Page 97 of Bursting With Love
“This is my girlfriend, Savannah. Savannah, this is my father, James Remington.”
Savannah’s trusting eyes smiled at his father. James shook her hand and smiled, and Jack felt a pang of hope—and tried not to let it carry him away. After what his mother had told him, he knew this was not going to be an easy fence to mend.
“Nice to meet you, Savannah. Please excuse the interruption into your evening. My daughter gave me your address, and while I should have called first, I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I should have been.”
His father had always exhibited good manners, which, Jack realized, was one reason he was so struck by the way he’d treated him the previous night.
“Don’t be silly. You’re welcome here anytime. Come in, please.” She stepped back and allowed him to pass.
Savannah touched Jack’s hand, but he was busy trying to figure out how to politely take whatever conversation was about to happen out of earshot from Savannah to respond. She slid her hand up his arm and squeezed his forearm.
“I’ll just take my things back to the bedroom and give you some privacy,” she said.
Jack watched her gather her things. He couldn’t find his voice to say thank you, but as Savannah touched his cheek on the way to the bedroom and her green eyes reassured him, he knew he didn’t have to.
“Would you like to sit down?” he asked his father. Jack’s nerves were tangled in knots. He’d promised his mother not to reveal what she’d shared with him, and he knew his father never would. Which left him wondering what the hell could possibly be done to bridge the gap between them—something he wanted more than almost anything else at that moment. The thing he wanted most was to move forward with Savannah, but no matter how contentious things had become between them, his father owned a hunk of his heart that would never belong to anyone else, and Jack wanted to move forward with his new life with a whole, fulfilled heart.
He followed his father to the couch, then opted for a chair instead so he could look him in the eye.
“Your mother doesn’t know I’m here, so before we talk, I’d like to ask that you don’t tell her I came.” His father rubbed his hands together, then settled them in his lap.
Jack had never seen his father act any other way than in complete control, and now, watching his hands unclasp and rub the thighs of his slacks and his eyes dart around the room, he saw a different man emerging, and Jack wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Okay.” Breathe. Just breathe.
“Son, I’m not here to berate you, so you can put your shoulders back down where they belong.”
Despite his nerves, Jack breathed a sigh of relief.
“Ever since you were a boy, you wore your emotions on your sleeve. I recognize the tension in your body and the worry in your eyes, and I’m sorry that seeing me instills such a reaction. But I think maybe it always has.”
“No, Dad—”
His father raised his hand. “Please. If there’s one thing I know, it’s truth. And I’m well aware of the choices I’ve made in life. Jack, when you were born, my entire life changed. The minute I held you in my arms, the responsibility that pressed in on me was all-consuming.” His stare softened as he continued. “Your mother handled it differently, though she was equally, if not more, enamored by you and amazed by the magnitude of responsibility that comes along with having a child. She believed that we needed to love and support everything you did, even if it was, for lack of a better word, stupid.”
Jack looked away. That crack cut him to the bone. I wasn’t stupid for missing Linda.
“You know how hard your mother works on her sculptures and paintings, and I know you remember her toiling in the garden for hours so our family could eat organic vegetables, of all things. But you may not remember the day you thought you’d make your own sculpture while she was off taking a shower or something. You gathered all of the vegetables—every last one of them—and you brought them into her studio and used pounds and pounds of clay to create a garden sculpture. It was one big gloppy mess of clay with vegetables stuck haphazardly throughout. Your mother had a gallery deadline to meet at the time, and of course it was a Sunday evening, so getting her hands on more clay before the next morning wasn’t even an option. Being the resourceful kid that you were, you washed up and never said a word until she was putting you to bed hours later. Do you remember how she used to say good night and then she’d toil away in her studio for hours while I was on kid duty?”
Jack vaguely remembered something about her garden and clay, but he couldn’t reconcile the story—or his father taking over their care—to any concrete memory. He shook his head.
