Page 115 of This Time Around
He felt Paige flinch under his palms, and Jack held her tighter. Barbara frowned in the corner, but didn’t say anything. Jack gritted his teeth. Then he cleared his throat again and squeezed his daughter’s shoulders.
“Paige is a straight-A student,” he said. “She’s also the goalie for her soccer team. She plays the violin and won an award for?—”
“So what?”
Anger flared hot and sour in Jack’s chest. He’d never wanted to punch his father as much as he did right then, and he’d wanted to punch the guy plenty. He opened his mouth to tell the old man to go fuck himself, but he didn’t get the words out.
“I didn’t mean that like it sounded,” the old man muttered. “Good for you, kid. You’re smart. Just like your old man.”
“Thank you,” Paige said, and the simple, sweet sincerity of her response cooled Jack’s temper from inferno to red hot.
The old man coughed again. “All I meant,” he continued, “is why do you give a shit what I think? You’ve obviously showed the whole world you’re educated and successful and a better dad than I ever was. Why do you feel like you’ve gotta prove anything to me?”
Jack stared at him. He didn’t know what to say. “I don’t?—”
“Look, kid—I was a shitty father. ’Scuse me, young lady. What was your name again?”
“Paige.”
“Paige,” he repeated, nodding. “Nice name. Sorry about the cursing. I do that too much. I also smoke too much. And drink too much. Probably how I ended up like this.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s all right to do shitty things as long as you say you’re sorry.”
The old man dissolved into another laughing-coughing fit, and Jack thought about chiding his daughter for cursing. Either that or hugging her for doing a damn better job than he was at knowing how to respond to his father.
“That’s right,” Jack’s father said, nodding with what looked like newfound respect. His gaze drifted from Paige to Jack and held there. “I am sorry, by the way. For everything.”
Jack swallowed hard. He wanted to hang on tight to the anger that had been his security blanket for so many years, but what was the point?
“Thank you,” he said tightly. “I am a good father.” Why the hell did he say that? He wanted to grab the words out of the air and stuff them back down his throat, but Paige stood grinning at him.
“You’re okay and all,” she said. “But I still think Ryan Reynolds might be a cooler dad.”
Over in the corner, Barbara smiled. Jack’s father gave a bitter-sounding chuckle that may have been another cough. Then his gaze swung back to his son, and those silver-blue eyes locked with Jack’s for the space of several breaths.
“I would have screwed you up, you know.”
Jack blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I was a shitty person back then,” the old man said. “Well, I’m still a shitty person, but I was shittier. If I’d stuck around, if you’d been raised with me in your life? You would have turned into a prick just like me.”
“I doubt that very much.” The words came out soft, not icy, and Jack wondered how he’d meant them to sound.
He also wondered if there was a sliver of truth to what his father said. “It still would have been good to know you,” Jack said. “To have some contact with you, at least.”
“It wouldn’t have. Trust me on that.” Another cough racked the old man’s body, and Barbara hustled forward to adjust the pillows. He stopped coughing and looked at Jack again. “Look, me walking out? It was the best thing I could have done for you.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. Part of him wanted to stay angry. He had more than thirty years of fury built up inside him, and he wanted to let it out somehow. For so many years, he’d dreamed of telling his father off. He’d scripted an impassioned speech where he told his dad exactly what he thought about his failures as father and a human.
But right now, he couldn’t remember a damn word of it.
He was still deciding what to say when Paige stepped forward. Jack stood frozen, hands cupping the space where her shoulders had been as his little girl walked to the edge of the bed with halting steps.
The old man turned to look at her. Jack held his breath, ready to step forward if his father said anything awful.
But the old man said nothing. Just watched as Paige pulled a chair from the dining room table and dragged it next to the bed. Three pairs of adult eyes watched as the girl seated herself, folded her hands in her lap, and looked at her grandfather.
“How old was my dad when you saw him the last time?” she asked.
