by Violet Howe
“No. She sent me the menu. Quail, elk, and buffalo. Who does that? It’s bizarre.”
I sighed as I rubbed a bit of pomade into my palms and then smoothed it over my hair. “Maybe she’s trying to create an adventure for your guests.”
“You know as well as I do that she’s just being difficult. She hates me, and I swear she’s doing this on purpose to ruin my rehearsal dinner.”
I tossed my head back to gargle the mouthwash, and Galen protested the sound.
“Ew. What are you doing?”
“I’m getting ready,” I said once I’d spit in the sink.
“Where are you going?”
I paused, still not ready to tell my children that I was engaging in what appeared to be a full-fledged relationship.
“Out. Why don’t you ask Tate to talk to his mom? See if he can get her to do a chicken option or perhaps a beef carving station.”
“He says I’m overreacting. He said this is the only part of the wedding that she has a say-so in, and that I should let her do it the way she wants to.”
“Hmm. Well, she is paying for the rehearsal dinner.”
I flipped on the light in the closet and took out my dance shoes, which were still relatively new and barely broken in. The sight of them filled me with excitement for the night ahead, and I couldn’t wait to be laughing in Dax’s arms as we moved across the floor in unison. Well, mostly unison. We were still learning, after all.
“So, what if she’s paying?” Galen said. “You’re paying for the wedding, and you’re not sitting here making demands and telling me you’re going to do something ridiculous that no one will like.”
“Did you talk to Tyler? Perhaps she could put in a word for you.”
I strapped the shoes on and wiggled my toes in them, delighted with the way they felt.
“Tyler basically agrees with Tate. She said she’d talk to her, but she also said it’s pretty typical for the groom’s mom to plan the rehearsal dinner.”
“Try not to get too worked up over it, sweetheart. I’m sure it’s going to be a lovely event.”
The smell of tangerine and peach blossom tinged with sandalwood filled the air around me as I sprayed perfume on the pulse points at my wrists, behind my ears, and above my ankles.
I closed my eyes to enjoy the scent as Galen groaned. “Oh, yeah. Because having people eat freaking elk will be lovely. Thanks, Mom.”
As much as I loved my daughter, her list of complaints about the wedding were becoming a regular occurrence, and I was in too good of a mood to become embroiled in her drama.
“I’m not sure what you’d like me to say or do. I don’t know Tate’s mother. I’ve never met the woman, so I can’t call her up and tell her she needs to change her menu. This is going to be your mother-in-law. I suggest you either let this go and allow her to plan her event, or you need to communicate with her yourself and tell her you’re concerned about the menu. But politely. Don’t go burning bridges over meat. I’m sorry, but I need to go.”
“Wait, there’s something else I needed to talk to you about.”
I frowned with a sigh and turned off the lights in the bathroom, heading to the kitchen to make a protein smoothie before Dax arrived.
“Is it quick? I need to finish getting ready, and I have to run the blender. We can talk later if you need to.”
Galen paused on the other end of the line, and I didn’t know if she was upset that I didn’t have time to talk or if she’d gotten distracted by something.
“You still there?”
“Yeah. I just really need to talk to you about this.”
“So talk,” I said, taking the ingredients for the smoothie out of the fridge.
“Okay.”
I heard her take a deep breath, and a feeling of foreboding came over me.
“I was talking to Dad—um, Gerry—and he’s offered to pay for my honeymoon.”
The container of blueberries fell from my hand, scattering little purple orbs across the kitchen floor.
“Did you hear me? Mom?”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“Mom—”
“No. Absolutely not. He will not pay one cent for this event, do you hear me?”
“But Mom, that’s ridiculous. There’s no reason for you to pay for everything if he’s willing to do something.”
“No. I don’t want him involved. Did you call him? Did you ask him for money?”
My entire body tensed with anger, and my hands began to shake.
“I was just talking to him about the wedding, and he asked where we were going. He said the two of you went to Aruba together. You never told me that. Was it beautiful?”
“Galen, he is using you to get at me. You have to tell him no. I don’t want him involved in this wedding.”
“That’s so unfair. Why does everything he does have to be about you? Why can’t it be that I’m his daughter and he wants to do something nice for me? Why do you always have to think the worst of him?”
“I think the worst of him because I know him better than you do.”
“Twenty-six years ago, maybe. You don’t know him now. He might have done some awful things to you, Mom, but he acknowledges he was wrong for that. Since he’s been back in my life, he hasn’t done any of the horrible things you warned me he would do. He hasn’t lied to me. He hasn’t broken promises. He hasn’t tried to use me to get close to you. Maybe it’s time you admit that he’s changed.”
I covered my eyes with my hand. “No. People like him don’t change.”
“How do you know? The only time you ever talk to him is when you’re mad about something. He said you’d react this way. He even offered to just give me the money and have me tell you it came from somewhere else, just so you couldn’t say no. Would he do that if he was trying to use me to get close to you? I don’t think so.”
I slapped the palm of my hand down on the tile in frustration, trying to keep my voice calm as I spoke.
