Page 124 of Resting Beach Face
“You’re an adult. I can’t stop you if you want to leave. But Kat is a teenager. She needs her mom.”
“She needs a home life that doesn’t make her want to die, Mom.”
Mom sucked in a shocked gasp, tears spilling. “Wh-what… Did she say?—”
“The first time we left, yeah. I think she was being dramatic, but today.” I shook my head. “If you’d seen her face when she ran out of there. She can’t take it anymore. Dad targets her. She’s a teenager, and she’s going to cry over boys and make bad choices, and having someone eviscerate her for it is going to permanently damage her self-esteem. Her self-worth. If it hasn’t already.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” Mom said.
“You could leave Dad.”
She shook her head. “But he…he’s injured and in pain. It’s not his fault he’s like this. Do you know what it’s like to live with that pain every day?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope I never do. But, Mom…he refused the therapy that could have helped him manage the pain.”
“You don’t know that it would have worked.”
“You don’t know that it wouldn’t have.”
She cast a bleak look toward the pickup truck, where Katelyn was slumped down. It looked as if she were trying to hide in the hopes Mom would forget she was there. No such luck.
“So this is an ultimatum? Leave your father or lose my kids?”
“It’s not an ultimatum, Mom, but we can’t live like this anymore. You can make whatever choice you need to make. But I have to make choices, too.”
“I can’t stop you from going, but Kat is a minor. I can send the authorities to bring her home.”
“I know.” I swallowed. “I hope you won’t make that choice, though. If you want to stand by Dad, let me stand by Kat. Please. I’ll take care of her.”
“It’s not that easy to raise a teenager, Cash. You’re in your twenties. This is all too much for you.”
“I’ve been taking care of her my whole life.” I shrugged. “Why stop now?”
Mom surged forward from the car and threw her arms around me, hugging me tight. “I need to think about all this. Give me a little time. Please?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll take Kat back to the B&B for now. She’s happy there.”
“I miss you both so much. I wish…”
“We’ll make a coffee date, okay? Swallow Cove is a small place. We’re not cutting you out of our lives, Mom. I’ll see you at the resort whenever you come to clean.”
She huffed a breath. “The resort is ending its contract with my company. Apparently, there’s been some issues with work not getting done.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I saw it firsthand one day.”
She drew back, pressing her lips tight. “We have a lot of turnover.”
Probably because of the shitty hours and pay. I decided not to rub salt in the wound, though. “Maybe without us to worry about, you could look for a better job,” I suggested. “Let the house go and rent a smaller place?”
She looked gobsmacked by the idea. “Oh, I don’t know.” She glanced toward the house. “We have some happy memories here. Before…you know?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
My father hadn’t always been a miserable drunk. He’d worked a lot, but when he’d come home, he’d tossed the baseball with me in the backyard, grilled burgers out on the deck, andfixed leaky taps in the bathroom. He’d been a little gruff, a little impatient, but nothing like he was now. He gave great hugs. I remembered that so clearly my chest ached.
But good memories didn’t change the past decade. It didn’t change that Katelyn barely remembered that man at all. He was gone. Maybe someday, Mom would realize it too.
Until then, I’d made my choice.
