Stonehill series collect.., p.4
Stonehill Series Collection, page 4
Phil stood and walked around the coffee table. He stopped in front of Kara, giving her the disapproving look that came so naturally to him. “He’s offering to help me. In case you forgot, I’m unemployed at the moment.”
“You don’t need to go to…” She poked her head around him. “Where are you living these days, Hare?”
“I’m still in Stonehill, but the office is in Des Moines.”
She refocused on her son. “You don’t have to go to Iowa for a job, Phil. This is Seattle. You will find a job here, like you planned. You just have to keep looking.”
“Do you know how many résumés I’ve submitted?”
“Four months ago, when you were laid off and I suggested moving, you had a laundry list of reasons why we couldn’t relocate. It was important to keep Jess in her school, keep her where she is familiar and comfortable. What about that?”
“Christ, Mother,” he seethed. “He didn’t even finish offering me a position. I haven’t had a chance to think about it, let alone accept. But you know what? Maybe you were right, for once. Maybe Jess will adjust. Maybe it would be good for her to try something new and meet new people. Maybe I should expand her world and show her different things.”
His words took the wind from her. When she’d argued the logic of relocating, it was just the three of them. She’d pictured them living in a small town like the ones that she and Phil had passed through during the years Phil was growing up.
Kara had tossed out the idea, the logic, the hope of relocating, but not to the Midwest. Not to Iowa. And definitely not Stonehill.
“I have a big house. More than I need. You could stay with me.” Harry walked to where Phil was staring down Kara. “All of you could. If you wanted.”
Kara’s heart dropped to her stomach. She turned and stepped nose-to-nose with Harry. “How dare you show up after thirty years and try to turn my life upside down all over again!”
“Goddamn it.” Harry raked his hand through his hair. “I would have been there. I wouldn’t have left you alone.”
“But you did,” she spat. “You got to live your life while I was sent away like some kind of leper.”
“I didn’t know you were pregnant!”
“Of course you didn’t, Harry! How could you when you barely took the time to pull your dick from between my legs before abandoning me?”
“Jesus,” Phil said, reminding his parents he was in the room. “I did not need to hear that.”
Both Kara and Harry sagged a bit. Tears bit at her eyes. Damn it. She didn’t want to cry. She refused to cry.
“Look,” Harry said gently. “I’m not trying to take them away from you, but this is my son. My granddaughter. And I deserve to know them. I deserve to be in their lives as much as you do. I didn’t choose to leave them. I know,” he cut in before she could speak, “I walked away from you, and I sincerely apologize for that. But I didn’t leave Phil. I want to know my son. I want to know his daughter.”
“Then come here.” Kara hated how her voice trembled with a crazy mix of anger, fear, and desperation.
“I can’t. I have a business to run, and I can’t do that from here. Phil needs a job. He needs insurance and security for his daughter. I can give that to him. For the first time in his life, I can give him something. I can take care of him. But I can’t do that with him here.” He turned to Phil. “Come to Iowa. Bring Jessica.” He focused on Kara again. “You can come as well. Des Moines has changed so much. You can find a place to show your art there.”
Returning to Iowa was not an option. Going home had never been an option. It was never going to be an option. She had been forced to leave, and she’d never looked back. She would never look back.
Heavy silence hung in the air until Harry said, “You don’t have to decide now, Phil. You can come whenever you want. The offer is open-ended. If you choose to stay here, I’ll help out as much as I can. It shouldn’t all be on your mom. And I’ll visit, if that’s okay. I’d like us to have a relationship, even if it is long distance.”
Phil smiled, and Kara despised the way he looked at Harry. Like Harry was so wonderful, so wise, so parental. She didn’t think she’d seen that expression on Phil’s face since he was six years old. Phil’s clear admiration for Harrison tore at her heart, and she wanted to cry and scream and take back the moment she’d admitted they were father and son.
“Thanks, Harry,” Phil said. “I’ll think about it.”
Harry shifted when Kara rotated her jaw and turned away. “Do you think I could talk to your mom for a few minutes?”
Phil lifted his brows at Kara, and she completely understood what he was trying to convey to her.
Be nice.
“I was thinking a beer sounded good. Would anyone else like one?” Phil didn’t actually wait for anyone to answer. He stepped around his parents and left the room.
Kara rolled her head back and exhaled. “You are unbelievable,” she whispered.
“Because I want to know my son?”
“He doesn’t need you to fix things for him, Harrison.”
“This isn’t about fixing things, Kara. Damn it. That’s my kid. He’s an adult now. A father. He’s twenty-six years old. He’s been married and divorced. He’s graduated high school and college. I missed all that. I didn’t get to help him with any of that, but I can help him now. And I do have a right. I’m his father.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“That wasn’t my choice. I wasn’t given a choice.” He lowered his voice. “Look…”
She knew that trick from his teenage days. On one hand, it pissed her off even more. On the other, she couldn’t help but be soothed a bit.
“We both got screwed over, okay? But we’re here now. All of us. Together. I’m not trying to take Phil and Jess away from you. But they’re my family, too, and I want my chance.”
