Page 77 of Words I Couldn't Say
This was all so much to take in. I’d been so worried, thinking it was Tucker, but it was actually my dad? I didn’t know if I was relieved, terrified, or a crazy combination of the two. In a perfect world, it’d be neither of them. These were the two most important men in my life, whom I loved in entirely different ways, but I would be devastated equally if I lost either of them.
Mom grabbed my hand. I allowed the contact.
“Everything’s fine. Your father is fine. That’s why we didn’t tell you. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
“I haven’t found out anything! Someone please just tell me what’s going on!”
My parents exchanged looks before my dad cleared his throat.
“A couple of years ago, I had a bit of a scare. It’s a rather unexciting story, but your mom isn’t the only one in the family with a flair for the dramatics. Before we even knew if the cells were cancerous, I had my will drawn up and asked Tucker to hold on to it for safekeeping. The last thing I wanted was one of the boys to find it and freak out.”
Realization dawned on me. “When you were supposed to visit for Thanksgiving and you ended up with the flu?”
Dad nodded. The trip had been planned for months, and I had been thrilled about seeing my family again. At the last minute, Mom had called me to let me know Dad was under the weather and they couldn’t make it, and she had decided to stay home with him. My parents had transferred their plane tickets to my grandparents, who’d thought it would be fun to visit California and get away from the Ohio winter for a couple of weeks. I had been disappointed—I’d been a daddy’s girl all my life—but I hadn’t given it a second thought. We’d caught up in Tennessee nearly a month later for Christmas, and he’d seemed like his usual, boisterous, life-of-the-party self.
For the next few minutes, I was at the receiving end of information overload. I barely kept my composure as they explained that Dad had been diagnosed with an insulinoma, a stage-one pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor that was causing him to pass out from low blood sugar. Shivers ran down my spine as he described the original diagnosis and the fear he’d had at the time. Fear, he didn’t want to pass on to me. Each and every time his voice cracked, I understand more and more. Dad was the rock of our family. He always had been, and it wasn’t easy for him to suddenly be thrown into the unknown. I squeezed my mom’s hand, hating that she’d experienced this. That they both had.
She squeezed back, her eyes watery when Dad explained that they’d been fortunate to catch it early and before it had spread to any other part of his body. It was all so technical, the medical jargon going completely over my head. He had been recovering from a successful removal surgery—something they called a Whipple procedure—the week they’d been supposed to visit.
Mom had wanted to be there for the surgery and the subsequent ten days Dad had to spend in the hospital recovering. I couldn’t blame her one bit. Tucker, Aunt Lexi, and Uncle Jace took turns sitting with Mom, bringing her coffee and meals and forcing her to get rest. It was a win-win all around because they kept it quiet from the boys and me. My Aunt Jenna and Uncle Chris had also flown in from where they lived in Washington to be by his side. By the time my brothers returned home, Dad was up and out of bed. He wasn’t quite light on his feet, but he blamed it on a hockey injury. The boys weren’t old enough to question it.
Thinking back, I remembered noticing he’d lost weight, but Mom had chalked it up to his recent bout with the flu and his inability to keep anything down. The real truth was that it was a side effect from the surgery.
“That was three years ago, Ava. They got all the tumor during the operation. I haven’t been sick a day since. Every year, I undergo physicals, blood work, and CT scans to ensure I’m still in the clear. And Tucker… Well, I couldn’t have gotten through it without him.”
Tears welled in my eyes as the two of them exchanged expressions of mutual appreciation. It was a lot to take in, yet relief swelled because no one, not Tucker or my dad, was sick.
“Ava, please don’t be upset with Tucker. I asked him not to tell you,” Dad insisted.
Part of me wavered. The other part knew, after what he’d been through with his own parents, he should’ve told me regardless if we were speaking or not. My phone number never changed. My e-mail address was still the same. A simple text would’ve sufficed, but instead, he’d gotten to play Florence Nightingale when it should have been me.
My jaw clenched before I responded. “He betrayed my trust by not telling me.”
My dad gave me a firm stare. “Would you have rather him betray mine?”
He had a point, not that I’d let him know I thought so.
I pointed my finger at him. “What about you? How could you keep this from me?” I turned to Mom. “Or you?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. We never should have hidden this from you. We were just trying to protect you,” Mom insisted.
I sighed. “And what about you, Mom? You’ve always been my support system. It’s a two-way street. I’m an adult now. I want to be that for you, too.”
Her mouth opened, but I held a hand up to stop her.
“I know I haven’t come home in years, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be here if you need me. Keeping me out of the loop only makes me feel guilty for not having been here. Just because I moved across the country doesn’t mean ‘out of sight, out of mind’ applies to me. You don’t have to tell me everything, but major surgery? With an extended stay in the hospital? I deserve to know. Can you understand that?”
My parents nodded in unison, but it was my dad who spoke.
“We were wrong, Ava. Can you forgive your dumb, dear old dad?” he asked.
I sniffed, but the way he fluttered his eyelashes had me giggling. I rose from the couch and wrapped my arms around him tightly. “I forgive you. I love you, Dad.”
“And me?”
When I pulled away from my dad, Tucker had risen and was watching me intently.
“Can you forgive me as well?” he asked.
