Hold on My Heart (22 page)

“Rach, it’s Dad.”

“Yeah, I know. I have caller ID. Do you know it’s, like, eight thirty on a Sunday morning?”

“Sorry. I thought you’d be up. I was hoping we could have breakfast. Or lunch. Can you? There’s some stuff I want to talk to you about.”

“Today?”

“It doesn’t have to be today, but I’d like to see you. I’ll take you to that place with the chocolate-chip pancakes.”

He heard her snuffled giggle on the other end, and his hope lifted. “Dad, I don’t eat chocolate-chip pancakes anymore.”

“All right, well, we can go wherever you want. Is that a yes?”

She sighed. “Yeah, okay. Brunch. Pick me up at eleven. I’m not done sleeping.”

He hung up the phone and felt like he was standing on the tip of a knife. One wrong move could leave him in shreds. But at least he could feel it.

His daughter was waiting outside her grandparents’ house when he guided his truck up the driveway. He hadn’t been inside there since before Connie died. Since his recent talk with Dr. Brandt, he knew that was something he needed to fix. But not today. Today was just for him and Rachel.

She climbed into the truck wearing a red beret and a sparkly scarf. She’d loved to play dress-up when she was little. Always a flair for the dramatic.

“Hey. Nice hat. You hungry?”

She shrugged. “I guess. That was the whole idea, wasn’t it? To go eat?”

“And to spend some time together.”

She looked at him, but she wasn’t scowling. Practically a declaration of peace.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Someplace with good soup.”

He didn’t know of any place with particularly good soup, since soup was what he ate while he waited for his meal.

“How about Flanagan’s?”

“No, their soup sucks. How about Licari’s?”

“If that’s where you want to go, that’s where we’ll go.”

She looked at him, eyes narrowed with what looked very much like suspicion. “You’re agreeable this morning.”

“I’m just glad to see you.”

He was. It wasn’t just his night with Libby that had him smiling. It was also the fact that Rachel had said yes and not found some excuse to avoid him.

They arrived at the restaurant and ordered their meals without much extra chatter.

“Have you finished your collage?” he asked as they sat down with trays of food.

“Mostly. It’s kind of cheesy, though. Are you done with yours?” She took a slurp of soup.

“Almost. It’s pretty awful, I have to warn you. But I tried hard. I even asked Libby to help me. She said my cutting and pasting skills were substandard.”

Libby hadn’t really said that. He hadn’t let her help with that part. He was just trying to make Rachel giggle because he loved the sound of it more than anything else in the world.

She didn’t giggle. “Libby?”

“Libby Hamilton. You know, from the talent show? I’m helping her and her dad with that ice-cream parlor.”

“Oh, you mean Mrs. Garner’s sister. Hey, did you hear Mrs. Garner had her baby on the night of the talent show?”

He choked a little on his soup. “I think I did hear something about that.”

“Is it true Hot Air Hamilton fell out of the bell tower and nearly broke his neck?”

Tom coughed outright at that. “Not exactly. He fell down some stairs and broke his ankle. Where did you hear that?”

Rachel shrugged. “Twitter. So what did you want to talk to me about?”

Tom set down his spoon and put his clammy hands in his lap. He shouldn’t be nervous talking to his own daughter, but he was. “I went through the boxes with Aunt Kristy.” He said it fast, like ripping off a bandage.

Rachel looked down at her soup, hovering her spoon over the bowl for a fraction of a second before dipping in. “And?”

“And I wanted you to know they’re all unpacked. I was planning to donate a lot of the stuff, but I wondered if you wanted to go through any of it first.” It all came out in a rush, as if he had to say it all before he lost his nerve.

But his daughter sat quiet, continuing with her soup. She seemed to take the news in stride. She was calm. Not sullen calm, or like the calm before the storm, but serene. “Donate it where?” she asked.

“Kristy has a place in mind, a homeless shelter, I think. She said that’s what your mom would have wanted me to do with it.” His heart went
thud,
and he waited.

Rachel’s lips trembled for a second before she took another bite. She swallowed the soup and met his eyes. “I think that’s what she’d want you to do with it, too. I already have a bunch of her stuff that I took when I moved to Grandma’s house, so I guess I don’t need to look through the rest. You should just get rid of it.”

And
thud
again. “Are you sure? Because I don’t want to get rid of anything you’re not okay with.”

She nodded. “I know that, Dad. Go ahead and donate it. Did you unpack all the boxes?”

“All of them.”

She set down her own spoon and straightened her shoulders. “Why now?”

“Why now
what
?”

“Why did you finally unpack them? I’ve been asking you for, like, ten months.”

“I don’t know.” He wished he had a better answer, but the truth was he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was Libby. But it had to be more than that. Maybe it was just time. He’d never be over Connie’s death, but he’d started to realize he could at least move past it.

Rachel twisted her scarf. “Well, thanks for doing that. Did it suck?”

“Yep. Pretty much. But now it’s done, so neither one of us has to worry about it. I did save this, though, and I thought you might want to have it.”

He pulled a charm bracelet from his pocket. Kristy had actually come across it in Connie’s jewelry box. It was made of silver beads and little blocks with letters on it. He handed it to his daughter.

She took it and looked it over. “It says ‘Rachel.’”

“I know. Your mom had it made when you were a baby. She used to wear it all the time. I’m not sure when she stopped.”

