The Broken Sister (Sister #6) (21 page)

“Kylie?”

“Hmm.”

“You ever think that compassion you showed the homeless man is the same you’d like to show your dad?”

She stiffened. She’d never, ever thought of it in terms of that. But something in her heart screamed
Yes!
Yes, she just wanted to forgive him.  But no. How could she? Who could forgive a father doing what hers did to them?

Tristan’s arms tightened around her and he leaned closer, his lips touching below her ear as he kissed her again and then nuzzled her neck and whispered, “I know what you think of yourself. But let me tell you what I think. I think you are just about the most compassionate, sensitive person I’ve ever met. I think you were so hurt by Micah and he crushed something in you that didn’t fully recover. But I think it also made you understand what pain is. What not feeling good or belonging feels like, and you channeled that into becoming one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever met. And that compassion in you is stronger than any hate or retribution could ever be. Compassion that you want to express to your own father.”

She shuddered. “Your version of me is better than mine. I’m so weak and fragile and I’m such a doormat that anyone can walk all over me, hurt me, abuse me, and I’ll let them come back for more.”

“Is that what you fear so much about seeing him? You’ll somehow be claiming yourself as weak? It seems like a braver thing to forgive the unforgiveable than it is to easily hide in anger. And my version of you is pretty fucking clear and correct. Despite what you think I see you clearly.”

She didn’t answer. She felt him finally fall asleep. She didn’t sleep, not for hours. She laid there and laid there. Remembering. Remembering…
her dad
. Her family, her childhood.

Not remembering that he left. That he hurt them. That he stole and committed crimes. She laid there, for the first time in over a decade, and remembered
her dad
. She remembered rowing out in a little rowboat on the lake they lived beside and he’d sit there trout fishing for hours. Never really catching anything. But since she loved to row the boat and cast line, he let her do it. She remembered the Christmas dinners with him there, versus the harder ones when he wasn’t. She remembered him coming home late and tired from work, but each night he’d sneak quietly into her room and kiss her forehead, tuck her covers around her, and ask how her day was. He’d even wake her up to do it, always telling her it was so she’d not forget him. She remembered how it felt to hug him, the way his big hands would rub her back to soothe her. He always had such warm hands. Comforting hands. When she was little he’d often lift her up to ride on his shoulders when she couldn’t see or they were doing too much walking. She remembered the sound of her parents talking in low murmurs in the living room as she was in there watching TV or playing, and it was always so nice to hear them together.

She missed all that. All those memories of her childhood that no one but she, her mom, dad and sister could remember or understand. They were
her
memories. And for the first time in years and years she was seeing that the ending didn’t totally have to wipe out and undo and hurt and betray all the memories leading up to the end. That the journey to the end mattered too. The love she felt, the sense of family and identity that family was to her, still existed in her. It had shaped and formed who she was, maybe so she wasn’t as screwed up as many pictured she was. She appeared it, but there was a core in her, a core of decency, caring, and maybe even strength that came from the way her parents raised her together.

Something unleashed in her chest as she laid there in that shadowy hotel room, Tristan’s arms warm around her, his breathing even as she felt safe enough to finally explore the life she’d banished from her heart as if it didn’t matter.

It all mattered. The bad didn’t get to fully eradicate all the good. The end didn’t get to totally obliterate the beginning and the vast middle. That middle that she missed so much it ached in her chest. But it was there. She still had that childhood, that love, that family, that mother, and that father. She’d had it once. She had lost it, but there had been years and years where she’d had it.

Maybe she didn’t really want it to be all gone. Maybe she did need a different kind of closure than she ever considered giving herself.

When she woke finally Tristan was showered, dressed far more casual than yesterday, packed and sitting there reading a local newspaper, and sipping coffee. He looked so at peace she didn’t let him know she was awake for a few minutes. He was shifting the paper when he caught her eye. He set the cup down and came towards her, kneeling near where she lay on the bed. He pushed back some frizzy hairs that stuck up on her forehead.

“I think… I think I’d like to go to Bend.”

He smiled kindly as he leaned down and kissed her. “I think I’d be glad to take you.”

SHE KEPT KNEADING HER hands together. Back and forth. Her fingers locked and unlocked. Her gaze was fastened outside the passenger window as they traveled. It was a three and a half hour drive to the address Kylie had dug up from her saved emails. She’d kept the address all this time. Tristan believed it was a subconscious sign she needed to do this. And perhaps he had pushed and prodded her when he of all people had no right, but here he was, pushing.

He couldn’t stand how little she realized what she needed for herself. She always assumed her reaction was wrong, and therefore should not be the solution to anything for her. Yet everyone else’s solutions were completely wrong for her. The longer he knew her the more he clearly saw that. She didn’t like to talk unless she wanted to. She didn’t like people to hover over her with worry. He’d caught on to that right off. He could ask about her classes or art, but not to check in like he was grilling her about it. She didn’t like it if he said anything about when she worked or how she got there or got home. She didn’t like anyone around her all the time commenting on what she did. He had started to understand that her mother trying so hard to help her as a little girl would have most likely frustrated Kylie. She’d understand the love and caring, but that wasn’t how she needed to be addressed. Space. Giving Kylie lots and lots of mental and emotional space was what worked.

