A Brush with Love(72)

Dan felt her eyes on him as he moved around in the kitchen, her attention making him feel light and warm. The simplicity with which he could be with her brought a sense of peace and domesticity he’d never realized he wanted.

“Where did you learn to make pancakes?” she asked, sipping her coffee.

“Culinary school in France.”

Harper rolled her eyes and poked her foot into his thigh, making him laugh.

“My mom used to make them for me and my dad every weekend,” he said. “I always liked helping her cook.”

“Are you close to her?”

Dan shook his head, pressing his lips into a firm line. “We used to be. Things kind of … shifted though, when my dad died. I probably should call her…” he said more to himself than to Harper. “She keeps texting me that she needs to talk about something important regarding the practice. I just know I don’t want to hear whatever it is.”

He could sense Harper’s trepidation, wondering if she could go there, ask the murky questions about his relationship with his dad, the obvious strain with his mom. He turned to her, placing his hands on either side of her legs, and leaned toward her.

“You can ask me. Nothing is off-limits when it comes to you.” He kissed the tip of her nose and turned back to the stove.

“How did things shift?”

“We dealt with watching him die differently.” Dan glanced at Harper, who stared at him intently, silently urging him on. “My parents met in dental school and got married before graduation. I do believe my dad loved my mom, as much as he was capable of loving her, but he also expected my mom to give up a lot. She originally wanted to go home to Lebanon after graduating, but he demanded they stay here. She was thinking about specializing, he wanted her to work at his practice. She wanted to bring her culture into her life here, he wanted her to assimilate fully into Americana. His career always came first. The practice always came first. So, growing up, she and I had an almost unspoken alliance that he was an asshole, and it ended up making us close. For the most part, she quietly supported me paving my own way, creating my own life, and it created distance between her and my dad, I think.”

Dan scooped the pancakes onto a plate and added more batter to the pan. “But when he was diagnosed with cancer, we both reacted in opposite extremes, and it’s created some tension between us.”

“‘Extremes’ in what way?”

Dan frowned down at the pancakes, using the edge of the spatula to check the bottoms. “My mom was consumed with guilt, I think—like she thought she should be the one dying instead of him, like his life was the important one. It made her reflect on things—their marriage, me, my career—in a not so flattering light.” Dan reached behind Harper for his coffee cup, and she brushed her hand through his hair. The small gesture soothed the wound that was opening in his chest.

“I, on the other hand, felt anger. My dad was always obsessed with this ideal version of what my life should be, who I should be. I was supposed to follow his path, live up to his reputation, eventually go into practice with them, run it after they retired, repeat it all with my own family. But I was never interested. I swear he almost had a stroke when I told him I switched my major from biology to finance.” Dan took a sip of his coffee.

“I still did all the prereqs and exams for dental school and was ready to start at Callowhill a few years ago, but I backed out at the last minute.” He paused, staring at the pan for a minute. “He was so angry. It was like I was the scum of the earth. I never understood that. How could he care that much what I did? I loved math and business and found fulfillment in finance”—he shot her a teasing look—“much to your chagrin.” Harper gave him a weak smile. “And yet it was like I was the biggest failure he could have conjured up. Not doing exactly what he wanted was the greatest sin I could commit.” He played with the edges of one of the pancakes.

“I was actually pretty successful at it too,” he continued. “Finance, I mean. I got a job at a decent firm up in New York after graduation, and I was primed to climb the ladder quickly. My dad pretty much stopped talking to me though. It was like I no longer existed once I deviated from his plan. My mom would come visit me without him, and when I went home, he’d look right through me—pretend I wasn’t there.”

Dan moved the pancakes off the heat and added the last of the batter to the pan. He couldn’t bring himself to look straight at Harper, scared she’d see the lump sitting heavily in his throat.

“It didn’t even bother me that much. I almost preferred his silence to him constantly telling me what a failure I was. But it never made sense to me. Like, how could I be doing as well as I was in a job I had busted my ass for, and it wasn’t good enough? How could I be successful and happy on paper, but he hated me for that?” Dan shook his head to clear out the questions he’d never find answers to.

“But after he got sick, my mom fell apart. I came home to take care of her, do whatever she needed during that time.”

Dan could still see his mom with blue-black circles below her eyes from countless hours at his father’s hospital bed. Toward the end her back had taken on a permanent hunch, as if she could curl into herself and protect her body from the pain.

“I wanted to be there for her while she watched her husband die, no matter how I felt about him. But even in those last weeks, he still wanted to fight me, provoke me. It was like as long as he could find the breath to tell me how disappointing I was, he could keep living.” Dan fiddled with the spatula, hearing his dad’s harsh words echo over and over in his mind.