He put his hand over his heart, and hers broke a little.
“I want to get close to him,” Harry said. “I want him to see me as his father. Not because I had unprotected sex with his mother when we were both stupid kids but because I am his father. A father who is there, who he can rely on. Who you can rely on when you need someone to help you out. I want to make this up to you as much as I do to him. I know we aren’t technically a family, but you’re the mother of my child—my only child. That makes us family in my eyes, Kara. And I need a second chance with my family. All of my family.”
She sighed and looked away. “I can’t go back there. I can’t. Not there.”
“I can’t leave. Not when my business is growing. And it isn’t just my business anymore. It’s Phil’s, too. It’s his future. His and Jess’s.”
“I can’t.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and held her gaze when she looked at him. “I know it hurts. I have to face my mother, too. I’m terrified. I’m furious with her. Part of me wants to cut her off, never speak to her again. But I have to know why. I have to know if she and my father even cared that their grandson was out there, growing up without me. I have to face the past, Kara. And so do you.”
She couldn’t breathe. Could barely hear his voice over the pounding of her heart as the truth she’d been ignoring for almost thirty years crashed down on her.
She had wanted to confront her parents so many times. She wanted to demand an apology. She wanted to shame them the way they shamed her when she told them she was pregnant.
But more than anything, she wanted to know why they hadn’t loved her enough to help her when she needed them most.
The thought of following through, however, was worse than any other fear she’d ever faced over the years. “Harry…I can’t.”
He caressed her cheeks, reminding her of the way he’d touched her that night. “Yes, you can. I’ll help you. It’s time to stop running, Kara.”
4
Sometime during breakfast Harry realized Kara and Phil acted more like bickering siblings than mother and son. He took a bite of the rainbow pancakes he’d ordered to impress Jess as Phil talked about how he’d learned to play the guitar before he’d learned to add.
“Mom thought music was more important than math.” Phil didn’t even attempt to hide his displeasure with her decision.
“Would you like me to remind you how many times that guitar earned you enough cash to pay a bill or two?” She glanced at Harry. “He’s made ends meet by playing in coffee shops plenty of times.”
Phil shook his head but didn’t verbally disagree.
Harry wondered if they had always teetered on such precarious edges. Phil clearly hadn’t approved of his upbringing, but he was independent and intelligent. He’d gone to college. And he was patient with his daughter. He’d had a promising career until fate stepped in, but he was young, and losing a job to downsizing wasn’t a reflection on Phil’s skills.
Even so, one wrong word seemed capable of tipping the two into uneasy territory. They didn’t fight exactly but disagreed—passionately—about what their lives had been. Kara had been just eighteen when she’d had Phil. Not quite mature enough to raise a child on her own. Even if she’d had her hippie support group, at the end of the day, she had been alone.
But Harry was determined to put an end to her single parenthood.
Clearing his throat, he sat forward. “Phil, I know you need time to think, but I’d like to send you some information on the company. If that’s okay.”
Kara stiffened beside him.
Instead of treading lightly, he looked at her. “I’m going to send you some information as well. Like I said, Des Moines is growing.”
“Like I said, I’m not going to Des Moines.”
“Are you going to send me something, Harry?” Jess asked.
Harry grinned at his granddaughter. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
Her eyes widened but not as much as her smile. “What?”
“Well, you did such a great job painting this pony”—he gestured to the artwork she’d brought for him— “I thought I’d send you some special paints. How about that?”
As she smiled, Harry’s heart melted. Time passed quickly, though, and before long, they left to take him to the airport.
Kara drove with Harry in the passenger seat. While Phil and Jess chatted in the back, Harry considered how he could convince them all to come to Iowa. He was certain with the right information on schools and housing, he could convince Phil that relocating was the logical choice. Kara, however, was going to take a bit more coaxing.
“Stop it,” Kara said, pulling Harry from his thoughts.
He looked at her. “Stop what?”
“Cooking up your evil plan. You still get that same glazed-over look you did in high school.”
He smirked at her. “How do know my plan was evil?”
She scoffed but didn’t answer.
“I’m not looking forward to this,” he said after a few moments.
“What?”
“Facing my mother.”
Her scowl softened. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She shrugged. “It can’t be easy to realize you were lied to most of your life.”
“You were, too, weren’t you?”
“She isn’t my mother.”
That was the kicker, wasn’t it? Elaine had lied to Kara, deceived her, and betrayed her. But Kara didn’t know Elaine. In a strange sense, he’d always trusted that his mother’s overbearing behavior was for his own good. How could she explain this?
Glancing over his shoulder at Phil, he sighed.
There was no explanation.
Their goodbyes were a bit awkward. Phil and Jessica hugged him willingly, but Kara leaned away as soon as he reached for her, so he simply promised to be in touch.
The flight back to Iowa was probably the longest of his life. He stared out the window, focused on what he was going to say to his mother.
Harry couldn’t think of a time in his life when he was more nervous than when he drove from the airport to Elaine’s home.
