With the Father (13 page)

Rocking together in unison, we were a perfect fit.
As he worked his way toward a climax, I chased mine as well, capturing it just
in time. He collapsed on top of me
and
 
then
rolled to the side so as not
to crush me. We
laid
panting next to each other, with
his arm draped across the skirt now bunched around my waist and my arms thrown
over my head in surrender.

To what or whom I was surrendering I didn’t know.
I’d asked him to claim me, and he’d tried. Lord knew he’d put in his best
effort to do so.
 
The man knew
exactly how to touch me, but even now I couldn’t surrender to him.

Because the entire time I’d had my eyes closed and
at the moment when I’d caught the high I’d been looking for, I’d been imagining
he was someone else.

GRACE

“Come
with us.”

“I can’t.” I pointed at the file in her arms. It was
tucked against her stomach with both arms crossed over it, as if she wasn’t
sure she wanted to hand it over. “Is that the insurance stuff?”

She nodded. “There’s nothing in here that you don’t
already know. I promise. So come with us.” She was holding the file hostage in
an effort to get me to go to Fredericksburg with her and Paul.

“I really can’t, Kate. I
need
to figure all of
this out.” I hoped that I was convincing. While it was true that I was going to
read every single word from the first page to the last, I didn’t really think
I’d find any answers there. The file wasn’t the real reason, or at least not
the main reason, that I’d decided that I wasn’t going with them today. And it
wasn’t the reason that I wouldn’t be going to San Antonio on Monday either.

Sleep had cleared
my mind and made me see yesterday for what it was. I woke up imagining Paul
describing our kiss to whomever it was that he had to confess, and I had never
been more ashamed of myself. What I’d done in that vet’s office
–
 
the
position I’d put him in – was inexcusable. The fact that he kept our
plans and met me for a run despite my completely inappropriate behavior didn’t
mean that I should continue to put him in compromising positions.
 

Sure, he’d kissed
me back, but I didn’t really believe that it meant something. Priest or not, he
was still a man, and I’d practically thrown myself at him. Of course he kissed
me back.

“Give me the file,
Kate,” I demanded, reaching for it.

She twisted her
body away, guarding it from me. “It will still be here when we get back. Have a
little fun.”

Her flippant
do-whatever-I-want attitude was starting to piss me off.
 
“I’m not coming, Kate. I’m taking a step
back from Father Paul.”

“Oh, so we’re back
to
Father
Paul now.”

“Yes. He has always
been and will always be Father Paul.”

“Yesterday you
called him Paul. Just Paul. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“Yesterday, I also
came down with a common sense destroying virus that turned me into a
priest-devouring whore.”
 

Kate threw her head
back and laughed, and I took the opportunity to snatch the file out of her
arms.
 
“You are not a
priest-devouring whore. Besides he liked it.”

“I’m not doing
this. It’s wrong, and I loved Jonathan. I’m not ready to move on.”

The amused
expression she wore a few seconds ago was long gone, replaced with a much more
serious one. “You don’t owe Jonathan anything.”

“Whether or not he
loved
me
is besides the point. I loved him, and I’m not ready to put
that part of my life behind me.”

Kate grabbed my
arm. Intense eyes pierced me. “Don’t slide backward when you just started
moving forward.”

“Look, when I’m
finally ready
 
– if I’m ever
ready – there are more appropriate people for me to move on with than
Father Paul.”

“So that’s it?
You’re just done? No more Father Bulge?”
 

I rolled my eyes.
“Yes, I’m done.”

“You’re one hundred
percent sure?”

“Yes.”

She shifted on her
feet a few times. “Well, I’m going.” She looked at me expectantly and chewed
her bottom lip. It was a nervous tic of hers, one that gave her away every
time. She probably thought that despite everything I just said, I would still
be crazy jealous of her spending time with Paul.

It wasn’t logical.
I shouldn’t care. I’d just said that I was done with him. Still, a little part
of me did care.
 
A lot.

“It will probably
be late when we get back,” she continued. “He said we’re going to
Fredericksburg first and then he has reservations at three wineries so I guess
I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

“I don’t need to be
checked on.” My voice was laced with the irritation I felt.

“You know what I
mean,” she said, walking toward the kitchen. I followed her and watched her
grab her keys from the countertop. I looked at her with a question on my lips.

She didn’t wait for
it, reading my mind instead. “We’re taking my car,” she said with a shrug.
“More fun.” Right. Everything was always more fun with Kate around. I nodded
and began the mundane task of unloading the dishwasher.

Kate spoke from the
doorway. “Speaking of steps forward. Arden called about dinner. I agreed that
we could do it next Thursday.”

“I thought we
decided on a movie.” There was no way that Arden could make it through a whole
dinner without gushing on and on about her beautiful, perfect kids. I didn’t
think I could endure it.

Kate shrugged. “She
said she wants to catch up.” The pan in my hand crashed against the tile floor
when it slipped from my hands. “Careful. You’ll lose a toe.”

“Amputation by
skillet would be about right,” I muttered.

“Chin up. I’ll see you
later.”

I finished putting
the clean dishes away and then looked for any other task that I could do to put
off the inevitable for just a bit longer. When the kitchen sparkled and there
was nothing left to do, I picked up the file and headed down the hall toward my
dad’s office. I knocked on the cracked door and waited for him to invite me in.

“Hi there,
Graceful,” he said, greeting me by the nickname that had plagued me throughout
my childhood.

