Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths, #4)(115)

It all sounds so easy.

Hank had written several letters to me, hoping he’d one day have a place to send them. After his death, MaryAnn gave the letters to Bethany MacKay, my father’s sister. An aunt who I didn’t even know existed. Who lives twenty minutes away from me. MaryAnn had a hunch that one day Hank’s long-lost daughter would track the MacKay family down.

“You met my dad one night at a Miami bar where his band was playing. He had just broken up with his girlfriend. You were watching him play the guitar. And then, when some girl tried to cut in front of you, you dumped a beer down the back of her shirt. You pretended it was an accident but my dad saw you intentionally pour it.” I smile at that. It’s something I would do, except I wouldn’t hide it. I’d own up to it with pleasure. “He said you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. You started dating right away. He’d drive an hour into the city every chance he got. Then, six months later, when you found out that you were pregnant with me, you got married. Neither of you thought twice about it.”

I begin retelling all that that first letter explained in great detail, stories that I’d never heard from Annabelle. As I do, I see the emotions threatening to break through her mask. “You moved into a two-bedroom apartment in his hometown, where he worked as a mechanic in his father’s garage. You stayed home with me.” I step farther into the room, my eyes taking in the painted portrait of Annabelle that sits over the fireplace on the wall, in a sexy slip dress and a fur stole. “You hated it. You hated being stuck with a baby at home. You were bored with small-town life. You wanted to move to Miami but Hank wasn’t willing; he was the only one bringing in a paycheck. Plus, he was going to take over the business from his dad.

“You two fought a lot because of it. You fought a lot in general. You had a huge argument one Friday night when I was about three and the neighbors called the cops. Hank was so mad, he took off for a few hours. When he came home, he found you passed out on the couch. I was sitting in a pool of spilled vodka, crying. That’s when you claimed you were suffering from postpartum depression, and that you were going to get help. After that, he started taking me everywhere with him, until you got better.”

From what Hank learned of her parents—who I apparently met, though I don’t remember—Annabelle was raised in a middle-income household where hugs were meaningless and image was everything. That she fell in love with my dad—a blue-collar, guitar-playing, Harley-riding, tattooed guy—was against everything she’d learned growing up. But it also proves that Annabelle once knew how to love. How to let her heart win.

My dad began bringing me to the garage. He knew it wasn’t an ideal place for a little girl but he could see a change in me right away: how much more I laughed and smiled and talked around him.

“Things didn’t get better. You were still so miserable, stuck in that small town with a little kid in your early twenties. You started resenting him for all of it. He figured he was going to come home one day and find you gone.” And he started wishing for it, he had admitted in his letter.

“You two drifted apart. And then my dad ran into MaryAnn—his ex-girlfriend before you, who had broken up with him when she went away to college. Things just kind of picked up where they left off.” I turn to take in Annabelle’s face. “He cheated on you.” I’m surprised she never told me. I would have thought that being able to blame Hank MacKay would have given her satisfaction. I also would have thought that she might reveal the truth, knowing how much pain I felt in a very similar situation with Jared. An eerily similar situation. Sure, it was a much shorter relationship and we hadn’t created another human, but still, that kind of heartache could have found us some common ground, something we finally shared.

But instead, her pride kept her silent for sixteen years.

You would think that with that much time passed and three husbands later, Annabelle would be indifferent at the very least. But when I see her eyes brim with tears and her jaw visibly tighten, I know that she is far from indifferent.

I see firsthand how badly my father hurt her.

When I read through the candid account of what led to my parent’s breakup, something happened that I’ve never experienced with Annabelle: I felt for her.

“They were together for six months before you found a receipt for a necklace he had bought her. You confronted him. He admitted it and asked for a divorce.”

It feels weird, running through the events of my parents’ history with the woman who lived it. But she’s spent so much time running from it, and dragging me down with her. It’s time we both faced the past—the thing that’s gotten us here.

“He told you he was moving to Tallahassee. MaryAnn had inherited her grandparents’ ranch. He wanted to take me with him.” That my dad had refused to move, to give up the garage for Annabelle—the mother of his child—but was more than willing to walk away from it all for another woman, must have been devastating for Annabelle.

It would certainly crush me.

“You stormed out of the apartment in a rage. He packed me up in the truck and drove to her ranch. He wanted to see how I’d like it there.” I feel the sad smile touch my lips, thinking back to the fleeting memory of chasing a chicken. One of my few memories of that weekend. “Apparently I loved it there. I got along well with MaryAnn.” The smile drops off. “After a few days, when he hoped you had calmed down, he packed me up and we started heading back. We stopped at a truck stop just outside of Gainesville to have dinner. That’s when my dad called you and you told him that you had reported me kidnapped. That you were going to make him regret the affair.”