Kara had a lot of anger, and Harry didn’t have a clue how to help her through it. Part of that was because he had his own anger to sort out. He’d been a victim to his parents’ lies, too. He had lost twenty-six years with his son and with the woman he would have married had he known she was carrying his child.
“Who the hell knows how that would have turned out,” he muttered.
Pulling up in front of the house he grew up in, he sat for a long time, imagining a teenage Kara knocking on the door. How had that conversation gone? What had she said?
Finally, he turned off the ignition and faced the hot Iowa summer. He opened the front door to Elaine’s house and sighed with frustration. He tested the door every time he arrived, and almost every time it was unlocked. He’d told her a hundred times the least she could do was turn the damn deadbolt and make burglarizing her home a bit more of a challenge.
“Hello?” He closed the door and flipped the lock behind him.
“In the kitchen! You’re just in time for dinner.”
His stomach tightened as he took the first step toward confronting his mother.
In all his life, he’d never looked her in the eye and called her on her bullshit. As a teenager, he’d simply cowered to her imperious nature.
He had never intended to come back. It wasn’t until his father had died of a heart attack weeks before he finished his final semester of school that his plans changed. He took over the family business with the support of its long-term employees. He’d never left.
Stepping into the kitchen, he watched her reaching for a second plate. In that moment, he pictured how she looked when he was in high school. Her light brown hair was always perfect. Her clothes always looked pressed. Her dark eyes were sharp, never missing a thing, and she never hesitated to call Harry out on whatever she thought was wrong. Not that she’d been a horrible mother. She’d just been strict. She’d never been the mom who baked cookies for the class or encouraged Harry to go out and play with the other boys.
Not much had changed over the years, really. She’d never tolerated messes. Apparently that wasn’t limited to grass-stained jeans. She’d always liked things neat and tidy—hated the unpredictable—and went to great lengths to keep things in order.
Watching her now, he wondered if she regretted the life she’d had. Did she miss how things could have been if she’d just let him live a little? Make mistakes? Get dirty? Take responsibility for a certain night that had happened so long ago?
She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him. “How was your trip?”
His stomach turned over once again. “Interesting.”
“Interesting good or interesting bad?” She set the plate on the counter.
“Both, I guess.” He sat at the table and watched her dish out two servings of pasta.
“Did you find some good connections for the company?”
He scoffed. “Oh, I found something all right.”
She glanced back, and it was clear she hadn’t heard him.
Harry swallowed his bitter retort. “I offered a job to someone. He hasn’t taken me up on it yet, though.”
“Well, that’s unexpected. Not even so much as an official interview, huh?”
“He doesn’t need an interview.”
“My, he must be impressive.”
His heart raced as he focused on his mother grating fresh parmesan over noodles. “I went to school with his mother. You may remember her. Kara Martinson.” Elaine froze as Harry continued as casually as if he were discussing the weather. “She’s an artist in Seattle now. I saw a flier for her gallery opening. I decided to go and catch up on old times. Imagine my surprise when she scolded me for never responding to a single letter she sent me.”
The grater and cheese shook in his mother’s hands until she set them on the counter.
“Of course, that was nothing compared to my surprise when I met her son. He has my eyes, my hair. He even has my nose. As a matter of fact, you’d almost think he was my son.” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, no longer able to hide his fury. “But he couldn’t be mine. Could he, Mother?” he asked through clenched teeth.
She turned slowly to face him. Her jaw was set tight, but her cheeks had lost all color, betraying the calm she was trying to convey.
Her reaction killed any last hope he had that his mother was somehow innocent in this deception.
“She came to you, and you sent her away with a promise to tell me all about the baby she was carrying, but you never said a word.”
“Harrison—”
He jabbed a finger into his chest. “I have a son. And you knew.” He turned the finger that he’d aimed at himself and pointed it to her. “You stole him from me. You stole my child.”
“No! No, Harrison.” She took a ragged breath. “Your father and I…we wanted to protect you.”
“From what? My responsibility?”
“She would have ruined your future.”
“What about her future?”
“We took care of her, Harry. We sent her money.”
“Money? She was alone and scared! She didn’t have anyone to help her raise her son. My son!” He shook his head, warning her when she opened her mouth. “I didn’t come to hear your excuses. I can’t deal with that right now. The only thing I want to know is if you still have the letters she sent.”
Her mouth opened again, but she didn’t speak.
He slammed his fist into the table. “Do you have the letters? Do you have the pictures of my boy?”
Elaine put her hand to her chest, and her lip trembled until she clenched her jaw. She stood up straight, as if digging her heels in. “Your father and I—”
“You know what, Mom? Dad died when I was still in college. Don’t you put this off on him. You’ve had almost thirty years to come clean, but you didn’t. Not once. Not in all these years. You knew I wanted a family.”
“You had a family with Laura.”
“Laura’s kids resented me from the day I married her until the day she left. I wanted my own kids, and you knew I had one. You had a grandson. How could you… Never mind. Just give me the letters. I want them.”
