Page 41 of On His Knees

“So you wanted a mansion for your dad,” I say, a statement, not a question, as I try to digest everything she’s telling me.

“Not a mansion, not really.” She puts her fingers into the corners of her eyes, and squeezes her lids shut. “My whole life he worked hard to provide for me, to give me everything he could, but I didn’t need ‘everything,’ I only needed him. And believe me, he was there for me.” She rubs her nose. “Every Saturday he took me out for snow cones, spent quality time with me. I didn’t really need anything more than that from him, but he thought I needed things, you know. I guess it was his way of trying to be both the mom and the dad.”

“That couldn’t have been easy.” At least I had nannies and servants. Not that I can tell her any of that, and I suddenly feel so shitty about keeping secrets from her. Because she’s wide-open.

“And...” she begins, but her voice trails off.

“What?”

She averts her gaze, stretches her legs out. “Maybe I said too much already.”

“Go ahead, Summer. Bend the local bartender’s ear.”

A long pause and then, “Is it strange that I feel survivor’s guilt? That my mom died because of me? That Dad spent an existence alone, because of me?”

Jesus Christ. “It’s not like that. You have to know that.”

“I know.” She taps her head. “You can beat that into my brain all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that in my heart I feel that way. Just like I can tell you it wasn’t your fault for your mother leaving, but you’re never going to believe that.”

She’s right. I do blame myself. I wasn’t enough for her.

Would I be enough for Summer?

She touches my face, her hand lingers on my cheek, like she needs the contact. I get that, I totally do because I can’t stop touching her either. “I know it’s crazy, but...”

“It’s not crazy,” I say, and close my hand over hers. I give it a kiss, and bring it to my lap.

“I guess that’s why I wanted to do so much for my father. To make up for what I’d taken from him and his lonely existence.”

So, she’s conning my grandfather to make up for some misguided belief that she owes her father? Doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons? Which I’m having a hard time even wrapping my brain around now.

“You’re wrong, you know,” I say.

“Wrong?”

“Your father didn’t have a lonely existence. He had you, and from what you’re telling me, you were the world to him and he wouldn’t have changed a thing.”

“My father never said it, but there were hints of it,” she says so quietly I have to strain my ears to hear her.

“Hints of what?”

“That during labor it came down to the baby or my mom. Mom chose me.”

I hug her tighter, and her arms go around me. “And he died before you could become a millionaire and buy him a big home.”

“I didn’t really need a million dollars,” she says, and then laughs, but it holds no humor. “I don’t even like rich people.”

What? Seriously? “That’s kind of a blanket statement, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” she says, and then drifts off like her mind is elsewhere. What is going through that pretty head of hers?

“You must like the guy who sent you here.”

“He’s different.”

“Different how?”

“He’s...nice.”

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