Page 83 of Secondhand Secrets

“You think?”

“Look, I wanted you to know a few things and a few people before I released you into the world, okay?” He stopped and clenched his jaw, his entire body seeming to tense. “Chip, I didn’t want you to face the same problems I did.”

“What problems?” He gave his dad a skeptical side glare. “I’ve never met anyone more methodical, unaffected, or enterprising.”

“And you also never knew me when I was fresh out of med school, completing my residency at a rural hospital, and building my entire future around the girl I happened to meet at her family’s bar in Harlow.” His expression eased, and his gaze lowered again. “You and Sarah were kids, so I hid a lot, Chip. If I seem unfeeling, if I pushed you hard, it’s because I wanted you to have the steady foundation I didn’t. If I had my wish, it would be that you’ll never know what it is to reestablish yourself later in life, all because you learned too late that being alone is lonely, but being in love and alone is worse.”

Chip’s heartbeat seemed to slow at those words, his muscles turning still and stiff. In love alone? As in, his dad had been the more invested one in his prior marriage?

“Kelly—” His dad’s clear cut tone suggested he read Chip’s thoughts and now sought to piece together the past, free of Chip’s once juvenile interpretation of events. “We’d worked together at the hospital for years, and she’d noticed how reluctant I was to leave at the end of each shift, that hospital being one I’d only ever intended to work at for a year but then couldn’t seem to leave. Not even to go home.” His dad scoffed. “She never pursued me, but she was the first to say I wasn’t doing anyone any favors by holding on. It was my finally moving on that blindsided your mother, all because wanting a relationship to end is a whole other beast to facing down the actual ending.”

Kind of like how Ally had voiced good reasons for the breakup, but then being without her felt the complete opposite of anything good.

“I don’t know what to make of having actual sympathy for you.” As much as he didn’t want to, a slight smile broke past his attempt at a grimace.

“Try being me.” His dad gave a dry chuckle, and Chip couldn’t recall the last time he’d witnessed any expression of humor from this man. “I see you reestablishing links with Harlow and with a local woman, at that, and I see decades of my life jumping out to haunt me.”

Though the statement was said in jest, Chip couldn’t find it in him to laugh. For once, he couldn’t find it in him to be angry either. A sense of unexpected calm washed over him, like he could disagree with his dad, but he could see the concern behind his actions too. “Ally and I aren’t like you and mom.”

His dad’s expression stilled, as though the accusation had him veering from his natural response to heighten any conflict. “But you are from two different worlds.”

His even delivery left an unusual and unarmed space for Chip to say his piece. “We grew up together.”

“Chip”—his dad scrubbed a hand over his face and released a heavy sigh—“I’ve never been one to give dating advice, but if I were to give any, it’s to take a woman at her word. Ally told you to leave. So, save yourself the time and heartache and believe her.”

Chip stood silent for a while, holding his dad’s open and commiserating stare, the whoosh of traffic infiltrating from outside and calling him to tread closer to his destiny.

“We’re different.” The words fell from him again, a little softer and matter-of-fact, more like a self-affirmation.

And come to think of it, he knew nothing of being in love alone.

Ally did love him.

I just never gave her much reason to trust me.

Holy smokes! He blinked, a small frown pulling at his lips because he’d watched his dad and Kelly over the years, and they were different too. Their relationship far more stable and less dramatic than what Chip had witnessed from his parents growing up.

“We are different.” An undeniable strain weighed on his next breaths.

As smart as he believed himself, he’d made one god-awful and bumbling mistake.

He’d believed Ally when she’d insisted he would grow to resent her differences when all he saw in her presence was the light and freedom he missed in other aspects of his life.

“You think so?” His dad eased back in his chair, for the first time in this conversation seeming in his element. “You think I’m wrong about you and your girl?”

Chip shrugged, for once not all that affected by his dad’s doubt. “I know you are.”

A slight, unbelieving smirk curled his dad’s lips, like he knew something Chip didn’t, his ensuing easy chuckle cementing whatever mystery notion ran through his brain. “If that’s true, why are you here and not in Harlow?”

Forty-One

A month later:

The old flour mill along the banks of the Mirabelle River played the perfect host to Emilia and Blaine’s wedding. The mill had enough room for a small bar and modest dance floor inside its raw brick walls, as well as six long rows of tables in the open-air courtyard and a tiny army of well-dressed servers weaving through. And then there was the wisteria canopy above, where fragrant purple blooms dangled over guests from overhead beams. The soft afternoon light and the lilac display offering dream-like polarity to the mill’s stripped-down appearance.

The flower’s sway in the gentle spring breeze brought a smile to Ally’s face, and she allowed her eyes to drift shut in this rare break from work and sad memories.

“Like a dream, isn’t it?”

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