“Galen, I do not want that man to be any part of this wedding. He did not raise you. He did not fulfill his duties as a father. He doesn’t get to step in and write a check to play the role.”
“But whose fault was that, really? He’s told me how he tried to stay in our lives. That he wanted to give you money. To support us. He said he begged you to let him be involved with me and Cabe, and you said no. He wasn’t a father because you wouldn’t let him be. He would have been there for me, but you couldn’t allow that, could you? So we had to go without a father all those years because of you. We had to believe our dad didn’t care anything about us and didn’t want to be with us when you knew all along that wasn’t true.”
Her words sliced open my heart, exposing my most vulnerable fears.
“I did what I thought was best for you and your brother. I kept you from him to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? He’s my father! I had a right to know him. I had a right to know my brother and sister. They are my family, and they love me. They’re happy that we’re finally united. I could have had a family all along if you hadn’t been so blinded by anger at my dad.”
“You did have a family!” I said through gritted teeth. “You had a family that loved you, nurtured you, and surrounded you with stability. Met your needs without fail. Your grandparents, Sandy, Alberto—how can you say you didn’t have a family? So me, you, and Cabe weren’t a family?” The emotion in my voice was raw, much harsher than I would have liked. “Do you think I wanted to raise the two of you alone? Do you think I wanted to watch my children deal with the hurt of not knowing their father? He had a chance to do the right thing. To tell the truth. To step up to the plate. He chose to lie. He chose to have his cake and eat it, too. I will not sit here and let you rewrite the past for your own purposes. You had a family, and it’s his own damned fault he wasn’t part of it.”
“He said you’d say that.”
“You don’t understand the magnitude of what he did,” I said, as hot tears stung my eyes. “Y
ou have no idea how hard it was or what I went through.”
“I’m sorry he hurt you, Mom, and so is he. But this is my life, and I choose to have my father and my other siblings be a part of it. I want to let him pay for my honeymoon, and I want Jeffrey and Julie at my wedding.”
This was it. This was what I had dreaded since she first announced her engagement.
How could I be expected to sit at an event and see the product of his betrayal? The manifestation of his lies? The family he chose over me and my children?
Why should he be allowed to swoop in and play the part of the victim, the poor mistreated father, when the whole situation was his doing?
It was too much. I couldn’t listen to her any longer. I wanted to scream and yell. I wanted someone to pay for my pain. But my daughter wasn’t the person who deserved my wrath.
“I can’t talk about this any longer. I have to go.”
“Mom, I’m not doing this to upset you. I swear. I just want to—”
“Galen, I cannot talk about this any longer. Goodbye.”
36 TWO SIDES OF A COIN
I paced the floor of the kitchen, my entire body trembling. My mind was at war as parental guilt and indignant rage battled for control of my emotions.
On some level, I understood where Galen was coming from. I knew how badly she wanted us all to be one big, happy family, but that was something I would never be able to do.
Whereas Cabe had internalized his father’s absence and never mentioned him, Galen had begged and pleaded to meet her father once she became a teenager and developed a greater awareness that he was absent. I’d resisted until her behavior and her acting out became so extreme at age sixteen that it was evident that being around Gerry wouldn’t be as detrimental as what she was doing to herself with alcohol and promiscuity.
I’d made the call I had sworn I would never make and asked him to meet her.
He flew into Orlando and spent the weekend in a nearby hotel, and they crammed years of childhood into one day at Walt Disney World while I sat at home and chewed my fingernails for the first time in my life.
Gerry played the part of the prodigal father after that, sending elaborate gifts for her birthday and Christmas and flying into town to surprise her with stays at the Ritz-Carlton or the Waldorf. She tried early on to play him against me, threatening to leave and go live with him until she realized that would never be an option.
Despite his flowery words of how much Galen meant to him, he refused to introduce her to his other children or to include her in any aspect of his life.
As she matured, she mentioned him less, and I assumed her contact with him had waned and the novelty had worn off. But then she’d reached out on social media to meet her half-siblings, and though I tried to think of her needs before mine and be supportive, I couldn’t help feeling a little betrayed.
I felt even more betrayed to know she’d been talking to Gerry again, even going so far as to call him Dad. But to learn that Gerry had been telling Galen behind my back that his absence was my fault was too much.
I dialed his number with shaking hands, barely able to press the correct digits.
“How did I know I was going to be hearing from you?” he asked without even saying hello.
“How dare you! How dare you tell my daughter what a wonderful father you would have been if I hadn’t stopped you?”
“She’s my daughter, too, you know. Although, you’ve never wanted to acknowledge that other than when you threw your hands up in the air and called me begging for help.”
“Damn you. I won’t allow you to do this, Gerry. You can’t sweep in and buy your way into her wedding. You haven’t been a father. You weren’t there for everything she’s gone through. You don’t get to play the part of generous daddy only when it suits you.”
He sniggered, and the sound turned my stomach.
“Listen to you,” he sneered. “Listen to the jealousy in your voice. You tried so hard to turn my own kids against me. To keep them for yourself and not let me know them. You may have succeeded with Cable, but Galen won’t let you poison her mind about me any longer.”
