Catching Preeya (Paradise South Book 3)

by Rissa Brahm

“You can understand, Dad? Can you really?” She cocked her head at him and tried to hide the shake of her head. Calm, respect, control.

  But damn it! He’d never showed up for her, her entire life! And had let her live a charade, one that had shaped her and so many choices. But worse, with this new daddy act, she’d had to wait until age twenty-five for her father to, well, be her father and not just some funding source from afar!

  “What is it, bitay? Tell me.”

  “First off, this whole sweet father act… Spectacular Sylvia isn’t around right now, so you can stop. The usual lectures can resume. Our traditional once-a-year visitation should keep to script.”

  “I’ve changed a lot since meeting Sylvia, and I’ve healed a lot.”

  Healed? Jesus. Okay. Not going there. “Listen—Aunt Champa…she told me everything. About Mom, why she left. Why she really left.”

  “I know. I didn’t want her to, and I am sorry for that.”

  “No, Dad! You should have told me. Forever ago! I blamed you this entire time for everything! Thinking my mother was a huge-hearted giver. A world savior, for Christ’s sake!”

  “I lied to protect you. A white lie, for the best. I weighed all the options, and really, bitay—”

  “No ‘bitay’, Dad! Don’t you get it? Because of the story you made up, I put her on a damn pedestal. Tried to emulate her, the ever-wonderer, the aimless seeker. Sacrificial and…selfless.” She paused her words and her breath. Selfless? Aimless, yes, but selfless? Had Preeya really emulated the person she understood her mother to be?

  I mean, you didn’t finish med school…and you didn’t go join the Peace Corps, Preeya. No, she took an always-mobile going-nowhere job as a glorified traveling waitress.

  Hey, as a matter of fact, I saved a life just the other day!

  Preeya. Truth.

  She sighed. Truth?

  Fuck. She’d just wasted all this time, years, and had used her ghost of a mother as an excuse. Her scapegoat. To put life off, to put dreams off. To wait for life to catch her, instead of her going out and catching life.

  “How much time I wasted,” she mumbled.

  “What’s that, Preeya?”

  She sighed again, then shook her head. “I…I don’t know. Just that…everything. Just everything. I missed having a mother. And I missed having a father. That is what it comes down to. I just missed my parents.” Her mind was blank and swimming at the same time.

  “Oh, my beloved…” He moved to hug her.

  But she backed away. “No, Dad.” She lifted her eyes, narrowed, quivering with hurt and anger. Years—God, nearly decades. “Not that easy. You know, you looked at me today…the first time you cared enough to goddamn look me in the eyes since the day she left us.”

  He sighed. “Your eyes, bitay. It hurt too much. I am so sorry, I just couldn’t….” He swallowed back emotion she’d never seen in him, not even that day he had to pry Prana from her seven-year-old grip. “Until Sylvia came, I had too much pain in my heart to look into those beautiful eyes of yours,” he said, obvious shame forcing his gaze away.

  All she could do was shake her head. A father. Human, yes, but Jesus…he couldn’t bear to look her in the face, or parent her, or visit or call or, damn it, show love in any incremental amount except for monetarily—because it hurt too much?

  Well, she didn’t ask for her mother’s eyes…or any of the shit her parents had put on her. What a fucking cop-out! And now, damn it, she was drowning with new rising rage and it was too much for her to make sense out of. Too fucking much.

  She had to sit down. Getting light-headed, she caught sight of a bench across the way. She went without a word.

  He followed. And sat down beside her.

  “Preeya,” he whispered. “You’re not your mother. I know that.”

  She heard words go in and sensed words being prepared in her head to come out, but damned if she knew what any of it was about anymore. “But I wanted to be her, Dad, because I didn’t want to be like you. Absent, heartless, greedy—”

  “That wasn’t true, though—”

  “Exactly. But Dad, you made it true. With your lie. Your lie about Mom—and your complete abandonment to follow it all up—made her the great sacrificing soul and you became the money-hungry son of a bitch who only visited once a year. And even then we had our status checklist of an interaction, Dad.”

  “Look, bitay, I had to support you, but I couldn’t be an effective parent, too, so I put you in the care of someone I thought could.”

  “You thought wrong again.”

