that.”
My father is a proud man, I understand that, but he can’t do this all on his own. The farm was paid off when I was a kid, then my mother got sick. He mortgaged the house, shop, land, and anything else we had to pay for her treatments. Of course, he was so desperate to get cash to help his dying wife, he was completely taken advantage of.
Deep in debt, my father has to keep the garage running overtime or there’s nothing to pay the bills, plus he has to run the farm single-handedly without my mom. I send what I can, but Chicago isn’t exactly a cheap city to live in.
“I appreciate your help, but I’m doing fine.”
“Fine?” I lean back with my arms crossed. “You think that was fine?”
“You’re not living here, what do you care?”
I blow out a loud breath. Why are men so damn hardheaded? “Because I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, baby girl. Are we done now?”
We’re not anywhere close to done. All he’s done with is fighting back without offering a solution. I’ll be the one who gets things in motion—as always. The two of them will screw up and it’ll be my burden to fix it all again.
“For now.” I pat his back.
“Help me with that car, would you?” Dad extends an olive branch.
“Sure.” I smile and walk over to my tool chest.
