Page 297 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
I smile. Maybe I don’t have to do thiscompletelyon my own.
Dad isn’t alone in the dining room. He has an entire entourage with him, which shouldn’t surprise me, but it does take a moment for me to reframe my expectations. I recognize hispersonal assistant and his manager, but the other three people are strangers.
Being honest with him will be slightly more difficult with an audience, but it’s too late to back down now.
“Dad,” I say as I cross the dining room.
His eyes brighten when he sees me, and he stands up to pull me into a stiff hug. “Feeling better? Your friend said you were under the weather.”
“Much better. Thanks for asking.” I step back, my grip on Mom’s notebook tightening. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Yes, it’s a very long way to come,” he says pointedly, as if it’s my fault he’s here. He motions to the table behind him, where there are several stacks of paper and half a dozen pens spread out across the tablecloth. “Care to sit?”
“Actually, can we talk for a second?” I reach out and take his elbow, steering him a few feet away. We still won’t be having a private conversation, but it’s better than beingatthe table with a bunch of strangers.
Dad clears his throat. “So,” he says brightly. “Have you given our situation any more thought?”
Our situation.Six months ago, I wouldn’t have flinched at his word choice, but today, it feels fifty shades of wrong.
“Yoursituation, Dad,” I amend, my tone cool. “It’s your situation.”
His lips press into a thin line. “How very generous of you to pin all of this on me.”
Ohhh, give me strength, Mom.“It’s your career, Dad,” I say. “I’m not responsible for your career.”
“Tatum,” he says, his tone patronizing. “Be reasonable. These people came all this way. They’re expecting you to sign.”
I take a deep, cleansing breath. “I’m sorry they came all this way, but I didn’t ask you to bring them. You asked me to think about the offer, and I did. I don’t want it. My answer is no.”
He reaches for me, his jaw tightening, and wraps a hand around my arm. “You don’t understand what you’re throwing away,” he says through clenched teeth.
I shrug out of his grasp. “I understand exactly what I’m throwing away. But I don’t think you do. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to lose more than just your working relationship with your daughter. You won’t treat me like this, Dad. Not anymore.”
He frowns, fire flashing in his eyes. He lifts a warning finger. “You’re being unreasonable.”
“Like Mom was unreasonable? Is that what you told her after you went on national television and told her stories like they were yours?”
Stories, not just recipes. That’s what finally nudged me over the edge. Dad didn’t just take Mom’s recipes, in the earliest days of his show, he told her stories. Claimed her ancestors. Talked like he was the one who learned how to make ratatouille in her grandfather’s kitchen.
I drop the notebook onto the table beside us. “I have them all, Dad. All her stories. All her recipes. How could you do this to her?”
I expect vitriol. Anger. But Dad’s shoulders drop, his face falling, and for a moment, I see a flash of heartache—of anguish—in his eyes. It’s the most real I’ve ever seen my father look, and it hits me all the way to my core.
The emotion in Dad’s eyes is gone as quickly as it arrived, masked behind his perfect, tv-ready face. “I didn’t doanything to her,” he says, but his voice has lost its conviction. He sounds more like he’s reciting lines than saying something he actually believes. “Your mother had a gift, yes. But she didn’t want to use it. She filled her notebooks, told her stories, but for whom? What was it accomplishing? I refused to let all those recipes go to waste, and she finally agreed to let me use them. That’s reallyall there is to the story. And I’d say it worked out pretty well for all of us.”
Mom finally agreed.I at least believe this much of his story. After the months of pressure I’ve gotten from Dad,it isn’t hard to imagine Mom eventually cracking, too.
“You think it worked out well for Mom?” I say. “You used her, Dad.” I square my shoulders. “And she left our family over it. I won’t let you do the same thing to me.”
Dad is silent for a long time—long enough for me to study his features and recognize how tired he looks. His eyes are rimmed with red, and the creases on either side of his face seem deeper than they did the last time I saw him.
He’s desperate. I recognize that much. And he’s being irrational.
Hopefully, someday, he’ll see it too, and we can come back from this.
I step forward and lift a hand to his arm. “Daddy, you don’t have to do this either. So what if they don’t sign your show? It was a good run. Maybe it’ll give you the chance to slow down a little, relax for once. There’s more to it, you know. To life.”
His shoulders finally drop, some of the fire leaching out of his voice. “So I came all this way for you to tell me I ought to retire?”
