Page 33 of Owned By Two

I shut my eyes and turned my head to one side to deny entry to the graphic images forming in the front of my mind.

Why was it, when we were at our lowest, we deliberately tortured ourselves even further?

We should have picked ourselves up, should have boosted our confidence…

Instead, I was assailed with one negative thought after another, hammering ourselves harder and harder, feeling even more like shit.

I felt someone’s presence before I heard their approach.

The sun was already beginning to set behind the thick jungle canopy, casting long shadowy fingers across the vast expense of the lawn, helping disguise the figure’s approach as they were coming from the house.

I looked over at the figure and immediately recognized Uhti.

I was pleased not to be alone, to have someone I could speak to… not that there was much I could really talk with him about.

“May I join you?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulder. “It’s a free country.”

But it wasn’t a country. It was aplanet.It was nowmyplanet!

So I supposed I could make it free if I wanted…

Uhti approached slowly and sat beside me, his back against the bark of the tree.

He didn’t say a word and would wait for me to begin the conversation — if I even wanted to begin one.

I was surprised I did, and when I began to speak, found I couldn’t stop.

“He’s such a shit,” I said.

Uhti didn’t speak and just listened.

“My father was missing my entire life. I never knew anything about him. The only things I knew were what my mother told me. And they weren’t exactly positive things. Now I come here and see that he wasn’t a loser the way she painted him out to be. He was a massive success. It was his defining trait, the thing I always associated with him. But now…”

I shook my head. “Now I come here and learn he wants to leave me everything he’d made. As if that will somehow make up for his absence in the past. Am I wrong? Am I being stupid? To still feel angry about him and everything he did?”

Uhti waited a full minute to see if I had finished before he responded.

“No, you’re not wrong. Your reaction is completely normal. I don’t pretend to understand the emotions you’re going through right now, or even how you should proceed. Whatever you decide to do is the right course of action. No matter what that is. But I can tell you the one thing your father loved more than anything else was—”

“Don’t say it was me!” I snapped.

I was shocked at my outburst and felt my nostrils flaring and my eyes glaring.

“No,” he said softly. “It was his work. His business.”

The muscles in my face unfurled, aching from how tense they had been. “Oh.”

My attention returned to the blade of grass I shredded between my fingers.

“His work was everything to him. He gave it his all. He found purpose in it. He found meaning in it. And the fact he wants you to have the most important things in his life speaks volumes. It means he realized he made a terrible mistake and on some level, yes, wanted to make up for it. Perhaps it was too late, perhaps it will never be enough. Nothing can ever replace the lost memories he should have shared with you.”

“Then why didn’t he come to us sooner?” I said in a surprisingly soft voice. “Why did he have to let us live the way we did?”

“Did you suffer very greatly?” Uhti asked gently. “When you really think about it, did you suffer?”

I glared at him but didn’t witness an ounce of malice on his face.

---