  “I’m sure Champa did her best, but she’s human. And you are a strong spirit, a strong soul…”

  “Again, just like the pretend mother you created for me, I’m not strong. I’m weak—like her!”

  “Preeya. You aren’t even making sense. Don’t you see the mother I made up stemmed from the person I knew you had in you to become. I still haven’t met a seven-year-old anywhere with the capacity for empathetic and selfless love like you had. And have. The way you’ve always been with Prana…your nature is beautiful. You’ve always had a beautiful, selfless inside. Always.”

  “No. You’re wrong. I am not caring or selfless.” God, she’d dropped Evan flat, visited Prana maybe once a month, quit med school instead of sticking it out to become someone who truly helps people, and then there was Ben. She’d been so cruel and apathetic to him. He was a truly selfless person. Shit! “How can you even know, Dad? You don’t know me from a stranger on the street. Other than these purple curses in my head…I mean, really!”

  “You are a wonderful person, Preeya. Your energy is factually…brilliant! So brilliant, bitay, that I worked in an industry I despised so that I could give you opportunities, an expensive college education, and medical school, so that you could soar—”

  “And I crash-landed, Dad. Time and time again. All on my own, I failed. Just like Mom…” Her brain and heart were officially clobbered. “I don’t…just…damn it, Dad, I don’t know who I’m trying to be, or not be….”

  “What is wrong with being you, my love? Your namesake, beloved. Be love. My smart, beautiful, beloved Preeya. Just be you. Stronger than me, than your mother…just be you.”

  She couldn’t stop it then. The heaving hiccups of emotion. Not brimming over but busting at the seams of her soul. From her chest, her eyes, her head pounding out the years of collected everything. Right there in the pristine courtyard of SafeHaven. And as she gasped for air through her sobs, her father took her in his arms, held her through the earthquake of it all. And if she wanted to shove him away, punch him, cause him immeasurable, infinite pain, she couldn’t even muster the strength.

  But she didn’t want that. She honestly didn’t want him in pain. No, what she wanted was finally being given to her. His loving arms. His fatherly security wrapped around her tight, steady and strong.

  “I can only say that I’m human, Preeya, bitay.” He sniffled and cleared his throat. “And thank God that I have changed and learned so that I can be here now for you and with you, my love.”

  She buried her face deeper into his chest, crying through unknown time and space, there on the cold, hard stone bench while he continued to hold her tight.

  *

  She wiped her eyes and nose, let her face lift to see her father’s, and took in a clearing breath. “Your shirt, it’s a mess…from me.”

  “It’s fine,” he said through a light laugh. “Sylvia says the mess inside our hearts is the hard thing to clean up. A shirt’s a dime a dozen.”

  “Hmm.” She let a hint of a smile form as she sat up to collect herself, the sunshine hard on her swollen eyes, but much needed. Eye opening, warming sunshine. Hopeful, restarting sunshine.

  “Preeya, I would like you to get to know Sylvia. She’s wonderful, and you both have such huge hearts. After those decades of being closed to the world, Preeya, she opened my heart again.” He lifted her face with his index finger. “I really was crushed, too, when your mother left us.�
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  “Us, Dad.” She opened her eyes and looked at him and tried to find a soft smile. “Operative word us. Not just me and not just you, and not just Prana.”

  “I know…now.” He squeezed her shoulder. “And again, I’m so sorry for leaving you all alone with your pain, my sweet girl.”

  Her breath had become shallow but had slowed, eased.

  “We’re together now. Better late than ever?”

  “Better late than never, Dad. Thirty-some years in the States now?” She couldn’t help but smile. His idioms and figures of speech were always a little off, the one thing that she remembered that had made her laugh when they were together.

  And the next thought that flew in was another possible fitting common phrase: too little, too late. Was it? Was it too late for them? She looked at his face. Softened. Aged. Kind. Maybe this was real, this change in him? And why didn’t she and he deserve this chance, a second chance?

  “Dad, she didn’t even say good-bye—”

  “Your mother was scared. And deeply ashamed. Wherever she is, she’s awake at nights with shame.”

  Moments passed as she considered his words. Pity toward forgiveness. Forgiveness? Maybe. But she wouldn’t ever forget.

  *

  Preeya looked up at her father and a slow, seeping warmth came over her—a cleansing, liberating wave. She’d have done anything to be nothing like him. Her anger ruled. Had blinded her. And now she could see him. Her father. Just a man. And yes, a doctor, but a regular man, her blood. A good, decent, human man.

