Page 85 of Confessions of a Smutty Romance Author

“Hi.” I gripped Jonas’s hand even tighter. We walked to the table he stood near and sat down, participating in a choreographed dance no one quite knew the steps to. Dad pulled out a chair, a noticeable shake to his hands as he did.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

I only nodded.

“I’m sorry for leaving a letter like that, but I couldn’t get through to you any other way.”

Were we already starting with the excuses? They were always there, and apparently, they hadn’t gone. “My website is my name.”

“I’ve filled out the form there and emailed you to that address in your books, but I don’t know if you saw them.”

Then it hit me—Rebecca had said my father had emailed me, and that it wasn’t threatening. Maybe he had been trying to reach out all this time. Before I could think on it too long, Dad cleared his throat and leaned forward on the table.

“I wanted you to come here so I could apologize.”

“And you couldn’t do it in the letter?” I asked, bitterness rising in my throat. It had been so long since I’d seen him, but he’d haunted all of my years. Almost all the wounds I had to heal from had been inflicted by him.

Jonas squeezed my hand, giving me comfort. Giving me strength.

Dad took a breath. “It felt wrong not to say it to your face.”

“Say what?” I asked, bracing myself for what was to come.

Dad looked me in my eyes, a mirror of his own. “Mara, I took my first drink when I was twelve years old. My dad gave it to me right after picking a fight with me and knocking me out. I was drinking and fighting before I even knew how to properly wipe my own ass. I thought I’d never be like him, but when I got drunk, it came out. And I felt so shitty about what I’d done, I drank some more to help me forget. Soon I didn’t know who I was without alcohol, and I didn’t like who I was with it.” He ran a hand through his graying hair. “I wish I could say I came to this place to get better on my own, but the state ordered me after a car accident a couple months back. It took me losing everything. Your mom. You. My license. My car. My fucking will to live, to come here. And the shrinks, you know, they kind of let me know I had two choices. Drink my liver down the shitter or grow a pair and get sober.”

My mind was reeling from all the information, but he kept going.

“How’d you get out of here?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to stay on site?”

He shook his head. “They let us have outings from time to time. When I heard where you’d be, I asked to go. The worker who took me waited outside.”

“But why go to all that trouble to see me? It’s been fifteen years, and you didn’t look that hard for me when I was just a kid.”

He cringed, fighting an internal battle. “This is part of it, recovery, saying sorry to the people you wronged. I couldn’t say sorry to your mom, but I’m damn thankful I had a chance to say it to you.”

My eyebrows drew together. “Why couldn’t you say it to Mom?” Last I heard, Mom was living with some truck driver in Montana. If he could find me, surely he could find her.

The wrinkles around his eyes deepened. “You don’t know?”

My throat constricted. “Know what?”

“Your mother, she’s dead.”

37

Jonas

The words hit me one after the other, then I felt their effects on Mara. The slump of her shoulders. The way her hand went from squeezing me tight to completely slack.

“She what?” Mara breathed.

Duncan nodded. “I found her obituary online. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Apparently, their trailer wasn’t well ventilated, and they didn’t have an alarm.”

Mara’s free hand wrapped around her middle, and I tried to read her eyes, understand what she was thinking. How she was feeling.

“I’m sorry you didn’t know,” Duncan said.

Mara shook her head, blinking quickly. “I hardly knew her.”

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