One Paris Summer (Blink) (17 page)

“Hostility? Nope.” I forced a grin. “Just a bit of healthy girl competition.”

He looked surprised. “Eva said Camille was having a hard time accepting you here.”

I shook my head. “Nope. We’re not BFFs, but we’re good.”

Eric shot me an exasperated glance.

I know he was surprised at my response, and honestly, part of me was too. But if Eva and Dad weren’t getting along, a feud between Camille and me was only going to make things worse.
I could suck it up and deal with it. Besides, Camille had called a truce, even if it was temporary.

“You have to understand how hard it is for Camille. After her father’s death, she—”

I shook my head. “We’re good.” I had no desire to hear my father plead Camille’s case.

Dad looked relieved. “Eva will be glad to hear it. She’s been concerned.” We stopped at a street corner, waiting for the light to change. “Speaking of Eva, what do you guys think of her?”

Eric seemed to be searching for an answer, so I said, “She’s really nice. I like her.”

“You do?” Dad asked.

“Yeah. She’s trying to make us feel at home, and I know she was the one who bought the keyboard.” Maybe Dad couldn’t afford to pay for a piano on his own. It wasn’t a secret that his career path had been chosen for passion, not prosperity, and now he had to make child support payments. It still pissed me off that he would shrug off my need to practice—even more so because he hadn’t once listened to me play on the keyboard. He had no idea how good I’d gotten, but I was too prideful to beg him to listen.

Still, there was no need to go into that now. It was just Eric, Dad, and me—and it almost felt like we were a family again. I wanted to enjoy tonight. Even if it wasn’t real.

“Eric?” Dad asked, sounding hopeful. “Do you like Eva?”

“Yeah. She’s great.”

“I know things happened so fast . . .” He cast a quick glance at me. “And I know I’ve handled things badly. But I hope you can learn to love her like I do.”

Eric and I mumbled our agreement, but it wasn’t difficult for me. Mom seemed happier after the divorce too, so it would be easy to love Eva.

Her daughter was a different story.

It took two trains to get to the movie theater, and I was surprised to see it was right outside the station.

“You haven’t been to the Louvre yet, have you?” Dad asked as we passed a sign pointing toward the entrance. “Be careful when you go. It’s known for pickpockets.”

Little did he know I’d already had a firsthand experience with one of them. Eric shot me a glance, hinting this was the perfect opportunity for me to tell Dad about that encounter.

“We’ll keep that in mind,” I said as we walked up to the ticket counter.

I had to admit that I was getting a better attitude about being in Paris. I’d actually begun to have fun. And not that I’d ever admit it to Dad, but I found some of the architecture amazing. I’d reached a point where I was curious about how things were different here. Turned out movies were a perfect example. Popcorn was salty or sweet and already scooped into small boxes that were sitting on a shelf. Soft drinks—like most soft drinks in Paris—were served in small bottles and not very cold.

The seats were similar to the ones at home, and while Dad had assured us we’d be able to understand the movie, I was relieved when the actors spoke English words as French subtitles flashed across the bottom.

We stayed through the credits, waiting to see if there was a bonus scene tacked on at the end. Our wait paid off—there was a snippet teasing the next movie in the franchise. We stood to leave, and Dad said, “I’ve really missed hanging out with you guys.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have moved to Paris,” I said without thinking. My heart ached so much from missing him it was hard to breathe. I knew I’d caught him off guard—especially since I’d been so agreeable earlier. But all of this real family togetherness was a sharp reminder of what he’d thrown away.

Me. Eric.
Us.

“Sophie!” Eric spat out.

“It’s okay,” Dad said softly. “How about we get some ice cream? I think it’s time we talked about it.”

We found an ice cream shop down the block, then took our cones outside and sat on a low concrete wall overlooking the street.

I took a bite of my raspberry sorbet, surprised by how much I liked it. Especially since my stomach felt so unsettled.

“This is better than at home,” Eric said between licks.

Dad gave me a soft smile. “I swear Paris has the best ice cream in the world. From now on everything else will be a poor imitation.”

