Page 92 of Taming I Do
“I don’t understand.” I cupped my chin in my hand and stirred another spoonful of sugar into my already-sweetened sweet tea. “How could she do this to me? To us?”
Helmut sat across the table from me, a cup of coffee in front of him. “I’m sure she had her reasons. I can only imagine what she must have been going through.”
“Well, I can’t.” I took a long draw through my straw. “All these years. Why would she lie?”
“She was alone.” Helmut shrugged. “I shipped out to basic training the day after our high school graduation. After my time at Fort Benning I was on a plane to the Middle East. Her parents never wanted us to be together. I wrote to her every day, but then the letters started coming back.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell you she was pregnant?” I had never pretended to understand my mother’s motives, but there had to have been some reason behind her decision to leave her hometown.
“What was I going to do? It would have been a couple of years before I could have come back and married her. If only I’d known.” Helmut put his head in his hands and those huge shoulders shook.
I reached across the table and tried to convey some comfort through my touch. “Everything was a lie.”
“I know one thing that can’t be a lie.” Helmut looked up at me, and I felt like I was looking into my own gaze. How had I not noticed his eyes were the same exact shape and color as my own?
“What’s that? Not that it will make me feel any better or give me any reason to forgive her.”
“She must love you very, very much, and that’s not an easy thing for her. Your grandparents, her parents, were so strict with her. I know they loved her in their own way, but they never showed it. I think that’s one of the reasons she fell for me.” He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I’m a hugger.”
So many emotions bubbled up inside, all I wanted to do was take some space. I needed to go somewhere where I could sort through my feelings. About Stella, the father I’d never known, and more.
I needed Jasper. He was the one I wanted to talk to, to bare my heart and soul to. But I’d sent him a couple of texts already and he hadn’t responded. He’d said something about being tied up all day making preparations for the Fall Festival.
I didn’t want to go back to my empty trailer. I sure as hell didn’t want to go after my mother.
“I’ve got to get back to the kitchen.” Helmut tapped his hands on the table. “I don’t know how this works, but could I maybe call you sometime? I’d love to get to know you better.”
“Of course.” I might be unsure about where things would go with my mother, but I’d never turn down the chance to get to know my family.
“Can I get a hug?” He stood, towering over the booth. He looked so out of place, the tatted Army vet with a sheepish smile.
“I’d like that.” I buried myself in his arms, trying to breathe through my mouth since the scent of fried onions and fish clung to him. That might take a little getting used to, but I’d gladly suffer through a year full of Smoker Saturdays for the chance to get to know my dad.
Helmut returned to behind the counter and I was about to get up to leave when the woman sitting in the booth next to me cleared her throat.
“Rough day?” Adeline twisted around, peering over the back of the booth.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” That’s all I needed was Adeline using my personal drama to cause another stink online.
Adeline slid out of her booth and onto the seat across from me. “Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear.”
“And I’m sure my personal family drama will be all over Swynton’s website within the next fifteen minutes.”
“Hey, even I have some lines I won’t cross.” Adeline shook her head and refilled her coffee mug with the carafe in the middle of the table.
“No offense, but that’s not what I heard.” I studied the woman sitting across the table. “What are you even doing here? I thought you were too good to come slumming over in Ido?”
“I never said that. Swynton’s for sure more romantic. But Helmut makes the best pineapple milkshakes in the world.”
“You’re having a pineapple milkshake for breakfast?” I sat up straighter and caught a glimpse of a tall, empty glass sitting on the table next to us.
“Hubby and I had a fight. It was stupid, really.”
I wondered what would constitute a fight in Adeline’s world. “What happened?”
“Well, seeing you here, representing the Miss Lovin’ Texas pageant, it made me wonder about competing in a pageant, too. Not like I want to go up against you personally?—”
“Don’t worry about that. My pageant days are over.” I shook my head. If my experience today had taught me anything, it was that I was done putting my mother’s needs before my own. It was time for me to step back and start doing something for myself.