He didn’t totally know her entire thought processes or emotions, but she did open up if given enough time and space and quiet to figure out what
she felt
and what
she wanted
to say. But if she was supposed to answer someone right then and there she’d tell them whatever they wanted to hear and they’d never know the truth.

She reacted this way especially to those who worried about her. Ally, her mother, Donny even. All of them had proven they didn’t totally trust her or see her as strong. She had not nor would she ever react how they thought she should, and by pressuring her to, they only made her shut into herself all the more. And tell them exactly what they wanted to hear.

Except for with him. He was pretty sure she was completely honest and real with him. Which made him doing what he was doing to her completely predatory. He was taking advantage of her belief in him. Why had he invited her to this conference? As he was asking her to come that evening in the café, he’d been shaking his head internally because it was such a risky idea. A terrible idea, actually.

She would find out he was a Tamasy. Taking her to a conference where most everyone knew him as Tristan Tamasy, was the same as a drug addict setting their drug of choice on their nose and then pretending they would never taste it. But he hadn’t been able to resist bringing her. He’d just known she’d love the city and enjoy herself… and he knew how much more he’d enjoy the dreaded trip… seeing her enjoy it. Somehow she didn’t press any boundaries, as he’d guessed she wouldn’t. She didn’t walk up to the counter while he was checking into the hotel using his first
and
last name. Luckily most of the managers and staff at this conference mostly referred to him as Tristan. He didn’t often stand on pomp and circumstance with employees and insisted no one call him Mr. Tamasy. It sounded too alarmingly like his grandfather and perhaps that’s why he thought he could get away with it, his predilection for insisting he be called by his first name. And crazily… it had worked. Though it made his stomach muscles contract in nerves when he was so relieved to get away with deceiving Kylie. He didn’t want to be… but he didn’t want to lose her either. So here he was, doing this odd dance of spending all his time with her while trying to keep her somehow separated from huge chunks of his life.

And the added incentive to risk all of this blowing up in his face was, of course, she might agree to go see her father. And she had done so. He glanced at her profile again, his heart swelling in pride. She was trying so hard to do this. He was pushing it but he really wanted her to take this chance and see if it didn’t help her. He had this gut-level feeling this would help Kylie more than years and years of therapy or all the talking to anyone else would. 

He found the address. It was a small travel trailer that was parked in a RV park. It was the kind of park where most tenants lived there year round, as most had mailboxes before the trailers. There was dozens of the bigger double and triple-wide trailers and manufactured homes, but her dad’s was just a regular traveling trailer. It was maybe thirty feet long. It had permanent skirting surround it and a rundown min-van parked in front of it. Mildew was thick on the siding. Needles from the tall fir trees had long stuck in the awning and the roof. It was a depressing, crowded place to spend time. Like a parking lot, interspersed with trees.

Tristan stopped the car and they stared at it. “That’s it?”

“That’s the address.”

She didn’t comment. He didn’t press. They were parked across the road, blocking no one. Nothing stirred.

Finally, she said, “You should have seen the house I grew up in. It—it was beautiful. On this private lake that only our neighborhood had access to. We had so much more than the average family. Looking back, I had no idea, until it was all gone.”

“He didn’t fare too well, it looks like.”

“Ally and I made a pact a long time ago not to ask Mom for details and if she tried to give them to us we refused to listen. It was as if we never had a father.”

He wanted to touch her. But knew to hold back. Space. She’d need lots and lots of space right now. “Do you want to knock? Or we could just go home?”

She unclicked her seatbelt. “I’ve come this far.”

His heart pinged with pride in her. She looked like a twig ready to sustain the force of a tornado, but strangely he knew she could weather it. No one else seemed to think that, however. Kylie included. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“Yes.”

He was shocked but kept the surprise to himself, following her lead to get out and cross the quiet road. She stood back and he took her cue to knock. He waited near her and put his hand to the curve of her back to give her physical support.

The trailer door opened and there stood an old man.

Her intake of breath was sharp. Tristan glanced down and her eyes were big, her lips pressed together. It had to be Micah McKinley by her reaction to him. He was a tall man, average weight. His hair was gray, and his goatee was long and speckled with gray hair too.

They stared at each other for a long pause. Finally she whispered, “Do you know who I am?”

His face was wrinkled around the eyes and forehead. His mouth tightened. “Of course I know who you are, Kylie.”

Her eyes stayed wide for an extended moment and then her eyes shut and her body sagged towards Tristan. He leaned closer, nearly supporting her. When she opened her eyes tears glistened in them. He almost dropped her, he was so startled. “I couldn’t remember your voice. I just wanted… to… remember… it.”

“I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Do you want to see me again?”

“Badly.” Simple. To the point. Micah then opened the door and said casually, “Would you… would you, please come in?”

She nodded, glancing up at him. The tears were gone, blinked back inside her, like everything else she always tucked back inside of her. Tristan followed behind them into the tight, small space. Two mini-sized recliners and a small couch were available. They sat on the couch with Micah across from them.

