Page 85 of A Brush with Love
“How did things shift?”
“We dealt with watching him die differently.” Dan glanced at Harper, who stared at him intently, silently urging him on. “My parents met in dental school and got married before graduation. I do believe my dad loved my mom, as much as he was capable of loving her, but he also expected my mom to give up a lot. She originally wanted to go home to Lebanon after graduating, but he demanded they stay here. She was thinking about specializing, he wanted her to work at his practice. She wanted to bring her culture into her life here, he wanted her to assimilate fully into Americana. His career always came first. The practice always came first. So, growing up, she and I had an almost unspoken alliance that he was an asshole, and it ended up making us close. For the most part, she quietly supported me paving my own way, creating my own life, and it created distance between her and my dad, I think.”
Dan scooped the pancakes onto a plate and added more batter to the pan. “But when he was diagnosed with cancer, we both reacted in opposite extremes, and it’s created some tension between us.”
“‘Extremes’ in what way?”
Dan frowned down at the pancakes, using the edge of the spatula to check the bottoms. “My mom was consumed with guilt, I think—like she thought she should be the one dying instead of him, like his life was the important one. It made her reflect on things—their marriage, me, my career—in a not so flattering light.” Dan reached behind Harper for his coffee cup, and she brushed her hand through his hair. The small gesture soothed the wound that was opening in his chest.
“I, on the other hand, felt anger. My dad was always obsessed with this ideal version of what my life should be,whoI should be. I was supposed to follow his path, live up to his reputation, eventually go into practice with them, run it after they retired, repeat it all with my own family. But I was never interested. I swear he almost had a stroke when I told him I switched my major from biology to finance.” Dan took a sip of his coffee.
“I still did all the prereqs and exams for dental school and was ready to start at Callowhill a few years ago, but I backed out at the last minute.” He paused, staring at the pan for a minute. “He was so angry. It was like I was the scum of the earth. I never understood that. How could he care that much what I did? I loved math and business and found fulfillment in finance”—he shot her a teasing look—“much to your chagrin.” Harper gave him a weak smile. “And yet it was like I was the biggest failure he could have conjured up. Not doing exactly what he wanted was the greatest sin I could commit.” He played with the edges of one of the pancakes.
“I was actually pretty successful at it too,” he continued. “Finance, I mean. I got a job at a decent firm up in New York after graduation, and I was primed to climb the ladder quickly. My dad pretty much stopped talking to me though. It was like I no longer existed once I deviated from his plan. My mom would come visit me without him, and when I went home, he’d look right through me—pretend I wasn’t there.”
Dan moved the pancakes off the heat and added the last of the batter to the pan. He couldn’t bring himself to look straight at Harper, scared she’d see the lump sitting heavily in his throat.
“It didn’t even bother me that much. I almost preferred his silence to him constantly telling me what a failure I was. But it never made sense to me. Like, how could I be doing as well as I was in a job I had busted my ass for, and it wasn’t good enough? How could I be successful and happy on paper, but he hated mefor that?” Dan shook his head to clear out the questions he’d never find answers to.
“But after he got sick, my mom fell apart. I came home to take care of her, do whatever she needed during that time.”
Dan could still see his mom with blue-black circles below her eyes from countless hours at his father’s hospital bed. Toward the end her back had taken on a permanent hunch, as if she could curl into herself and protect her body from the pain.
“I wanted to be there for her while she watched her husband die, no matter how I felt about him. But even in those last weeks, he still wanted to fight me, provoke me. It was like as long as he could find the breath to tell me how disappointing I was, he could keep living.” Dan fiddled with the spatula, hearing his dad’s harsh words echo over and over in his mind.
“Driving home after a particularly bad visit, my mom broke down sobbing and it ripped my heart out.”
He shut his eyes at the memory. The anguish on her face. The way her hands fisted and knotted together as she’d cried.
“She kept asking me why I couldn’t have just done what he wanted. Followed his footsteps. Continued the family name and reputation. She kept repeating how much easier everything would have been if only… Kept telling me how afraid she was. How everything was falling apart. Asking me how I could let them both down like this.”
A weighted silence fell over the kitchen. Dan turned off the heat and moved the last batch of pancakes onto the plate. “It was just never something I wanted to do. It wasn’t out of spite, I swear. I knew it wasn’t for me. But I would do anything to take that pain away from my mom. And, eventually, she told me she needed me to come on and help her run the practice or she’d lose it and her livelihood along with it. She’d only worked part-time when he was alive, and now she’s overwhelmed with the patients andmoney and bills and keeping everything above water. My dad had dictated everything. Told her where to be and when to be there. To suddenly have the weight of it all on her shoulders… She pretty much demanded I join the practice, saying it was my duty as a son.”
Dan tried to swallow past the guilt that made his throat thick. “So I contacted Callowhill that night. I had missed the application deadline but since I’d already been accepted once before, and I had the name to back me up, they accepted me quickly. It felt gross how easy it was to get a spot, to use the leverage I resented so much.”
Dan’s eyes were fixed on the countertop, countless images from those last weeks flashing through his mind in an endless loop.
“I never even told him. He died a few days after I was accepted.” Dan forced himself to look at Harper, to gauge her reaction.
Harper’s head was bowed forward, her hair forming a protective curtain around her features while her fingers twisted in her lap. He moved to stand in front of her and she finally looked up. Red splotches dotted her skin. Her big brown eyes were shiny with tears, and wet tracks stained her cheeks.
He loved Harper in every form she came in, but he hated to see her cry.
“Hey, none of that, okay?” He cupped his hands over her cheeks, using his thumbs to brush away the tears. “There’s no reason to cry.”
He kissed up and down her cheeks then gave them a sloppy lick, and she let out a choked laugh. She pulled him closer, clutching her hands around his neck and wrapping her legs around his waist. She crushed him to her so tightly, his breath caught. He nuzzled into her neck, rubbing soothing circles up and down her back. She mumbled something into his chest that he couldn’t make out.
“What was that?”
She pulled back just far enough to look at him, her eyes searching his face before she rested her forehead against his chin with a sigh.
“I said, ‘I’m so sorry you’re here.’ I’m sorry he was awful, I’m sorry he made you feel less than you are. I’m sorry for the little boy that grew up with that kind of dad. I’m sorry you have this pain and I’m sorry you have to go through this because of him. And because of your mom. They shouldn’t put this on you.”
“Oh, Harps.” He ran his lips over her hair, breathing in her scent. “I’m not sorry.” She let out a disbelieving huff. “I’m serious. If not for all of that, I never would have met you.”
Harper moved to look up at him. Different emotions passed behind her eyes before Dan could read them.
“That doesn’t make up for doing something you hate. You should do something you love, something that you’re excited about every day. Having to carry that baggage…”