“Are you delusional? Do you even hear what you’re saying? You’re not the victim here, Gerry!” I yelled. “You did this! You! You created all this hurt, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to take the blame.”
“By all means, blame me. I’ve been your scapegoat for years, and you never let me try and correct my mistakes. You wouldn’t let bygones be bygones so we could move past them. You’ve harbored this hatred for so long that it’s made you bitter and nasty, Maggie, and our children have suffered for it.”
“They’re not our children!” I screamed, the words screeching out of me from somewhere deep in my gut. “They are my children. You don’t deserve to have them in your life. You don’t deserve to be their father.”
“But I am their father, and that kills you, doesn’t it? I wonder, Maggie, would you ever have told me that I was a father? If I hadn’t ran into that gossipy girl from the ballet company, would I ever have even known about Cable?”
“Oh my God, you have some audacity. We both know why I didn’t let you know I was pregnant. You want to talk about secrets, Gerry? How about not telling me you were married before you knocked me up? Huh, Gerry? And that wasn’t enough, was it? You had to come back. You had to play out your elaborate charade and wear me down with your promises of how we’d be a family. Of how we’d make up for the time lost. And all the while…you know what? I’m not going down this path again. You don’t get to pretend that it never happened.”
He swore under his breath. “How many times have I said I’m sorry?”
“Not enough. It will never be enough. For what you did to me. To my son. To my daughter. Never. You know what? If you’re truly sorry, if you mean those words, then let Galen have her wedding without your interference and without you bringing drama into it.”
“I think you need to take a look in the mirror to see where the drama is coming from,” he sneered. “I offered to pay for my daughter’s honeymoon. That’s a perfectly natural thing for a father to do. You’d think you might be grateful for that, but no. You have to twist it into something negative and ruin it for her.”
“To Aruba? Is that your idea of a sick joke?”
“I happen to love Aruba. I have very fond memories there.”
I stared at the ceiling in disbelief. “You’re unbelievable. After everything you’ve done, you still refuse to take responsibility.”
“Oh, please. I’ve taken responsibility. I offered you child support. I offered you whatever you needed for them. You refused any money from me. When you called and asked me to help with her at sixteen, I flew down there immediately. In fact, every time you’ve called and chewed my ass for something with these kids, I’ve done everything I could. Hell, I’m pretty sure most people would consider me paying for the honeymoon to be taking responsibility. But not you. Not Miss High and Mighty.”
“Screw you, Gerry.”
“Nice. But you’re not as innocent in all this as you’d like to believe, Maggie. You know, Margot always said you got pregnant on purpose.”
I hung up before he could finish.
37 SPECIAL DELIVERY
He was right in at least one regard. I never would have told him about Cabe.
I still don’t know who told him.
I’d moved out of my parents’ house soon after they found out I was pregnant. My mother begged me not to go, but I couldn’t bear the disappointment on my father’s face or the daily tears my mother shed.
Sandy, Alberto, and I moved into the little blue house, and I took the job teaching dance, working right up until the day my water broke nearly a full week after my due date.
It had spread like wildfire through the dancers that I was pregnant with Gerry Tucker’s baby and that he had left town, so I don’t know if the person who told him was being malicious or thought she was being helpful.
All I know is he showed up at the s
tudio where I taught a few weeks before Cabe was born, demanding to talk to me. I refused to come out.
Alberto drove me to and from work every day after that, but Gerry didn’t come back to the studio. I thought maybe he’d returned to New York, but I couldn’t shake my fear of a confrontation at the hospital.
My father hired an attorney to decipher what rights Gerry had and what we could do if he showed up, and it nearly killed my dad to learn that it would be best in the long run to let Gerry see the baby.
Despite the flurry of emotions during the delivery and the pure joy of holding my son in my arms for the first time, my concern about Gerry was ever-present in my mind. I had no idea how I would react if he did come to the hospital. I hadn’t seen him since the day we returned from Aruba, and my stomach was in knots that went far beyond the normal pains after giving birth.
He must have been watching for my parents to leave, because he showed up late in the evening, right after they went to the cafeteria to grab dinner and allow me a few minutes’ rest. Dad had given strict instructions at the nurses’ station that I was not to be disturbed by any visitors, and they’d been briefed that the baby’s father may try to see him but was not welcome in my room.
A young nurse, not much older than I was at the time, must not have gotten the message. She had just come on her shift when she peeked in and told me there was a man asking to see me.
I don’t know why I agreed he could come in. My emotions were all over the place with hormones, exhaustion, and the roller coaster that comes with delivering a child. It was surreal in many ways to think that the tiny baby I held was a result of Gerry and me, and my heart—which had been shattered and only barely glued back together enough to function—was feeling nostalgic for what might have been.
He had dark circles under his eyes, and he was thinner than I remembered as he walked to the bed and stared down at our son in my arms.
“Oh, God, Willow. He’s beautiful.”
My eyes filled with tears, as did his, and my heart hurt with the pain of it all.
