“So you really want me to move in with you? You’re that sure we’ll work out?”
“’Course I am,” he says a little gruffly. “Why, you planning on leaving? ’Cause I’ll track you down and bring you back. It’s what I do.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “As long as you treat me right and you’re faithful to me, I’ll be right by your side.”
For as long as he wants me.
“Where you belong,” he adds.
I sigh in contentment. “Where I belong.”
* * *
When I see my dad sitting on the stairs in front of my mom’s house the next day, I stop in my tracks.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Wanted to talk to you.”
I know this conversation is long overdue, but I still don’t want to have it. There’s nothing this man can say to fix the situation.
He didn’t want me.
It is what it is, there’s no point sugarcoating it.
He wasn’t there on the Father’s Day lunches we held at school. I’d stand there alone, watching everyone else interact with their fathers, figuring out what I was missing. He wasn’t there on my birthdays, and he wasn’t there to see me grow up into a successful young woman.
He wasn’t there to fix my broken heart when William screwed me over.
My heart was already broken because of him, the one man in this world I should have been able to count on but couldn’t.
“What’s there to say?” I ask, putting my bag down at my feet and looking at him.
He puts his head in his hands. “The band was just making it when you were born. Your mother and I tried to make it work, but it was hard. I was on the road a lot and was dealing with the fame. Looking back it was stupid, but then and there it was a different situation. I struggled with many things, with what I wanted in life, with money. With my ego. At times it felt like I had to choose between my family or my dream, and then I’d feel resentful over that.”
“You could have tried to do both. I’m sure lots of musicians do,” I say, already tired of his excuses. I try to see it from his point of view, but at the end of the day there was me, an innocent child in the mix, and even if he wasn’t there all the time he could have still made an appearance, put in an effort. I was his daughter, and I didn’t get asked to be brought into this world. If he had such an issue with it, he should have worn a fucking condom.
He nods. “That’s what I should have done, yes. Instead, I blamed your mother for trying to weigh me down, ruining my career. I got lost in that world, Lana. It became everything to me. Fame. Money. Women. I thought it was all that mattered. I stopped confiding in your mother. Kept things from her. I remember, once, she learned I was going overseas for a long tour from a magazine, I hadn’t even bothered telling her.” He pauses. “I didn’t consider her my equal anymore I guess, as fucked-up as that sounds. I saw you whenever I could, but then each time became longer apart, until I just didn’t come by at all.”
“What was the final straw that ended things between you?” I find myself asking.
He breathes out through his nose, his nostrils flaring. “Pictures came out.”
He says no more, and I can only imagine what pictures. Probably him with another woman. Did he even tell Mom he didn’t want to be with her anymore? Or did he just keep her on the sidelines? I’m not sure I want to know.
“I knew you were busy, and I get it, but you mustn’t have cared at all if you couldn’t see me even once a year on my birthday, or just to pick up the phone. Did you even think of me?” I ask, letting my vulnerability show. “Because we thought about you all the time. I know Mom did.”
“Of course I thought about you. Both of you,” he whispers, voice catching. “I guess I thought I didn’t deserve you both after leaving you.”
“Then what makes you think you deserve to be in my life now?” I ask.
He shrugs. “You’re my only child. All I have is a life full of regrets. It’s now or never to try and make things as right as I can.”
I exhale slowly, thinking about everything I’ve just learned. I didn’t know what to say. I’d made myself numb toward anything to do with him, because that was the only way I could deal with it, by making myself pretend I didn’t really care where he was or whether he cared about me. The unfortunate truth is that he’s my father, so I always cared, I always hurt just beneath the surface, wondering why I wasn’t good enough, something Anna and I had in common. Why other kids had loving fathers but we didn’t. What was it about us? Of course now I know it had nothing to do with me, it was all to do with him, but as a child I obviously didn’t see it like that.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask quietly. Then I admit, “I’m sorry Rake hit you. I didn’t want that to happen.”
“We all know I deserved it,” he says, smiling sadly. “I deserve much more. And luckily it was Rake, not Tracker. I’d probably be in the hospital if it was.”
I don’t bother denying it.
“Still,” I say.
No point sinking to his level.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Lana,” he says, a proud glint entering his eyes. “Tracker is a lucky man. I know it’s much too late, but if you ever want to talk, or . . . anything. I will never turn you away again if you need me.”