For once I had to agree with him.

We ate in silence for several minutes. I was ready for Dad to tell us what happened, but part of me was scared. Even though both of our parents had said his decision to leave home had nothing to do with us kids, part of me couldn’t help but wonder if I could have stopped it from happening.

“I want to tell you more about why I left,” he said, keeping his gaze on the street.

“I’m sure you had your reasons,” Eric mumbled around his coffee ice cream.

“I do . . . I did . . . Your mother and I thought perhaps it would be better if we kept you away from all of it, but now I think that was a mistake.”

“So you wouldn’t look like a deadbeat dad?” Eric said, breaking his usual distance from the situation. “I’m not sure how you could spin abandoning your family to make it look good.”

“We
both
had our reasons.”

“You mean
you
had your reasons,” I blurted. “Mom was forced to go along with it.”

Dad’s mouth dropped open as he turned to look at me. “Is that what she told you?”

His reaction caught me off guard. “No. She refuses to say anything about it at all.”

He sighed. “We agreed to keep it to ourselves. I’m breaking that agreement now.” He sounded solemn and sad.

I suddenly felt a strange sense of guilt for making him spill, but my brother and I were owed an explanation.

He hesitated, then said, “The fact is that I should have left years ago.”

I gasped, and tears stung my eyes. “How can you say that?” It was akin to saying he regretted the last few years—all our talks on the porch and ice cream runs, everything we’d done together. Was I
that
disposable?

But he turned to me and grabbed my free hand, searching my eyes. “I only stayed as long as I did for you, because of you and your brother. It killed me to leave you two.” His voice broke.

Eric’s gaze sought mine—his eyes full of fury. I was glad to know we were together in this.

“Your mother and I hadn’t gotten along for quite some time. The fact is we got married too young and for the wrong reasons.”

Reason was more like it. Eric and I had long ago figured out that Mom had been pregnant with him when they married.

I took a breath. “So you’re saying your entire marriage was a mistake.”

“No, Sophie. We had some really great times. Especially when you and Eric were little. But we never discussed the important things before we got married, like kids or long-term plans. We just figured it would all sort itself out, but it didn’t.” He swallowed, looking away. “I have always wanted to work in Paris. In fact, right after the wedding, I did an internship here at Notre Dame, and I knew
this
was where I wanted to be. But your mother hates Paris.
I figured I could be happy working in the US. There are plenty of old buildings on the east coast. But then your mother wanted more kids, and I was happy with you two. So we compromised. I stayed in the US and she agreed to two kids, but neither of us was happy. She hated that we’d moved around. She’d make friends, only to have to leave them and start over.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you left,” I insisted. “We’d been in Charleston longer than anywhere.”

He sighed, a forlorn look on his face. “Sometimes things happen too late. The damage was already done.”

“Couldn’t you at least have waited until I graduated?”

He hesitated, pushing out a heavy breath. “Your mother and I decided it was time.”

“That’s a crap answer,” Eric finally said, a hard edge in his voice. “We deserve better than that.”

Dad was silent again, then said quietly, “Not all of this is my story to tell. Your mother needs to tell you her part.”

“But you’ve hardly told us anything at all,” Eric countered. “You must have applied for this job months before you left, but we only heard about it the day you left. Literally a few hours before the taxi showed up to get you. You never even gave Mom or us the option to come with you!”

He shook his head, sadness filling his eyes. “I never expected your mother to come.”

Then a thought hit me. In the past, changing jobs had taken him months. “When did you apply?”

“Your mother sent them my résumé in April.”

“
Mom
sent your résumé?” I asked in shock. “Why would she do that?”

“I’d heard about the position, so I brought her roses and ribs from her favorite barbecue place to try to warm her up to the idea.”

I remembered that night. She’d been pissed, which had seemed uncalled for given the sweet gesture. “She wasn’t very happy.”

“That’s an understatement. She saw right through my ploy.” A wry grin twisted his lips. “It went worse than I could have imagined.”

“If she said no, then why would she send in your résumé?” Eric asked.

“Because she never intended to come.”