  “Sylvia…seems nice.”

  “She’s got a truly wonderful heart, Preeya. And she’s a fighter. Two-time breast cancer survivor. That’s how I met her. She was a patient. Trying to reduce her risk years ago with a double mastectomy. But her genes had other plans. Cancer found her anyway.”

  Chills crawled up her body, stunned at her own ignorance. Her own closed-minded default setting had struck again. The superficial wax woman she’d assumed Sylvia to be had transformed into a brave soldier in a blink.

  She sighed hard and heavy. “Dad, I’d like to try and get to know her.”

  “We would like nothing better.”

  They sat on that cold stone bench for a long while without saying another word. People and clouds and intermittent squirrels and birds moved through their time while Preeya and her father just stayed very still, very there. Together.

  And like a crisp breeze coming in off the bay on the beach of her Marietas, an image wisped into her mind. And in an instant, just like that, the blank slate, the unknown, her tomorrow, had an answer.

  “Hey, Dad, if I wanted to go back, you know, to medical school…would you still help me? If only just at the beginning. I think…yeah, I think that’s what I see myself doing. That’s the route I want to take.”

  CHAPTER 35

  She’d moved into her quick-find apartment just in time to register at UW’s medical program—getting into Berkeley, even with her father’s connections, had become too high a hope after so long. She looked out her window overlooking the Seattle skyline. The Emerald City in summer, the only time the clouds break.

  But after nearly four weeks and no reply from Ben, her head and heart felt gray-cloud heavy. No updates from Stacy, either. God, Preeya just wanted to know he was safe. If nothing else, that he was alive. Not held ransom by one of the competing cartels or some crazy shit like that. Really, Preeya—ransom? How stupidly dramatic—not the life-thrills she’d meant. But after seeing the front page of the Vallarta paper their last morning together, this was no stage drama. Real drug lords and guns. And before this newer surge in cartel activity, aside from the safe tourist spots, she’d been warned through her airline and the embassy about random civilian disappearances in the larger Mexican cities. For layovers in Mexico City, all the FAs stayed at the airport hotel.

  And she’d chosen to ignore that to go with Ben to Somewhere, Central Mexico.

  Jesus, Ben, where are you?

  Her lungs emptied in shaky bursts. She wouldn’t leave another voice mail on his cell; she swore this morning’s would be the last. And after this many weeks, she didn’t expect him to reply at all. If only Stacy would get back to her saying he was okay…then Preeya’d put him out of her head and heart as best she could.

  Right.

  She opened her text message string to Ben for the third time since her no-call promise.

  Still a reverberating blank.

  She clicked out of that screen to her never-deleted summary list of texters. Where a new unopened text stared at her. From Evan.

  God, I miss you. Channel 4 anchor or Good Morning America, wouldn’t matter. I’d still miss you, Pree.

  She sighed. He obviously needed more closure.

  No more “easy road,” Preeya. She’d have to handle this. Evan didn’t deserve to hurt.

  After a reunion brunch with Gigi, she would be registering on campus, only minutes from his place. She’d give him a call, meet up for coffee, maybe. She’d explain, help him move on. God, there was so much to say, and he of all people deserved to hear it.

  She texted him and got a lightning-fast response: Yes, our old spot, 3PM?

  Yes, sounds perfect. TTYL.

  *

  She walked toward Gigi and waved—always on time, that girl. She’d always teased Gigi—the most organized and punctual mind reader on the planet. “It’s the detective-dad genes I wear,” Gigi would say.

  And wow did her best friend know Preeya—her friend had even brought along a magazine for the assumed wait. But no more of that. Preeya’d gotten hooked on punctuality since Houston those forever weeks ago.

  She even got herself a new working watch to celebrate—and to cover the tat until she could figure out what to do with it. “Hey, you.”

  “Hey, yourself!” Gigi popped up and threw her arms around Preeya and swayed them back and forth.

  “It’s only been a few weeks, Geej.” She felt queasy, like her friend had squeezed all the oxygen from her body.

  “Five weeks, Pree. There was a chance to catch each other in the middle there, remember? But you stood me up for Joshie the Hard Rocker.”

