Page 134 of This Bitter Sweet Temptation
Charli came back, all right. Not for me or Kit, who was too young to remember much. Small favors.
“She came home to die.” No point in leaving her in suspense. “Charli got sick and she didn’t have anyone else she could count on. By the time she limped back here on her hands and knees, she only had a few months. Stomach cancer.”
“Oh my God!” Her eyes are marbles as she stares at me, chewing her lip.
The only sane reaction.
“She didn’t last long. She never asked to reconcile or even spend much time with Kit. Maybe she was embarrassed or weighed down with guilt—who knows—but I didn’t push her. I didn’t chew her out. I just accepted the situation, hoping for the best. I did what I could to make her last days comfortable.”
“Holy fuck. You… you had to be her hospice nurse? You?” Cleo whispers again in disbelief.
I laugh bitterly.
“Believe it or not, I can do more than chase kids and bark orders.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that! I just—it’s a lot to take in. I had no idea, Holden. It must’ve been hell.”
“Without your gramps, it would’ve been,” I say. “Leonidas was too generous by half, giving me paid family leave for a woman who took off without giving me the time of day. He hired two other guys to fill in while I couldn’t. Didn’t expect him to take me back when it was said and done, but he did, and— Oh, no, Clee. No tears over this.”
I reach over, wiping her eyes as she smiles.
“Gramps was such a good man.” She pushes my hand off gently. “Does Kit know?”
“Some of it. She knows enough. Someday when she’s older, we’ll sit down and talk. Until then—” I lift a shoulder. “It’s hard figuring out what you should tell your kid about her deadbeat mom. I never got a chance to be angry at Charli while she was still alive. In her state, there was no point. I never confronted her. I guess that’s what makes it harder in the end. No closure.”
“Oh, yeah.” Cleo exhales. “I’d be livid, too. Actually, I know a thing or two about how it must’ve been for Kit.”
I wait for more, staring at her gently as she swallows.
“My mom died when I was little. This heart defect she was born with, it never affected her much, I guess, until one day…” She sighs. “It was so fast and I was so young. I don’t remember much, honestly. Just this smiling, pretty young woman who used to sing to me suddenly stuck in bed and sleeping a lot. And Mom, she’d still smile every time I came in the room, and I didn’t get why Dad looked worse every time.”
“It’s awful, even if kids are too young to truly get it,” I whisper.
She nods limply.
“Yeah. It was worse for Dad than it was for me. He always drank and partied too much, but when I think back, he went deeper in the hole after she was gone. It broke something deepinside him.” She looks at me knowingly, a shaky smile pulling at her lips. “Her dying sapped the light out of him. After that, his art, his life, was more like going through the motions until he could get to the next bottle to take the edge off. It’s like he needed it to dull the pain, and nothing else was ever good enough. Not even me.”
No. No, woman, I won’t fucking hear it.
“Stop.” I take her hand fiercely, dragging it to my lips and kissing her delicate fingers.
“I really should. If it wasn’t obvious why I have so many daddy issues before… there you go.” She laughs bitterly.
“Shut it, Nile. I don’t see ‘issues.’ If I wanted that, I could find them with a hundred other women. If anything about your past, about who you are, freaked me out, we wouldn’t be doing this right now. I don’t see daddy issues. I see a smokeshow with history.”
“Oh my God!” She swats at me, shaking her head quickly even though she’s grinning now. “You’re sure you’ve been off the market? Could’ve fooled me. You’re good at telling a girl exactly what she wants to hear.”
“Like hell. I’m bad at talking. That’s why I don’t date much these days or do much of… this.” I gesture at her body, drawn out so beautifully in front of me.
Is it so terrible that I’m beginning to regret being a hermit dad?
She goes quiet, staring at her hand still twisted in mine.
I hate the silence, the way I can’t read it. I almost ask her to talk so we’re not suffering alone with our thoughts or the ugly secrets we’ve just spilled like a pact sealed in blood.
But then she looks up at me, her eyes lidded.
“This,” she whispers. “Girls like Charli. Like me. The ones who have a screw or two loose.”
