Page 60 of Digging Up Love
And while she could point blame in a thousand directions, Quentin was right. She should’ve told her family about her bakery dream months ago, if not years. But leaving weighed heavy on her heart. Her grandparents had given her everything; was it so much to ask for her to stay here in Hawksburg, taking care of them and repaying the debt?
After reaching the bottom of the stairs, she turned and passed through the hallway, not needing light to know what memories filled the frames. Her smiling parents, beaming above baby Alisha in glamorous nineties splendor, her mom’s curls pressed and hair sprayed, her dad with a dirty-blond mullet and bushy mustache. Their hands joined across Alisha’s belly as she cried up at the photographer, in white leather booties and a yellow eyelet gown.
A few steps down, all four of them. Alisha, seated on her dad’s lap, all elbows and knees in a checkered dress, her mom holding Simone—a chubby toddler with two bottom teeth poking out of her gums. Thenthe last family portrait—Simone and Alisha standing in front of their father, his hair now in an unkempt bowl cut, arms pressed against his sides. Stiff, posed. A formality.
The rest of the photos were of her and Simone—school portraits, basketball and track and field snapshots. One picture of Simone atop her horse, laughing down at the camera, her black velvet helmet tipped back jauntily. But no more family photos, no more mom and dad and daughters.
She switched on the light over the kitchen window, and the yellow glow illuminated her reflection against the darkness. Her mother’s face stared back at her, Alisha’s skin golden brown to her mother’s deep-brown luster, but the same high cheekbones and wide, dark eyes. The pain swelled.
Alisha had spent years wondering whether seeing his wife’s features reflected on his daughter’s face was the reason he couldn’t be their dad anymore. Now she knew better, but the root of the question still plagued her. What had she done to make him leave? Which of her flaws had driven him away?
Cancer stole her mother with unfathomable brutality. But losing her father to cowardice a year later, when he’d brought them here for a visit and then left without them, was an altogether different kind of devastation.
By the time Grandpa had tracked down his only child out in Oregon two years later, he had a new wife, a stepson, and a baby on the way.
One night, after her grandpa had returned home, raised voices had woken her up and drawn her downstairs, where she sat on the landing. Grandpa had confronted him, out in Portland. He told Granny her father had apologized and offered to pay any amount of child support, but he just couldn’t see the girls.Hisgirls.
“But, Ellie, I told him.” Her grandfather’s voice broke in a way she’d never heard before or since—the sound of a heart torn asunder. “I toldhim we don’t need your money. This isn’t about that! I need my son back. The girls need their father.”
“And Kenny?” Granny’s voice, small and quavering.
“He said no, said it was too much for any man to bear.”
And they never heard from him again.
A tear rolled down her cheek, and she scrubbed the moisture away. To cry over her worthless excuse of a father after all these years? Foolish. Simone had done enough crying for both of them back then and, in the time since, enough raging for the two of them combined.
More of a stream than a tsunami, Alisha’s tears had trickled out slowly over the years. She always wished the flow would run dry, but it never did.Hedidn’t deserve mourning, though. She saved it for her mother, hoarding her pain until the hurt of losing her became overwhelming and she had to open the dam or drown.
But for her father, she had only anger and hurt. Rage, turned inward, to doubt, and hopelessness, and fear.
Unwanted. Cast aside.
She filled up a glass and took a gasping drink. As she set it down with an unsteady hand, the cup tipped, flooding the counter. She reached for the dish towel, and the memory of Quentin standing at the sink flashed into her mind. His deep voice drawing a laugh out of her, a sudsy sponge in his hands. And what had he said?
Will you let me stay?
He wasn’t searching for an exit. No hand on the doorknob, ready to escape. Could she go all in with Quentin? Release her grip on her parachute and fall, trusting him to catch her?
CHAPTER 22
QUENTIN
A trickle of sweat rolled between Quentin’s collarbones. He climbed into the driver’s side of the truck’s cab and adjusted the mirror, shooting Alisha a shaky smile. “I haven’t picked someone up from their parents’ house for a date in a long time. Did I do okay?”
Only a half joke—showing up to the Blakes’ with the intention of taking Alisha out felt wildly different from heading out to work in their yard.
When she didn’t answer, Quentin glanced over and found Alisha’s gaze fixed on the bouquet of sunset-hued flowers in her lap. She must’ve felt his eyes on her, because she looked up.
“What? Oh, yeah.” She smiled. “The flowers for Granny were a nice touch.”
“But ...”
“No, it’s nothing.” She faced the window as he backed down the drive, her words hard to catch over the blasting AC. “It’s just that you said ‘date.’ Which I’m guessing means you’re okay with the fact Dev caught us canoodling?”
He grinned in spite of himself.Canoodling.Geriatric Alisha had made another appearance.
But yeah, the intersection of work and his personal life was uncharted water, tender and scary. Buying time, he spun the steering wheel and accelerated onto the dirt road, tires crunching on the gravel.
