Hush (Black Lotus #3)(64)
“I don’t want to tell you what to do in this situation, but I think staying away is the best choice. I’d be afraid she’d only hurt you.”
“Have you spoken to her since all that?”
“No. As soon as I had you back in my arms, I was done with her and, aside from the day I had to testify at her trial, I never spoke to her or saw her again.”
When there’s nothing else to be said, we sit in a short span of silence before my dad attempts to lighten the mood. “Tell me something good. Something funny from your childhood.”
He has no idea that there’s nothing funny about my childhood, but Declan catches the conversation before it drops and says to my dad, “Better yet, why don’t you tell me more about Elizabeth. What was she like as a little girl?”
Thank you, Declan.
My father’s face instantly lights up with a smile as he reflects on the past. “She was a spitfire of a girl, but in the most endearing way possible.”
“So I see that part of her hasn’t swayed.” Declan’s voice is full of humor, but I keep my attention on my father as he goes on.
“She didn’t have any women in her life, it was only me and a couple of my good friends that surrounded her,” he says and then turns to look at me. “But, somehow, you were so soft and pink and everything a little girl should be.”
He says this with a doting smile, which makes me smile as well.
He turns back to Declan and tells him, “I used to have a short beard, almost the same length as yours, and one thing she would always do was rub her tiny hands over it. She’d giggle and tell me she liked the way it felt as it crackled against her palms.”
I look over to Declan when my dad says this because I do the exact same thing to Declan’s beard every single day. And I do it because it’s always reminded me of my dad, and it simply makes me feel good. Declan gazes into my eyes and gives me a hint of a smile when he puts those two puzzle pieces together.
“But as girly as she was, she still wanted to be my right-hand man,” he continues with a chuckle. “I can remember when we moved into the Northbrook house . . .”
“We didn’t always live there?”
“No. After everything with your mom, I decided it would be best that you and I had a fresh start together. I bought that house for us.”
“I never knew that,” I murmur.
“You were only three years old at the time, but you insisted on having a little tool belt of your own so you could help me hang the window treatments and artwork on the walls. I wound up tracking one down at a nearby toy store, and you wore it proudly as you followed me around the house.”
I laugh when he tells me this, saying, “I don’t remember that.”
“Well, you were so young, but, yeah, you’d pull out your plastic hammer and tap it against the wall every time I would hammer in a nail.” He stops for a moment and smiles at me before continuing, “There was one time when I had a couple buddies of mine over, Danny and Garrett. Do you remember them?”
I do my best to think back and vaguely recall, “You mean Uncle Danny?”
“You do remember,” he says happily. “Danny was a good friend of mine and he insisted that since you didn’t have any aunts or uncles, that you should call him Uncle Danny.”
“I don’t remember his face or anything, but I do remember an Uncle Danny,” I tell him.
He turns to Declan and explains, “Danny and I had known each other since our twenties, and when it was just Elizabeth and me, he’d started to come around more often to spend time with her. But anyway,” he says, shifting his attention back to the story. “I was in the attic, laying insulation because it was unfinished, and I wanted to turn it into a storage space. You were downstairs playing with Uncle Danny, and I had stumbled and my foot slipped off the rafter I was standing on and my one leg fell right through the floor.” He starts laughing. “I hollered down to you two, and instead of Danny coming to help me, he took you out to the garage where my leg was hanging through the ceiling. He picked you up so you could reach me and encouraged you to take my shoe off and tickle my foot.”
Declan and I join in my father’s laughter as he tells this story I have no memory of.
“The more I laughed, the more you tickled, and the more I started to slip through. But I could hear you giggling, and you were having the time of your life.”
“Well, it looks like your leg survived that ordeal,” I tease.
“It did,” he says and then faces Declan. “But if you really want to know what she was like as a child, she was perfect. She had the softest heart and always wanted to please people. If I told her to do something, she always did it and never fought me. She was kind and she was sensitive,” he says and then looks at me, finishing, “and she was my every dream come true.”
He goes on to tell a couple more funny stories, and when we finish our lunch and clean up, he turns to me and asks, “You feel like getting out of here?”
“I thought you couldn’t . . .”
“Forget what I said. You want to go for a walk?”
“Um . . . yeah. That sounds great, Dad.”
“It’s a little cold outside, but why don’t I take you over to Owen Beach?”
With a smile, I respond, “Okay. Let me go change my clothes, and I’ll be ready.” I give Declan a smile when I walk past him and into the bedroom. Closing the door, I rush into the closet like a kid about to go to her favorite candy store. I slip off my dress pants and pull on a pair of jeans before grabbing a hooded raincoat. I dig through Declan’s clothes, looking for his jacket, and when I find it, I make a quick stop in front of the mirror to wrap my hair up in a bun on top of my head.