Page 112 of Free Heart
I nod.
“Then you know I gotta leave West Virginia.”
“Yes, but do you really want to come here?”
He clears his throat. “I know you’ve gotten used to being without me, but—”
I grab his hand. “No. If you’re going to leave West Virginia, of course I want you here. But the thing is…I might not be staying.”
“No? Even after that beautiful show? You’ve got a place here, Sejin. People love you. Why would you leave that behind?”
“Dan…” I squeeze my dad’s hand. “He’s got to climb, and he’s got to challenge himself. Yosemite has some amazing walls, some of the best in the world, but he’ll need to do something that really pushes his limits once he’s sent Heart Route. Something big. That means he’s got to travel.”
“You’ll travel with him.”
I nod.
“You always were meant to take flight. Your mama told me that when you were only a baby. She said we’d gotten lucky enough to catch you just for a little while, but you were a butterfly and you’d flit away.”
I’m a seahorse, though.
“I love it here, obviously. I came here thinking I’d pass on through to the coast, but I kept staying and staying. Even if Dan and I leave while he works on a big climb, I’d want to come back. And Peggy Jo is here—”
Dad’s lips rise at the corners when I mention her name.
“She’s the closest Dan has to family.”
“She loves him like a son,” Dad says. “But he scares her.”
“I know. He scares me too.”
Dad takes a sip of the tea, chews a tapioca bead, and then asks, “A good kind of scared?”
I laugh. “No? But I wouldn’t change who he is.”
“Like taking the laughter from your mama’s voice.”
“Exactly. You told me that, and I’ve never forgotten it.”
“We can only ask God to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.”
I nod again.
“About Peggy Jo, I’ve invited her with me to West Virginia. If I plan to leave for good, I have to—” He hesitates, and then goes on. “Prepare the house to sell.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it.
“You’re really going to sell Mom’s house?” I finally get out past the sudden blinding grief in my head.
Dad ignores the part about the house being Mom’s, and I’m grateful for that. It was his house, our house, and not just hers. But right now, all I can do is think about her dresses still hanging in their bedroom’s walk-in closet. Her pink roses in the back yard. Her sewing machine in the spare room.
“The profit would be decent. I’d be able to get on my feet financially. Or, hell, if I live frugally, maybe make it to the end of my life without having to find more work. Who knows?” His eyes take on a distant, sad depth. “West Virginia was my home. I made a dream life with Lisa, but now I need to make a newdream. Away from them memories. And all that dad-blamed family.”
I laugh, though I feel heavy all over.
My childhood bedroom. The kitchen table where we had breakfast every morning before school. The steep driveway that I shot hoops on and then had to chase the ball down to the neighbor’s yard when I missed.
My mom’s living room wallpaper that she picked out when I was five to cover where I had scribbled in magic marker. My dad’s garage, always so neat and tidy. The trampoline in the back that had been left to disintegrate and rust.
