Chapter Nineteen

LARA

By the time I get the first text message from Ethan, I’m already starting to regret agreeing to meet with my father for dinner. Right from the beginning, I had gotten the feeling that Dad’s feelings concerning Ethan, rather than mellowing, had only gotten more intensely resentful.

My phone buzzes in my pocket as Dad’s getting the bread he’d nearly forgotten out of the oven where he’d been warming it.

My parents are going on about your dad wanting to pull some kind of legal bullshit?

I know that Dad has mentioned how I should have full custody of Riley, instead of sharing guardianship with Ethan, but I haven’t heard anything recently about him pursuing any kind of legal way of doing that.

When Dad comes in I decide to tread lightly. Dad’s obviously still grieving. We all are, but it’s harder for him, it has to be. He’s lost his wife and a daughter less than a year apart and both losses are still raw.

“Things are working out really well with the arrangements between Ethan and me,” I say as he sits back down. I help myself to a warmed-up roll and spread some butter on it.

“You’re getting to spend a lot of time with Riley, right?” I nod in answer to Dad’s question. He’s not as good a cook as Mom, but they’d mostly shared the duties of taking care of dinner most of my childhood, so at least he hadn’t fallen into the habit of a lot of suddenly alone people of eating takeout most of the time.

“She’s at my place a few days a week, and then, obviously, with you or with Ethan’s parents, and then with him. He’s really holding up well with Alexis gone. Better than I would have thought.” I glance up and Dad’s got a bleak expression on his face.

“If I didn’t know better, I would say that he expected for Alexis to be out of the picture before too long, and was prepared for it,” Dad says.

“I don’t think anyone really thought that would happen,” I counter.

“Well, it’s not like he hasn’t taken full advantage of her death,” Dad says sourly.

“How?” I stare at my father in confusion, wondering just where he’s getting his information from.

“He’s got everyone jumping through hoops to help him keep giving Riley a normal life, and it just isn’t fair, not after he killed your sister,” Dad tells me.

I shake my head. “He didn’t kill Alexis. He had an accident, one that the police, the insurance and everyone else in the entire world has said he couldn’t have avoided, and there’s nothing for him to pay for.”

“He ripped this family apart and then destroyed it,” Dad insists.

“No, Dad. He got together with someone who maybe he shouldn’t have, and married her, and had a baby with her,” I tell him. “I might blame him and might still blame Alexis for betraying me back then… but there’s nothing since then to blame him for.”

“How can you say that?” Dad glares at me.

“Because it’s true. He married Alexis, and he loved her, and there’s nothing wrong with two married people in love having a baby,” I point out.

“You’ve been spending too much time around him. That’s the only way I can explain how you could possibly feel this way.”

“I feel this way because my sister died, and I have to find some way to figure out how to live with her husband and my niece,” I explain.

“So, you’re spending all this time around him and now he’s got you wrapped around his finger, just like everyone else. The poor, pitiful widower.”

I have to wonder if part of Dad’s problem isn’t that he feels jealous of losing the status of being the widower in the family.

I text Ethan under the table. It’s coming really clear to me that instead of spending the months since Alexis died coming to terms with what happened, Dad has just gotten angrier. He’s blaming Ethan, and even when I still hated Ethan the most, when my feelings concerning him were the worst, I couldn’t have come up with a way to blame him for Alexis’ death.

“Dad, I love you, and I want you to be part of Riley’s life,” I say.

“I should hope so. Come on, Lara. Don’t you think it would be better if you had sole custody of her? It would make more sense. She needs a mother figure, and a real one, not just someone who spends half the week with her. And I can help you raise her.”

I shake my head hard. I’m glad that I’ve managed to finish dinner first, but I definitely need to get out of here. I text Ethan once again.

Dad is off the rails. I need to get out of here. I’m leaving here in the next fifteen minutes, if it’s at all possible.

I let Dad rant for a few more minutes, going over material I’ve already heard. How Ethan is irresponsible, how he’d never really been fully okay with the way that Ethan dated me and then Alexis as if it didn’t matter which of us he was dating. How it was Ethan’s fault that the family fell apart, and that it shouldn’t matter that he was Riley’s father.

“Dad, I love you and I want you to be part of Riley’s life, but I need you to listen to me,” I say.

Dad looks at me in surprise and I take the dishes from the table into the kitchen, gathering up my nerve and mentally rehearsing for a moment. I hate leaving Dad to do the dishes himself, but I have to get out of here.

“What do you mean?”

“If you can’t drop this thing about me needing to have full custody of Riley, or if you try to pull some kind of legal maneuvering to punish Ethan by taking his child out of his life, I will make sure that you have no contact with her, or with me,” I say firmly.

“What are you saying, Lara?”

“I’m saying that if you want to remain part of Riley’s life, and mine, you are going to have to learn to keep your mouth shut about how much Ethan is to blame. He’s not at all to blame in Alexis’ death, and he’s not the only one to blame in the falling out Alexis and I had.”

I lean in and kiss him on the forehead, and turn around. I grab my purse and hurry out to my car before Dad can come up with anything to say to try to make me stay. I have to get home. I have to think about what the hell my life has become.