It's Better This Way(64)

    “Why does anything have to be up?”

“Tea. You only serve tea when we’re about to have a serious discussion.”

Julia leaned back against the sofa and smiled to herself, surprised she hadn’t recognized this in herself. It was her tell.

“Yes, well, this is an important matter. I heard you asked Heath to be part of the wedding party in a role that traditionally belongs to your father. Heath assumed you were joking.”

“I sort of was, but why not, Mom?” Hillary asked. “The two of you are together now. Since I’ve gotten to know him, I’ve come to admire Heath. If Dad doesn’t want a relationship with me, then I’m not going to spend the rest of my life pining after him.”

“Oh honey, you’re going about this all wrong. Your father is badly hurt that you don’t want him with you. I’d only been back to Seattle two seconds when he thundered in here with the assumption I knew about this. Heath was here also, and as you might imagine, there was a huge blowup between them. If Heath hadn’t kept his cool, it could easily have turned into a brawl.”

Hillary had the good grace to look stunned. “Oh no.” She covered her mouth with both hands. “Marie must have told Dad. I’m sorry, Mom, I never meant for Dad to know or put Heath in that position.”

“What did you expect would happen?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know…I certainly didn’t think Dad would confront him.”

“You had to realize how deeply this would hurt your father.” Hillary couldn’t deny the thought hadn’t gone through her mind.

Hillary hung her head. “Even if Heath knew I was only partially serious, he made sure I understood it wasn’t his place. It should never have gone any further. I don’t know what Marie was thinking by mentioning it to Dad.”

    Marie had a lot of explaining to do. “Then what do you suppose prompted Marie to tell your father?” While grateful Hillary hadn’t purposely set out to humiliate her father, she was curious what had led her younger daughter to tell Eddie.

Hillary reached for the china cup—Julia always served tea in her chinaware—and Julia noticed how her daughter’s hand gently shook.

“Marie was terribly upset. We both were.”

“What happened?”

Hillary stared down at the tea. “He showed up at my apartment and told me he had paid for the wedding dress. I thanked him and made sure he accepted the fact that he couldn’t buy my favor.”

“You didn’t return the dress, did you?”

She shook her head. “No. I love that dress and was grateful Dad did what he did. I told him I appreciated the gesture, but I wanted to be sure he realized where I stand.”

“How did he react?”

“He said he loved me and was sorry for the way things were between us.”

This was progress, although she had a terrible feeling Eddie hadn’t learned his lesson. He couldn’t buy his daughters’ favors or manipulate them, either.

“I told Dad I loved him, and how badly I wanted things to go back to the way they once were.”

“And then?” Julia asked, knowing at some point the conversation had gone off course.

    “I admitted how much I’ve missed having a father,” Hillary said, and her voice was rife with pain.

“Oh sweetie, I know you have. And I know your father deeply misses having you and Marie in his life.”

“At that point I started to feel hopeful. Dad asked to meet Blake and suggested we all go to dinner. Then I asked if he meant to include Laura, and you can guess what he said.”

Indeed, she could. It seemed Eddie would never learn. “I can.”

“He made it abundantly clear he and Laura are a team. She’s his wife and belongs at his side. It was all the evidence I needed to confirm, once again, he loves Laura more than he does either Marie or me.” Tears floated in Hillary eyes.

“Yes, he does love Laura, but you need to understand that the love your father feels for you and Marie isn’t the same as what he feels for Laura.”

Hillary smeared the tears across her cheek as she straightened. “I wish I could believe that, Mom. I really do, and I would if Dad didn’t continually put Laura above Marie and me. I’d hoped we would be able to put the past behind us, and then it happened, the way it always does with Dad.”

“What did he do now?” she asked, her patience at an end.

“Dad seemed to think that because he paid the six-hundred-dollar difference in the wedding dress, that gave him the right to tell me how the wedding would go.”

“You mean with Laura?”

“Laura was part of it for sure. I mean, it’s like the two of them are inseparable. Making sure I knew she would be included in the wedding was only part of his overall plan.”

This was beginning to sound even worse than Julia had imagined.

    “Dad had a seating plan drawn up to show me, with a lot of his golfing friends included. Blake and I have a limited budget, and I could see that Dad planned to use the wedding to boost his ego with his cronies. No way am I including all these extra friends of his and Laura’s. Okay, to be fair, Dad offered to chip in for the added expense, but this is my and Blake’s wedding.”