What the Heart Wants (What the Heart Wants, #1)(85)
Lolly swallowed hard and leaned forward.
“Dad, I have something I want to tell you.” Her eyes were glued on her father’s face, and her voice was strong and determined.
“First of all, I want to apologize. I will never, never, question your judgment again. You tried to warn me off looking for my mother, and you were right. I should’ve listened to you. And I shouldn’t have gone to…to San Antonio.” Her chin quivered, but she recovered quickly. “I thought it would be wonderful, like on TV. You know…the reunion specials.” Lolly moved her hands in demonstration. “But it was horrible, and I don’t…I don’t ever want to see that woman ever again.”
The backyard resounded with barks.
Lolly raised her voice to be heard over the noise. “Second. I know I should feel sorry for her because she’s sick or something, but she’s mean and nasty, and I didn’t like the way she talked about you.”
Hugo cut loose with a second fusillade of barking.
Jase waited for the tumult to die down before he spoke, his voice calm and cadenced. “I love you very much, Lolly, and I wish things had been different for you.” He opened his hands in a gesture of inadequacy. “I wish you’d been welcomed by Marguerite and that she’d told you what a lovely young lady you are. I wish she’d told you that she regretted not seeing you grow up and would keep up with you from now on. But things don’t always work out the way they should, and you have to move on and forge ahead.”
Lolly’s shoulders hunched, and her voice became very small. “But I’m afraid, Dad…I’m afraid I’m going to be just like her—like Marguerite.”
“No way, baby. You’re not like her and you’re not going to become like her—ever.”
Lolly’s face squeezed up into itself. “You don’t understand, Dad! It’s in my DNA! She said I was like…like her clone! It’s—it’s as if I were bitten by a vampire! I don’t have a choice!”
“No, honey.” Jase’s voice went even softer. “We all inherit physical traits from our parents, maybe some psychological traits, but it’s up to us to decide the way we live our lives. You’re someone new and wonderful—not your mother and not me either. Marguerite may have given birth to you, but you’re your own person, just like we all are.”
“You’re just saying that!”
He looked down for a second, then right at her. “I know so.” He inhaled deeply. “I’ve never told you much about my father, have I? Maybe I should have.”
“Well, you said that after he got out of the navy, he became a pro wrestler, then he retired and ran a tavern called Beat Down. His name was Roland, but everyone called him Growler because his larynx had been injured when he was in the ring. I wrote that into my roots report. The other girls thought he was, like, supercool.”
Jase’s grimaced at the idea of teenagers finding Growler Redlander cool.
“There’s more to it than that, honey—a lot I didn’t tell you.”
His eyes wandered aimlessly around the room. He’d buried Growler Red years ago, and he didn’t like having to dig him up again, but Lolly needed to have a more balanced picture of him.
“Growler was kicked out of the navy for brawling. When he was on the wrestling circuit, they billed him as the Meanest Man in Texas—and he was. He ran a rough bar, sold liquor to underage kids, and knocked me around when he was drunk. I went to school hungry more days than not and started working odd jobs when I was nine to support myself. If it wasn’t for your Aunt Maxie, he probably would have drowned me in the Bosque.” He grimaced. “I didn’t want to be anything like him, and, God help me, I’m not.”
No, he hadn’t wanted to be like his father. He’d modeled himself on Reverend Ed, but he wasn’t going to say that. “Children don’t have to be like their parents. Everyone has a choice.”
Lolly’s eyes went big and round. “He didn’t feed you? He hit you?”
Jase nodded. “Beat me within an inch of my life more than once.” He touched his chest. “You remember that big scar I’ve got here?”
“The one that goes all sorts of directions? You told me you got it from falling off your bike when you were in middle school.”
“Honey, Growler had long since tossed my bicycle in the Bosque. I got this little souvenir when he came home drunk one night and couldn’t get in because I’d locked the door.” He grimaced at the memory. “Let’s just say he wasn’t happy with me.”
Lolly leapt up from the sofa and rushed over to throw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Daddy. I’m so sorry! I love you so much! I’ll never leave you again!”
He hugged her with one arm, gently, because he knew she would be shy about physical contact with him for a while. “Well, not for a long time, I hope.”
“I wish I’d never found out about Marguerite. I just want things to be like they were—you and me and Aunt Maxie.” She glanced back at the couch. “And Laurel, of course.”
“We can’t turn back time, Lolly. What’s done is done. Now, let’s sit back down and talk about where we’re going to go from here, so Laurel doesn’t feel like she’s got a couple of raving lunatics on her hands.”