“Hey, Dad. Do you
have a minute?” My grey-haired father looked up from his desk. His hair stuck
out in a thousand directions from his head as if he’d been running his hands
through it and possibly trying to pull it out. “I have all the minutes in the
world for you,” he said, gesturing for me to sit down in the chair in front of
the window. I sat down with a foot tucked
under me and the
file on my lap
and gazed out the window at the magnolia. I had the urge
to go outside, climb to the top, throw the papers in my lap up into the air,
and watch them scatter in the wind.
 

“What are you
working on, Dad?”

“Just paying some
bills,” he said, pushing it away from him to prove that I had all of his
attention.

“That’s actually
why I’m here. You’ve been getting my mail and paying my bills, right, Dad?” It
was embarrassing to have to ask the question. This was the first time I’d even
thought to ask. I’d just assumed that he would take care of everything while I
wallowed in self-pity and remorse and wished for a different outcome for my
life.

“I have. Are you
ready to take it over? There’s not much. Just your cell phone bill and some
bank statements and a few other odds and ends. I don’t mind doing it.”

“Dad,” I said,
still gazing out the window and mentally mapping my path up the long draping
branches of the tree. “What if after Mom died, you started finding things out
about her, lies that she told, things that she kept from you. What would you
do?”

“She did lie to me.
I had no idea until a few months ago that aspirin has a shelf life. Did you
know that they expire?” He was trying to cheer me up. He was always trying to
cheer me up.

I managed a weak
smile. “Do you need me to check all the expiration dates in your medicine
cabinet?”

“No. I’m all over
it now.” His smile smoothed out into a thin, tense line. “So tell me. Is this
about Jonathan?”

“I keep coming
across things. Big huge things and I don’t know what to do. I want to ask him
about it. I want to confront him but …”

His mouth turned
down solemnly. “Kate told me about the affair.”

I cringed. That
made four people that knew about it. Five if you counted the woman who’d
wrecked my marriage. Six if Kate had talked to Maddox, which I suspected she
had. Before long the entire town would know about it.
 
Of course, maybe then I would find out
who Hope was and where she’d come from.

But then what?
Would I confront her? Would I approach her in
a
 
public
place or seek her out at
her home? If she had a family of her own, would I knowingly tear it apart like
she had mine? Or would I be the bigger person and let it go?

All of my life, I’d
avoided confrontation. I’d been a doormat, letting anyone and everyone take
advantage of me. But there was no point in confronting Hope now. The family
that she’d had so little regard for was gone. The man she’d tried to steal was
no longer up for grabs.

“Yes, the affair is
one of the things I’ve learned about him,” I said.

“So there are
others?”

I nodded. “I spoke
with the insurance agent from All Nation today.”

“Oh, good. He’s
been calling every day. I wish I could take care of that for you, but he’s been
very
 
insistent
that he talk to you and only you.”

“I talked to him.”

My dad looked at me
expectantly so I took a deep breath and filled him in. When I was finished, his
earlier concern had morphed into something new, something venturing on rage.
“So the only insurance money you will get is the value of the house and twenty
thousand for …” His voice trailed off. He couldn’t say it either. It was
impossible to think about accepting money in exchange for the lives of my
children.

“It doesn’t matter.
I don’t want it.”

“I don’t think you
have a choice,” he said. “Besides, you can do better things with the money than
the insurance company can. Give it to an organization that means something to
you.”

It was actually a
pretty good idea. If I had to accept the money, I could do something wonderful
with it in the name of Isabelle and Trey. I could give some to the animal
shelter in Isabelle’s name.

“But Grace?” he
continued. “Since you’re ready,
there’s
a few things
you need to know about how Jonathan left your finances.” I stiffened my back
and prepared to go to battle once again with my dead husband’s memory. “You
don’t have any money, dear. Your savings account, checking account, and
Jonathan’s retirement account are all practically empty. I didn’t want to
bother you with it because it’s not like you’ve been in need of money, but in
light of all of this other stuff, I think you need to know. There’s practically
nothing in those accounts.”

“What?” I asked
incredulously. “That’s impossible.”

“I don’t have
access to your accounts so I can’t go back and trace where your money went. All
I have are the bank statements that have come in during the past five months.
I’d like to go further back, but you’ll need to go down to the bank and add me
to the account.”

Everything was
wrong and I was no longer sure of when it had happened. I thought I knew the
exact time and place that everything imploded on me, but clearly my life had
been collapsing long before the fire.

I had been living
in an artificial bubble of happiness. If I’d paid more attention to what
Jonathan was doing - I might have been miserable – but at least I
wouldn’t be learning now that my entire life had been a lie.

“Thanks Dad. But
I’m
going to take care of it myself. It’s time to pull my head out of the sand.”

 
“You’re too hard on yourself. I wish I
could help more, but aside from your trust, Jonathan and I didn’t discuss money
at all. According to your account statements, there’s only a couple of thousand
dollars in each of your savings and checking accounts.” He turned in his chair
and picked up a small box that was pushed up against the wall. He sat it on the
desk and then pushed it toward me.

A
couple of thousand?
What the hell
had happened to all of our money? Jonathan always kept no less than ten
thousand in our checking account. ‘Because you never know when you’ll get in a
bind and need it,’ he said. And our savings account always looked like a
savings account should, like we were saving for something … big.

This was
madness.
 
Sheer madness.

I picked up the box
and turned to leave the room.

“Grace?”

“Yeah Dad.”

“You’re not
destitute. You know that, right? He didn’t touch your money,” he said,
referring to the trust that had been in place since my mother’s parents had
died fifteen years ago.

“You mean
,
he
couldn’t
touch my money.”

“Right. He was only
the successor trustee.”