I didn’t even get my car door opened before I heard the front door of my childhood home slam against the wall inside. I whipped my head up and saw my father barreling through the door, lunging himself off the porch. And Uncle Colton wasn’t too far behind him. I felt my resolve crumbling. The strength I forced myself to have was quickly dwindling as they made their way to me. The first step I took was sound, and the second step I took was quick. But when I saw the worry and the love in my father’s eyes, I crumbled into his arms and held him close.

“It’s okay, Callie. I’ve got you,” he said.

“I’m sorry I couldn't take your calls. I was so busy and angry and exams were a living nightmare this year and--.”

“It’s okay. Callie, it’s fine. You’re home and that’s all that matters.”

I held my father tightly as he murmured softly into my ear. I didn’t care that he wasn’t my biological father. To me, he had always been my father. Always been the one I looked to for strength and support. I got my feet underneath me and pressed further into him, seeking the love and care he had always given me.

Always given my mother, when she was still alive.

I felt a strong presence brush by us and I looked up from my father’s shoulder. I caught the tail end of Colton’s stride as he made his way to my trunk. I heard it being thrown open before he began grunting and groaning. Wrestling with my suitcases as he pulled them out onto the pavement. I released my father from my grasp and turned around to see my uncle gathering all of my things within his grasp.

And for a split second, I reveled at the way his arms flexed underneath his suit.

“Looking sharp, Colt,” I said.

“Just because your father dresses like a dad doesn’t mean I have to,” he said.

“I think my dad’s a sharp dresser,” I said.

“At least someone does,” my father said, smiling.

“Let me help you with those,” I said.

“Oh, no you don’t. You get inside. Your father just tortured me with ‘Dream On’, and I need something to release the stress,” Colton said.

“I thought someone smelled fresh and clean,” I said, grinning.

“Is it true?” my father asked.

“Can you not wait until the woman gets inside?” Colton asked.

“No, no. It’s okay,” I said.

I found my father’s stare and drew in a deep breath.

“It is,” I said.

“So, the engagement’s off?” my father asked.

“Yeah. I gave him his ring back and said it wasn’t going to happen. That I didn’t want to see him or speak with him after that moment. But, now he won’t stop calling me to talk.”

A sound hit my ears that caused me to whip my head around to take in my uncle. He heaved all of my things off the ground and brushed by us again, and the sound hit my ears once more. I furrowed my brow as I looked towards my father, seeing if maybe he heard it as well.

If I didn’t know any better, it sounded like Colton… growled?

“We’ll talk about all of that later, okay sweetheart? Right now, we need to get you settled in and fed,” my father said.

“Ever the caretaker. Mom was very lucky to have found you,” I said.

“And I’m lucky to have found you both.”

He wrapped his arm around me and brought my forehead to his lips to kiss. Then, he began ushering me inside. I watched Colton lug my things upstairs and turn the corner into my room, and I found my eyes following him until he disappeared. My father closed the door behind us and the thud ripped me from my trance again, and soon his hand was on the small of my back guiding me into the kitchen.

“I really should go help Uncle Colton with my bags,” I said.

“He’s fine. If anything, he’ll drop them and get back down here. He plays coy, but he’s been just as worried about you as I have.”

“I know. He’s been sending me text messages and trying to call me, too. I’m really sorry, Dad. I just couldn't handle it. I didn’t have a lot of answers and this all happened during studying for finals.”

“And like I said, I’m just glad you’re home. You can take the summer to decompress. Heal. Figure out your next move. Tea?”

“Yes, please,” I said, giggling.

While I was mostly a coffee drinker, I did enjoy Clayton’s tea. I don’t know what he did differently with it, but nowhere I attempted to get tea made it quite like he did. I sat down at the kitchen table and watched him move around the kitchen and I saw my mother dancing around him. It was the little things in their relationship that set the standard for me. Like how they always knew where the other would be. Just watching them in the kitchen in the mornings was like watching an intimate tango between two lovers. They moved and jived together, and sometimes when it was just Clayton and I, I could see her moving around him. The ghost of her memory wrapping around his body like she always did.

“Here you go,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“Not a problem. Been a while since we shared a cup together.”

“I don’t think I’ve been home since Christmas.”

“Well, it’s fine. Both your uncle and I know how hard you’re working to get your Master’s next year. We get it.”

“I still feel bad for not taking your phone calls. Or Colton’s,” I said.

“Don’t do that to yourself. You’re going through enough.”

“I think that was the issue, honestly. Sure, I had exams. But I was so emotionally drained from the news stations touting about our relationship and the pictures and dodging the cameras.”

“Do you want to talk about it, Callie?”

I took a sip of my tea and moaned before I sat back into my chair. I turned the mug around against my thigh, feeling the burn of the ceramic against my clothed leg. Did I want to talk about it? There was so much running through my mind. And as a psychological professional, I could dig through most of it.

But as that same professional, I also understood the value of talking with someone.

“You know, I thought things were okay between us,” I said.

I looked up into my father’s face and saw him set his tea down onto the kitchen table.

“And it’s so crazy, because we’ve already put down the down payments for everything. You know, the vineyard in Napa Valley. The caterer. The band for the reception. We already cut those checks for all that stuff. Non-refundable stuff that Matthew said he would foot. It’s insane to me. Then, I wake up one morning and I see pictures of him plastered all over the morning news of him and some red-headed woman kissing and groping on one another. I mean, he’s over in Costa Rica or wherever the hell they were, and I’m in my private dorm room at Stanford making instant coffee!”