  Ugh. “You mean the not-so-hard rocker,” Preeya mumbled, scoffed then swallowed hard, that queasy feeling turning into a spike of nausea from the mere thought of Josh Bolte.

  “You’re white as a ghost…he was that bad, huh?” Gigi grabbed a water bottle from her purse and handed it to her. “Drink.”

  Preeya downed it and sighed with slight relief. “Thanks.”

  “Welks. So I never did get the Josh details from you…but maybe not worth talking about?” Gigi grabbed Preeya’s hand and took a step back to give her some breathing room.

  “No, it’s not that…I mean, yes, it was that bad, but no, I’ve been feeling sick to my stomach since, well, since….” Ben. Since he’d left. Because of her dumb ass.

  And the bouts of nausea from nerves kept coming daily. But she hadn’t really told Gigi anything of Ben since day one in Vallarta. Or any of her family shit, either. She’d really been off the grid from her best friend for a record amount of time. And in that time, more had happened to her than the series of mentionable events in her entire adult life. “Let me just run to the bathroom real quick and then we can sit and chat over chocolate ice cr—oh God, Geej.” Bubbling rage just above her gut. “Gotta run.” She didn’t run but flew to the restroom.

  A second later, “Comin’ with,” Gigi said out of breath. She locked her arm in Preeya’s and shuffled along at top speed.

  When they got to the mall’s restroom, Preeya zoomed into a stall and hurled. She at least came out feeling better—for the time being. She knew as soon as Ben—his deadly expedition, her guilt, her heart hole—entered her mind again, she’d be back to it.

  “Preeya,” Gigi said, washing her hands while looking through the mirror at a mother changing her infant at the changing station. “Would you be the godmother of my baby?”

  Preeya paused in the middl
e of rinsing her face, water dripping down her nose. “Uhh…when you have one…of course. There’s no question, Geej.”

  “Good. Because”—Gigi hit the explosively loud hand-drying machine which drowned out all spoken word and didn’t shut off until Gigi’s rhetorical monologue did.

  Preeya laughed at Gigi, her best friend’s smile wide and glowing like a kid with big news.

  “Hey, why are you laughing?”

  “I didn’t hear you, Geej, that’s why.” Preeya moved to the quieter paper towel option by the door.

  “I said…because Rod and I are pregnant!”

  Mouth dry, eyes bugged, Preeya’s lungs filled with a rush of air, fueling a scream louder than the jet-powered hand dryer times ten. “Gigi! You’re having a baby? A real kid? A real baby person!”

  “And, Pree…”

  “What, Geej?” she asked, squeezing her best friend’s hands with out-of-control excitement and awe and fear, because that’s what she’d be if she were in Gigi’s shoes!

  “So are you.”

  “Excuse me?” she rasped, mouth drier, eyes wider. Lungs hitched. Because she didn’t hear right.

  “You, my friend, are pregnant, too.”

  No. “No.” She’s fucking with me. “I’m not.” Factually not.

  “Yes, Pree, you are. And God, I hope it’s not—” Gigi paused, maybe having noticed Preeya’s eye roll switch to death stare within a baby heartbeat.

  It wasn’t funny. Visions and feelings and senses from the ethers about, well, just about anything else—fine!—but not about this. A baby? Everything trembled, head to toe, inside and out.

  “Nope, never mind.” Gigi swallowed. “It’s not his…I don’t see any fiery flames of asshole or anything,” she said, stepping back to gauge Preeya’s body, her belly, her aura? “Just a warm, golden glow. Yeah, not Josh’s, no way is it Josh’s.”

  Preeya felt dizzy and heavy and light all at once. And still quaking, the shock hit her brain and jumbled everything about. Not Josh’s. A baby. Gigi’s baby. Glow. Nausea.

  Nausea. Of course. Just nerves over Ben? Jesus. Her chronic obliviousness toward her life, her body…and her period? Who actually ever keeps track of their cycle? She’d always guessed a day on her GYNO’s questionnaire. And she’d thought she’d been better about the pill but…fuck, she couldn’t say for sure. Every night and city and hotel bathroom merged together. She swallowed back another swell of nausea, then turned on a dime and ran to a stall, slamming into a woman on her way. No time to even apologize—the retching took her voice and breath away. Gigi had to hold the door closed for her because she hadn’t gotten the chance to lock it.