Page 111 of Free Heart
“Seems like it,” she says, noncommittally.
I can tell that whatever happened with Bella and the man who fathered her child, it’s hurt Peggy Jo a lot. I crawl over to her and wrap my arm around her shoulder.
“Sweaty,” she complains, but she snuggles in for a hug.
“What happened?” I ask again.
“She asked me to leave. He doesn’t like me much. Seems I don’t keep quiet enough when he’s an asshole to my girl.”
“Does he hurt her?”
Peggy Jo shakes her head. “Not physically.”
I grunt acknowledgment of what she’s not saying. I don’t think I want to be Peggy Jo’s favorite at this price. “What are you going to do?”
“Pray,” she says. “That’s all I can do for either of my stubborn kids.”
*
Sejin
“You rode onthe motorcycle with her?” I ask, trying to picture little Peggy Jo with my big dad’s arms around her middle, scooting around the icy town on the bike.
Dad grins. “It was dad-gum thrilling, son. You ought to try it.”
“I have. Dan took me out on it once.”
“Then you know it’s a sweet ride.”
“It also wasn’t snowy or icy out,” I say, pointedly. “I didn’t risk my life for a little fun.”
Dad snorts. “Are you saying I’m acting like a kid?”
I pause, thinking through my response. Papa Bear is mostly empty at the moment, and I’m on my break. We’ve been sharing a boba with tapioca beads because Dan had recommended it, and my dad, who generally hates tea, didn’t want to let him down by not even giving it a go. I think he actually likes it.
In fact, I get the impression he likes a lot of things about my life in Yosemite.
“I think you’re making choices that aren’t typical for you.”
“Maybe I am,” Dad says quietly before I can reply. His gaze turns out the window toward the mountains beyond the parking lot. “I feel alive for the first time in a long time.”
“Because of Peggy Jo,” I say.
I try not to let jealousy sour the moment. I want him happy. I do. I just don’t want it to mean that my mom’s dead and that he’s going on without her—but of course it does. That’s what it needs to mean. It’s what my mom would want for him.
Ialsodon’t want it to mean that I wasn’t enough to light him up again. Dad is trying with me. He came all the way out here after all. He’s gone all-in during his visit, trying to get to know Dan, seeing the sights, hanging with Martin and Leenie and their kids, and following me around to my jobs.
I’m being unreasonable to feel like it’s not enough.
“Well, yes, I’m enjoying Peggy Jo,” he says, shaking the boba so the tapioca swirls. “But also, here in Yosemite… The air—” he pounds his chest with one fist. “I feel free in a way I never haveback home. It’s not just that Peggy Jo and I have got a nice little thing goin’ on.”
He pauses and gives me a long look, a hopeful one. “It’s because I think I’m ready, son. I think it’s time.”
My throat clogs. I know this means I’ll never see my mother’s sweet smile in person again. Ridiculous. Intellectually, I’ve known this for years. But so long as Dad was back in West Virginia, holding that grief for me, I could turn my attention away and ignore it.
I get out around the lump, “I know.”
“Do you?”