I could hear my pulse pounding in my head. Our mother had sent him away.

“Imagine my surprise when I received an email with an invitation to interview.”

I shook my head. “But I don’t remember you going on any trips. How did you interview?”

“Video conference call.”

“And they hired you,” Eric said, then added, “obviously.”

“Yeah.” I had never heard so much defeat and sadness in a single word.

“When did you find out you got the job?” I asked.

“The end of July.”

“But you left in the middle of August.” I jumped to my feet, feeling betrayed all over again. “You waited two weeks to tell us!”

He sat on the wall and looked up at me. “It wasn’t like that, Sophie,” he said quietly. “I was going to turn it down. But when I told your mother, she insisted that I had to be out of the house by the end of August one way or the other.”

“What?” Eric got to his feet too.

“Why?” I demanded.

Dad was silent for several seconds. There were tears in his eyes as his gaze moved back and forth between us. “She wanted a fresh start.”

“But you didn’t
have
to leave.” I shook my head. “I mean, maybe you had to leave the
house
, but you didn’t have to leave
Charleston
. You could have gotten an apartment. I could have come to live with you!”

Fresh pain washed over his face. “It was my dream, Sophie. The job I’d wanted more than anything was right there in front of me.”

“
I’m
supposed to be one of the two things you want more than anything.
Me and Eric
.”

“You are, Sophie.”

Realization filled my head, and I struggled to breathe. “But we weren’t enough.”

“It wasn’t like that, Soph. I promise.” His voice rose as he stood, pleading with us to understand. “I was upset and hurt and very angry with your mother. I told her I’d fight for you two, that I’d try to get full custody, but she said she’d use all my travel from when you were younger against me in a custody battle. I lost my marriage, my house, and I was losing you two. I had nothing, so I left.”

“You left
us
,” Eric said bluntly.

“And it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

His answer was nowhere good enough for me. “You didn’t even call! You didn’t call for a whole freaking
month
!”

“I know.” His voice broke. “It hurt too much to hear your voices.”

Eric clenched his fists at his side. His voice had a rough edge. “That’s a cop-out and you know it.”

We were loud enough that people walking on the sidewalk were openly staring, not that any of us seemed to care.

“I have no excuse. I was wrong.”

“So you kept the fact you were leaving to yourself for two weeks, then told us the day you left the country,” Eric said. “And
then you posted bans for your wedding for at least three weeks before you told us you were getting married and wanted us to come visit. You didn’t even take us to your real wedding!”

Dad searched my face, looking for any sign of gloating.

Eric groaned in disgust. “What? Sophie figured it out? Camille told me. How did you find out?”

My gaze met his. “At the wedding dinner. From her cousin.”

Understanding flashed in his eyes. “That’s why you ran out.”

I nodded, fighting back tears. “I loved you, Daddy. I
loved you
and you left me. You have no idea what this last year has been like. I’m happy you love your new job and your perfect new wife and your perfect new daughter, but it’s obvious there’s no room for Eric and me here.”

My father’s eyes hardened. “That’s not true. We’ve gone out of our way to make you feel welcome. Camille gave up her room and everything in it to move to the room you two share.”

And suddenly I understood why she hated me. Mathieu had been trying to tell me.

“But it’s not home,” Eric countered. “It’s your home, not ours.”

Dad took several breaths, his shoulders tight. “I’m not sure what to do about that,” he finally said. “But I don’t want to send you home early. Please don’t ask.”

“Fine, we’ll stay, but things are changing,” Eric said. “First of all, no more forced family time. It’s obvious Camille hates it. Second, stop making her take us places. If she wants to go with her friends, let her. Sophie and I will be fine on our own. I know the city now, plus I have the map on my phone.”

Dad studied him. “Okay,” he said softly.

“We’re here to see you, not Eva and Camille. We want to spend time with Eva, but we need alone time with you too.”

Our father sighed. “We were trying to bond as a family. You’re here for such a short time. But I’ll make more time for you. That seems like a fair compromise.”

“Fine,” Eric said, then added, “And Sophie needs a piano.”