Believing (Lily Dale #2)(33)

“I’ve gone up to Malibu once or twice,” her father tells her. “Dan surfs, so he goes up all the time.” Dan is the friend Dad’s staying with out there. “He talked me into it.”

“Did you try surfing?” She’s wide-eyed at the thought of her father in a bathing suit, let alone on a surfboard.

“Yeah . . . tried and failed.” He laughs. “But it was actually fun. I might try it again.”

Wow. Maybe she doesn’t know him as well as she thought she did.

That’s a strange feeling. Just as it was when she figured out that there might have been more to her mother than Calla ever knew when she was alive.

Is this what it’s like when you grow up and drift apart from your family? Do you start seeing your parents less as parents, more as just . . . people?

People with quirks and faults and secrets.

A fresh sense of loss sweeps through Calla. It isn’t fair. She’ll never have the chance to be an adult alongside her mother—to be women together. She was cheated out of that.

Nobody ever said life was supposed to be fair.

Anyway, Dad’s going to be around. And she’s going to grow up, and they’re going to have to build some kind of relationship, some kind of life. In California or Florida or . . . wherever. Just the two of them.

They walk along and Calla kicks a pebble a few times, thinking the silence is awkward. She has to say something, anything, to break it.

“So, Dad . . . does Lily Dale look like you pictured it?”

“I never really tried to picture it, I don’t think. Not until you came to stay here, anyway.”

“Really?”

He shakes his head. “All I knew was that it was a small town by a lake, with long, stormy winters. And that Mom left when she graduated from high school.”

“And never looked back,” Calla murmurs. “Right?”

“Right. Calla . . .” Dad pauses as though he’s weighing his words carefully before going on. “Your mother didn’t have the happiest childhood here. Her father left when she was young, and your grandmother . . . well, I’m sure she did her best, but she’s not the most stable person I’ve ever known.”

“I know, but she’s—”

“Look, Odelia’s been great through all of this. To you and to me, too, even. That’s why this feels so . . . strange.”

“What does?”

“Being here.” He looks around, waves a hand at the row of cottages, and at the lake visible beyond. “Because I never got the feeling your mother had any intention of coming back. Even to visit.”

“Did she say that?”

“No. We didn’t talk about it.”

“Ever?”

He shrugs. “She didn’t want to and I didn’t push her. So even though I can understand your wanting to know more about her life here, I don’t think it’s something she carried with her after she left.”

Calla could tell him that he might be wrong about that, but that would only open the door to something neither of them is prepared to handle right now.

Dad clears his throat, but his voice still sounds ragged when he goes on. “I think Mom would just want you to remember her how—and where—she was when she was a part of your life. Our lives.”

Calla’s eyes fill with tears, and she looks down, trying hard not to cry.

“Cal, I’m sorry.” Dad stops walking and puts a gentle hand on her arm.

“For what?” She wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt and looks up. He’s blurry. She is crying, dammit.

“For upsetting you about Mom. I know it’s hard for you. It’s hard for me, too. Look, maybe . . . maybe when I go back to California, you should come with me. Forget about staying here another month or two and just—”

“No!” she cuts in. “I can’t do that, Dad! I mean, where would I even stay?”

“I’m sure we could work something out with Dan and—”

“But I can’t!” she says again, trying not to sound frantic. “I mean, I’ve got my babysitting job here now, and Paula’s counting on me, and anyway . . . I shouldn’t leave when I’m having all this trouble in math,” she adds without thinking, grasping at straws.

“What trouble in math?” he asks sharply.

Oops. She wasn’t going to tell him about that.

She quickly explains the situation, trying to make the issue sound important enough that she should stay here and get caught up on the curriculum, but not so urgent that her father will be concerned about her academics and pull her out of Lily Dale High.

“I’m already getting back on the right track,” she assures him, “so you don’t have to worry.”

“Too late. I’m worried. You’re about to start applying to colleges. You need to keep your grades up.”

College? That’s the last thing on her mind with all that’s gone on.

Back before Mom died, they used to talk about where she would apply, and the trips they would take together to visit various campuses. Mom—who put herself through a state university, then got an Ivy League MBA—wanted Calla to get into a good school. When Kevin was accepted into Cornell, Mom was probably even more thrilled than Mrs. Wilson was.