Discovering (Lily Dale #4)(56)

“I’ve asked myself that very question every day of my life,”Jack Lauder says at last, “and I think I know why I haven’t been able to answer it until now.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like the answer. I don’t want to face the ugly truth about myself.”

Dad sits on the step beside him. “What is it, Jack?”

“That I couldn’t accept the woman I married. I loved her, but I couldn’t accept her, or the things that went on around her. I guess I wasn’t man enough to handle it. I was afraid.”

“A lot of people are afraid of things they can’t understand,”Dad points out.

“Maybe. That’s no excuse. I took a vow, and then I broke it. Ran away. What kind of man runs away?”

Calla thinks of Darrin.

Then of Mom, who twice in her life was abandoned by men she loved.

No wonder she didn’t want to tell Dad where she’d come from. She was afraid of losing him, too.

Seeing the look on Dad’s face, Calla realizes he’s thinking the same thing— and forgiving Mom.

“So what happened, exactly? One day, you just woke up and couldn’t take it anymore and decided to leave?”Calla asks her grandfather.

“Not exactly. One day I woke up and found my little girl talking to someone who wasn’t there.”

“What do you mean?”Calla asks, as an incredible thought takes hold somewhere in the back of her mind.

“Stephanie was having a conversation with someone only she could see. . . . That used to happen a lot, but I tried to ignore it. Told myself a lot of kids have imaginary friends. But that day, as I was watching Stephanie, I saw a chair pull itself out from her little table, like someone had just sat down in the spot where her imaginary friend would be. And I realized . . . it wasn’t an imaginary friend. She was seeing ghosts, too.”

Wide-eyed, Calla and her father look at each other.

“But Mom . . . she wasn’t . . . I mean, she wasn’t like her mother,”Calla protests, unable to grasp what Jack Lauder is telling her. “She didn’t have the ability to—”

“Yes, she did. At least, she did when she was a little girl.”

“How can you know that?”Dad asks.

“I know what I saw with my own eyes. And I know what Stephanie told me. I marched over there and I demanded to know who she was talking to, and she said it was a ghost named Miriam. What kind of kid makes up a name like Miriam?”

Calla feels as though the wind has been knocked out of her with a baseball bat.

“I yelled at her,”Jack says, wiping tears from his eyes again. “I yelled at my baby girl for something she couldn’t help. I told her to cut it out. Stop making things up. She said she wasn’t making things up. Then I told her . . . I told her she was nuts. Just like her mother.”His voice breaks. “I’m so ashamed.”

Sick inside, Calla can’t find a thing to say that won’t just make it harder on him.

He was wrong to say what he said, to do what he did. So, so wrong.

Because of him, Calla realizes, Mom denied who she really was— not just to the rest of the world, but to herself.

That’s why Mom was so upset when she realized I had the ability, too, when I was younger. That’s why she told me never to tell anyone, not even Dad.

“I’ve spent every day of my life regretting that,”Jack Lauder tells Dad and Calla, shaking his head. “So many times, I wanted to go back to my wife and daughter . . . but how could I? By the time I figured out that I loved them the way they were, too much time had passed. I missed it all. I missed everything.”

“But you remarried,”Dad points out.

“Yes. Don’t get me wrong— I love my wife. We’ve had a good life together. Better than I deserved. But I never forgot what I left behind.”He pauses. “Did Stephanie . . . did she ever mention me?”

“Just that you left,”Calla tells him honestly. “And that it really hurt her.”

Understatement of the year.

“I’m so sorry,”Jack says again. “And now I’ll never have the chance to tell her.”

“No,”Dad says. “It’s too late for that.”

“But it’s not too late to tell my grandmother.”

Jack Lauder looks at Calla, startled.

“No,”he agrees thoughtfully, “it’s not too late for that.”

“Maybe some closure would be good for everyone,”Dad says.

“Where would I find Odelia?”he asks. “If, someday, I wanted to talk to her?”

“Same place she was when you left her.”

“How is she?”

“She’s great,”Calla says fiercely, not wanting him to think Odelia has been wasting away since he left.

Jack nods. “I’m not surprised. I knew she’d land on her feet. I’m sure she was better off without me.”

How can he say that? Calla wonders. Maybe it’s the only way he can deal with what he did.

It seems like lately all she’s done is listen to the adults in her life admit that they’re flawed; that they’ve made serious mistakes.

Things were a lot easier back when she believed that growing up meant you were wise, and always knew what to do, and did the right thing.