Page 57 of Keeping Guard
Her heart tripled its beat. This was a moment of truth between them, and she knew, just knew, that the answers to all her questions were within her reach. All she had to do was say the right thing. What was the right thing? The truth. If that didn’t heal the rift between them, nothing would. So, the truth it was.
“You gave me a home and all the material things a child needed, and I’ll always be grateful for that. You don’t have to love me, but I always wanted you to. I tried so hard to please you so you wouldn’t give me away, too. And I thought that maybe if I pleased you enough, you might decide to love me. But you never did. There was a wall between us that I couldn’t find a way to scale.” There was more she wanted to say, but tears were burning her eyes, her throat was closing up, and her voice was trembling.
“It wasn’t you that was lacking, Peyton,” her father softly said. “It was never you.” He sighed. “I should have told you this a long time ago. Wait here.”
While he was gone, she used her napkin to wipe away her tears. She would not cry. For the first time, she’d bared her heart to her father, and all she’d gotten back was the assurance that she wasn’t lacking. That was better than nothing, she supposed.
Her father returned and handed her a photo. She studied it, then lifted her gaze to his. “Who are they?” Was this the photo she’d caught him looking at all those years ago? He was in the picture, his arm around a beautiful woman and his hand on the shoulder of a young boy. By their smiles, they appeared happy. She guessed her father was in his twenties when it was taken.
“My wife and son.”
“What? You were married?” How did she not know that?
“Yes. Before you were born.”
“I don’t understand.”
He took the photo and stared at it. “Her name was Laura and that’s Robbie, our son. They were my world.”
She’d never been his world, and it hurt that there was a child he’d loved. Then it hit her. “I have a brother?”
“Had, and yes.”
There was so much pain in his voice in that one word. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? What happened?”
He stood, walked to the dining room window, and looked out at the darkness. His shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. “When you first came to live with me, you were too young for a story about death and heartbreak. As time went on, I...I just never found the right moment to tell you.
“As for what happened, they drowned.” He turned and faced her. “I was a partner in a law firm, too damn busy to take a full week of vacation. Laura and Robbie went ahead to the beach, and I was to join them for a long weekend. They were playing in the water and got caught in a riptide. Laura’s body was recovered. Robbie’s wasn’t.”
“Oh, God.”
A sad smile crossed his face. “I wasn’t there to save them, and I’ll never forgive myself for that. I blamed my job for not being with them and never returned to the firm. A few weeks later, I got in my car with no destination in mind and ended up in Asheville. On my third day here, I was mindlessly walking around downtown when I saw a for sale sign for the brewery. I didn’t know a thing about beer other than I liked it, but I thought, why not. So I bought it.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “There’s not a day that goes by that I haven’t missed them, that I haven’t regretted I put work ahead of my family. I often wonder what kind of man Robbie would have grown up to be.”
She wanted to go to him, to comfort him, but she stayed in her seat. If he rejected her, he would crush her, more than she already was. He didn’t love her because his heart belonged to his dead son. Had he seen something of Robbie in Dalton? Was that why he’d wanted her to marry Dalton? Tears burned her eyes again, and she squeezed them shut.
Since coming to live with him, she’d tried so hard to win his love and approval so he wouldn’t give her away. He’d kept her while emotionally starving her. At least she now knew the reason, but she didn’t feel any better for it.
“I’m sorry I’m not your son,” she whispered.
He visibly shuddered, then he came and kneeled in front of her. “Don’t ever say that. I don’t regret you, I never have.”
“But you don’t love me.”
He took her hands in his. “I tried hard not to. When Laura and Robbie died, they took my heart with them. Six years after the worst day of my life, your mother brought you to me. You had nothing but the clothes you were wearing and a ragged teddy bear.”
“I remember that bear.”
He smiled. “For months, you clung to that thing like it was your lifeline. I was so angry at your mother for your obvious lack of care.” His gaze lowered to the floor for a few moments, then lifted to hers. “I’m going to be honest with you. I didn’t want the responsibility of you, but she said if I didn’t take you, she’d turn you over to child services.”
Peyton hadn’t thought her heart could be more broken than it already was. She was wrong. The two people who were supposed to love her hadn’t wanted her. “If nothing else, I guess I have to thank you for not letting me grow up in foster care.” She hadn’t been able to keep the bitterness out of her voice, and she didn’t care that her words made him wince.
He stood, then moved back to his seat. “You have the right to be both hurt and angry, Peyton. I haven’t been much of a father to you. I didn’t want to love you. If I let myself do that and something happened to you...” His chest rose and fell as he inhaled a deep breath. “I died inside the day I lost my family. I couldn’t bear to experience that kind of loss again, so I kept you at a distance. I’m sorry for that.”
The tears she’d tried to hold back fell down her cheeks. “I am, too.” There wasn’t room in his heart for her, so she’d never have his love. Maybe over time it would help that she now understood why, and maybe she would be able to forgive him, but all she felt right now was disposable. She’d been the little girl no one wanted. A few years on a therapist’s couch might be in her future.
“But that’s not the end of the story.” He leaned toward her, resting his arms on the table. “I said I didn’t want to love you because I was afraid of what it would do to me if I did, but here’s the thing. I worried about you being alone if something happened to me. I thought Dalton was an honorable man, one you could be happy with, so I encouraged the relationship between the two of you. If something happened to me, he would be there for you.”
