Page 16 of His Christmas Star
“Cody?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Probably. I’m sure he’s with your grandma. She loved you two like her own.”
Tobi hugged her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. “She did right by us after our parents died. She could have done it out of obligation, but she never made us feel that way.”
“Probably because you guys were always at her house anyway. She was used to taking care of you.”
“That’s true. After they died, not much changed. It just felt like they’d gone on a long trip and hadn’t returned. Losing Momma was soul-crushing. Losing Dad felt like a dead weight had fallen off our backs.”
“It’s okay to feel that way. He never won any father of the year awards.”
“No, Phillip Star was never in the running for that award. Daddy Nash, on the other hand, should have won it a few times.”
A heavy eye roll followed my sarcastic snort, but I bit my tongue to keep from saying something I shouldn’t. I didn’t need to air my family’s dirty laundry.
“I saw Daddy Nash last night. He’s starting to slip.”
“Starting?” I asked with sarcasm. “He’s been slipping since the stroke.”
Her shrug was barely noticeable in the dark. “True, but we’re nearing the end, Jo-Jo. That much was obvious.”
I bristled at her use of my nickname, and bit my tongue to keep from overreacting. That would only egg her on.
“He said you haven’t been around much.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Too busy to spend time with your father during his final days?”
“He’s not my father,” I said between gritted teeth.
“Did he feed you? Clothe you? Teach you how to be a man and not a brute? Give you his name?”
“None of that makes him my father.”
She spun around and stuck her finger in my chest. “You’re right. What makes him your father is the thirty years of love he’s poured into you. Did you forget who put up with all your nonsense as a kid and who made sure you went on to be successful as an adult?”
“Alfred Nash is a liar, Tobi, nothing more.”
“Wrong, and you’re lucky making a fist is damn near impossible with these hands, or I’d punch you in the nose right now.” She took a deep breath and let it back out. “Alfred Nash was a man who could have walked away fifty years before you were even born, but he didn’t. He loved a woman, and he did right by her when that woman came as a package deal. He wasn’t bound to Clarissa and could have left her in the dust when he found out she was pregnant with another man’s child. He didn’t because he loved her. That’s integrity, Nash. When that child brought a child into this world, he didn’t worry about whose blood flowed through his veins. He already knew you weren’t his, but again, he loved you anyway. He didn’t have to, but he did because regardless of the bloodline, you were already family. Like, I don’t get how someone like you can’t understand that concept.”
“Who said I don’t understand the concept?” I asked, anger boiling over the edges. “I understand the concept, but he didn’t have to lie about it for thirty years!”
“See, that’s what I don’t understand. You’re saying Daddy Nash lied about it, but you already knew he wasn’t your dad, and you loved him like one anyway.”
“I loved him like a dad, yes, but I always believed he was my grandfather. That’s why I could love him without question.”
She tipped her head to the side and stared at me for several seconds before she burst out laughing. “Would you listen to yourself? When you were two years old and clinging to him scared and alone, did you know he was your grandfather?”
“I would venture to guess I just knew him as someone who loved me and took care of me at that age.”
She motioned at me with her hand. “Exactly. You didn’t know what the word grandfather even meant when you went to live with him. You didn’t know what it meant for years after that until someone taught you the definition of the word. He adopted you as his son not because you needed his name but because he wanted to make sure you were legally his. He had quietly adopted Laramie too, as you know.”
“Then he didn’t need to adopt me, did he?” That was the part that stuck in my craw the most. “He could have done nothing and said nothing, and no one would have been the wiser!”
“Not true,” she said immediately. “While your last name was already Nash, that didn’t mean it would stay that way. No one knew who your father was, Joe. What if he’d shown up when you were four, or eight, or twelve, to demand his rights to you? Daddy Nash knew how the legal system worked, so by adopting you, he was protecting you. He made sure you’d remain a Nash no matter what happened in the future. From the perspective of someone who had a father who didn’t care about them, you were pretty damn lucky to have Daddy Nash in your life.”
She was right, but at the same time, I didn’t care. “I haven’t come to terms with it, and maybe I never will. That’s not your decision to make.”