Rachel turned it over in her hands and pressed her lips together in a tight line. She sniffled, and his own eyes went moist.

“You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want it.”

“No, I want it.” She tried to hook it around her wrist but fumbled.

“Here, let me.” Tom reached over and hooked the clasp. Then he just couldn’t help it. He held her hand. He kept his voice low. “I love you very
much, Rachel. You know that, don’t you? Even if you’re mad at me, and even if you hate me, I’m still always going to love you.”

She gently tugged her hand free and put it in her lap, staring down. “I don’t hate you. And I’m not sure who I’m mad at. I just know I’m mad.”

“Do you think Dr. Brandt is helping?”

Rachel nodded and dabbed at her nose with her napkin. “Yeah. And I like her.” She looked back at Tom. “I talked to Grandma about you after you showed up at the talent show.”

His stomach twisted in a knot. He’d rather Rachel not see how much he didn’t want to hear about that. “How’d that go?”

Rachel shrugged, and picked her spoon back up. “Not that bad. I don’t think she hates you either, but she won’t stand up to Grandpa.”

Not many people could. “Well, Grandpa’s got some strong opinions. Your mother didn’t agree with him very often.”

“She didn’t?” Rachel’s eyebrows arched.

Dr. Brandt’s comments about Rachel choosing a side and needing a safe place bounced around inside his mind just then. He shouldn’t push her into a corner anymore by criticizing George. “No, but now that I’m a father I can see his point of view a little better.”

Rachel took another bite of soup. “How?”

“Your grandfather loves you, Rachel, just as much as I do, but sometimes love makes us selfish. It shouldn’t, but it can. The point is we all want what’s best for you. Unfortunately we see that as something different.”

“I’m almost sixteen. Maybe it was time you all started listening to me, and let me decide what’s best for me.” Her voice didn’t have that usual sting of sarcasm.

Tom sat back in his seat. “You’re right.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I am?”

He smiled. “I am capable of compromise, you know. Maybe we’ve all been so busy trying to convince you of what we think is right, we haven’t given you a chance to decide what you think for yourself. I never meant to put you in this situation, Rach. I’m starting to see that the harder I push, the worse that makes it for you.”

She sat back, too, her shoulders sagging in obvious relief. “Yes, it does. Because just as hard as you’re pushing, so is Grandpa. I feel like I’m the rope in your tug-of-war.”

He had never looked at it that way. How had he missed it? “I’m sorry. I really am.”

She sighed. “I know.”

He’d made so many mistakes, but that wasn’t all there was to him. His intention was to be a good father, and so Tom Murphy said the hardest thing imaginable. He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing. But at least it was
something.
It was motion instead of stagnation.

“Rachel, the truth is, even when you are grown up and married, I will always, always want you to live with me because you’re my girl. But more than anything else in this world, I want you to be happy. So if staying at your grandparents’ house is what you want, I’m okay with it.”

“You are?”

He plowed ahead, following his gut. “I am. But I want you to decide for yourself. Don’t make your choice based on what Grandpa wants, or Grandma, or even me. There will always be a room for you at my house, but you can decide if you want to use it. And I do want to spend more time together. I want to have dinner, and watch movies and celebrate holidays, maybe go camping. And play backgammon. It’s all that little stuff that I miss. And honestly, honey, I’m just tired of us being angry.”

Rachel gazed around the restaurant, twirling her hair nervously and blinking fast. She finally looked back at him, her bright eyes sparkly with tears. “I’m pretty good at backgammon.”

That vise squeezing his lungs loosened by a millimeter. “I know you
think
you are. I let you win before because you were a little kid. We play now, I’m taking the gloves off. It’s game on.”

Rachel giggled, and his heart, so full of dents and splices, felt a little better.

“I don’t know what to say, Dad.”

He shrugged. “Just say… say you’re glad to be here with me now.”

“You’re glad to be here with me now.” Her dimples showed just then, and she looked so much like Connie he had to clear his throat.

“Very funny. But listen, there’s one other thing I’m going to ask. And it’s a big thing. I need you to think about it.”

“What is it?”

Jumping from a plane without a parachute must feel very much like this. “I’d like for you to forgive me. I can’t forgive me until you do. It was an accident, Rachel, and I can’t fix it. I can’t undo it. So I need you to forgive me.”

Those sparkly tears slipped out and she whisked them away. “I do forgive you, Dad. I just really miss Mom.”

“I know, honey. So do I. We’re supposed to. Just not so much that it squeezes out everything else. And certainly not so much that we can’t remember to take care of each other. You have to know, deep down, that your mom would want you to be happy. So do I.”

“I know.” She picked up her spoon and paused. “Did you really let me win at backgammon?”

He could see her then, as she had been, with her hair in pigtails and braces on her teeth, bent over studying a game board. “Sometimes.” He nodded.

“Why?”

“Because I’m your dad.”

“W
atch your step, Dad Hamilton,” Dante said as he helped Libby’s father up to the porch of the ice-cream parlor.

The overcast November day was cool, but at least the rain held off as the Hamilton family walked from the tiny parking lot to the front door. Her dad had insisted they stop by his
beloved establishment
on their way home from the hospital. Against doctor’s orders, naturally. But he’d assured them he could manage with his crutches.

“Peter, be careful,” her mother warned. She held her hands out to catch him if he fell backward. He looked very much like he might.

“He’s fine, Beverly. Stop hovering,” said Nana, walking around all of them and going up the steps first.