My father’s hand came down onto my knee and it forced tears to my eyes.

“We tried to work through it. I tried to get him to go to counseling with me. I even tried dipping into my own personal resources at the college to try and secure us someone to talk to that would be discreet and sign an NDA so they couldn't talk to the media. Or at least be sued if they did. But he kept denying the help. Saying we didn’t need it. He kept pawning it off on me, like his cheating was my fault.”

“What did he say to you, sweetheart?” my father asked.

“He kept saying I grew distant because of my degree. That I wasn’t willing to spend as much time with him as I used to and was using my degree as an excuse to put distance between us. And I thought maybe he had a point. Maybe I was doing that and didn’t realize it. That maybe I was, in part, contributing to all this. So, I told him I would get personal help as opposed to us getting couples counseling if he cut ties with whoever this woman was.”

“Wait, you’ve been seeing a therapist?”

“Yeah. For the past five months. Ever since the first round of pictures dropped at the beginning of the semester.”

“Callie, you know it’s not your fault. You’re not the one that made him cheat.”

“I know that. The professional in me knows that. But, at the time, I don’t know what happened, Dad. So, we had that agreement. It was all to get us back on our feet and back on the right ground because we’d already put down all this money on the wedding,” I said.

I drew in a deep breath before I took another sip of my tea.

“But this last round of photos doesn’t shock me,” I said.

“Why not?” my father asked.

I rose my eyes to him and felt myself melt into my chair from embarrassment.

“I walked in on him and her screwing around in his apartment three weeks ago,” I said.

“You what?” he asked.

“Yeah. Matthew had a rental apartment about a block away from Stanford for us to spend time in. You know, whenever he came in from Los Angeles to visit me. I thought things were going really well between us and I felt bad for having to turn down yet another weekend vacation idea of his, so I figured I could take the vacation to him. I had a basket of food and this new outfit and plans to stay in with him and have this movie marathon. And when I walked in, there they were.”

“Callie, I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“That’s when I threw my ring at him. She was screaming and he was screaming and I was… I was really screaming. It bounced off his chest and I told him it was over and that I never wanted to see him again. Ever. And I stormed out and never once looked back.”

“Good for you,” he said.

“I don’t know how the news networks got that information. You know, about the engagement being broken off. I heard it announced on the radio not too long before I pulled in.”

“Knowing Matthew and how starved for attention he can get, he probably leaked it.”

“Or maybe someone in one of my classes noticed I didn’t have my ring on and gossiped to the wrong person. Or maybe it was her. The red-headed bimbo.”

I heard my father chuckle and I shook my head.

“Sorry,” I said.

“No apology necessary. I just don’t hear you cuss often.”

“Trust me, I do it in my head a lot.”

“I can only imagine.”

He smiled at me before he took my hand within his and cupped his other hand over it. I watched him use that gesture many times with my mother over the years when she needed comfort. I sighed and wrapped my fingers around his hands before I closed my eyes, and I felt my father pull me and my chair closer to him.

“Open your eyes, Callie. I want you to look at me when I tell you this.”

My eyes fluttered open, but not before a tear escaped down my cheek. I could’ve sworn I saw my father’s heart break in his eyes at that very moment. Just before he brushed it off my skin.

“Matthew is a load of bullshit,” he said.

A breathless giggle fell from my lips as I shook my head.

“He is. And I should’ve listened to your uncle when he told me he was no good for you.”

“Colt said that?” I asked.

“He did. He didn’t want me giving my permission for Matthew to marry you, but I didn’t listen. I really thought more of Matthew than that, and I’m regretting ever ignoring your uncle’s advice. What I want you to know is that you deserve better than that, Callie. You deserve someone worth your time and your energy. Someone who will support your goals instead of using them as a crutch to blame a relationship’s difficulties on you.”

“I know.”

“Someone will come along who is worth your time, and it will be worth the wait. Your mother was. I was twenty-eight years old when I hired your mother to work for our company that had only been opened for a couple of years. I didn’t even think about telling her I loved her until I was almost thirty, and we didn’t marry until I was almost thirty-three. The right man will come along, Callie. And when he does, you’ll know it.”

“I thought I knew it with Matthew,” I said.

“You also met him when you were young. You were just barely twenty. No one knows love that young, Callie. And Matthew? He’s nothing but a spoiled trust fund baby with too much time on his hands and no work ethic. All he wants is to jet around the world, drain the countries he dips into of their resources, and spend his grandfather’s money.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” I said.

“I can if you want me to.”

I laughed and shook my head before I sighed. I allowed my head to fall to his shoulder and I felt him wrap me up in his loving embrace. I sniffled against his shoulder. I felt the urge to cry again. But with every tear I watched him break a little more, and I didn’t want to hurt him. Not like I was hurting. I didn’t want anyone else to be broken by the trail of selfishness and destruction Matthew left in his wake with his actions. So, I held them back as best as I could.

“I love you, Callie,” my father said.

“I love you, too, Clay. You’re the best damn father any girl could ask for.”

I felt him kiss the top of my head before I crawled into his lap.

“I’m not too old for this, am I?” I asked.

His arms wrapped tighter around me as my legs curled to fit in his lap.

“You’ll always be my little girl, Callie. Whether we’re blood-related or not.”

And as I sat there on my father’s lap, allowing him to comfort me in ways he always had down through the years, only one thought ran through my mind.

It feels so good to finally be home.