Micah wiggled his butt all around, his nerves evident until he suddenly jumped up. “Can I get you anything?”

“No. Just… just sit down.”

He nodded. And did so, his hands rubbing back and forth on his jean-clad thigh. The nerves between them were excruciating.

Micah cleared his throat. She glanced at Tristan, her expression as puzzled as her dad’s. They had no idea where to start, or what to say or even where to look. A decade apart and they had almost nothing to say to each other. Tristan gently nodded towards her dad and mouthed,
Ask what he does
? She jerked to attention at his prodding and nodded eagerly. Turning to her dad she said without a lead in, “What do you do? You know, for a living now?”

“I work. Out on this backroad where a lot of logging goes on, there is a small tavern. I tend to it most nights. Lots of logging goes on that way, and the crews come in most nights for drinks. It’s out in middle of nowhere, really, so other than the loggers we don’t see many people.”

She tapped her index finger on her knee. Finally she said softly, “You didn’t get very far in life. After all the money you stole and everything you did, it didn’t do much for you, did it?”

“No. It didn’t. And I ended up nowhere and with nothing. You’re probably glad of that.” His tone was tired and expression bleak. His tone didn’t suggest he was being snarky, just tired. There seemed a weariness over the man’s entire body, from the way he held his shoulders to the gray in his hair, to the sad, kind of decrepit trailer he lived in. His statement made Kylie unsure. Tristan could tell by the way her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed together. She wasn’t good with people confronting her and she didn’t really respond well to conflict, anger, or even this bitterness.

Tristan leaned over enough to take her hand in his. She grasped his fingers in hers with a desperateness a child might with a parent or teacher when they were unsure of a stranger. “No, she never once wished ill for you,” he blurted out. He nearly pressed his fingers to his forehead. Did no one understand this girl? Of course she didn’t wish this kind of loneliness or misery for him. She didn’t wish ill to anyone as far as he’d yet found. She just wanted to show them forgiveness, kindness, the benefit of the doubt.

The only person Kylie McKinley didn’t show that kind of compassion, empathy, or kindness to was herself. She was ruthless in judgement of herself.

Her glance was swift and surprised at his interruption and the irritation in his voice. Tristan grumbled, “What? I just don’t get why no one else sees you’re the kindest person on the planet. He should start right off knowing that. Hell, he fucking raised you, he should just
know
that about you.”

A soft small laugh escaped Kylie’s lips, easing some of the anxiety that sat on her features. “Thank you,” she said simply.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Micah said.

“I’m Tristan, her boyfriend.”

A small smile crossed Micah’s lips as he shifted his gaze to Kylie. “I did raise you. Until you were ten. Do you remember that? Do you ever, in all your hatred and anger over how I left, remember the time before I left? When I was your father? Do you remember the epic games of Thirty-one we would play? You’d win as much as I would. We’d play for quarters and you’d often rake in five or more dollars. Do you remember that? I think about it, all of it actually… so often.”

“I remember. You weren’t letting me win? I never got old enough to ask you. I assumed as a child I was wining but when I got older I often wondered if you let me win.”

“I never had to let you. You had this natural luck with cards and games, which was ironic because you were the least competitive of us all. That was always Ally. Any time you’d beat her, her face would turn red. Do you remember how many times she’d throw the dice or cards or game pieces down in a fit if she was losing too badly? She’d stomp off in a pissy tantrum? We’d have to stop the game and go give her the usual good sportsmanship lecture? She’d finally come back out all sorry and feeling silly, but she’d do it the very next time she lost.”

“Yes, I remember. You liked to play games with us.”

“I did. It was an easy way to be with you. I worked so much, I wanted you to know me as more than the guy who came home late.”

“We did. Maybe that was your mistake.”

“I made so many I can’t count. But being the best father I could while I was with you? Never. It was perhaps my only redeeming area of my life.”

“A life that wasn’t enough for you.”

“A life I’d kill to have back. Years and years I’ve longed for it all back…” Micah straightened up. “What made you come here? I truly thought I’d never see either of you again.”

“What made you leave?”

His facial expressions froze as his entire body sagged inches inside itself. “Yes, my entire life is defined by that mistake, isn’t it?”

“It was a pretty big mistake,” she answered after tilting her head as if to ask him how he could not know that.

“What can I say? What can I do? It was ten years ago. I don’t know how to begin—”

“I always thought an apology might be nice.”

Tristan had to lower his head and pretend to cough to hide his surprised scoff and the smile that crossed his lips. Her tone was so completely dry and almost casual. She also was pretty damn good at cutting off the man’s bullshit.

Micah started nodding in response. “I’m sorry, Kylie. I should never have stolen that money. I should have never put our family in such a situation… and I should have never left like I did.”

Kylie was still for a long moment. She licked her lips and then asked, “You know we had a lot of money. Why did you need to steal more?”

His laugh was bitter as he glanced around his current surroundings. “I didn’t know we did. I was greedy, ambitious, and selfish. I thought I was owed real wealth, like that of the clients I only made richer. They had so much—”