Page 95 of A Shot at Love
Her lips dipped at the edges as her gaze shifted to their joined hands. “That mating for life thing. I’ve only seen it happen once in my family, with my grandma Sophie and my grandpa.”
“Your parents?”
She shook her head. “Dad bolted. After seven kids, all girls, he left.”
“That’s hard. Really hard. Did he keep in contact at all?”
“No. He cut off all ties.”
“And he never came back? You never tried to locate him?”
“No. Kandy and I talked about it a few times when she was getting married and then again when she got pregnant. I’m sure Josh could find him in a heartbeat, but—” She shrugged. “I just don’t think it’s worth it at this point.”
He squeezed her hands.
“I wonder, sometimes, if my life would have been different, if all my sister’s lives would be different, if my father hadn’t left us like he did.”
“What do you mean? How did he leave?”
Gemma pulled back her hands and reached for her soda. After taking a long chug, she answered.
“They always fought, my parents. Loud, vicious arguments. Lots of name calling. Lots of tears from Mom. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I found out what the fights were about.”
She stopped, glanced up at him, and then back down. Ky didn’t push, realizing she needed to trust him enough to share. He couldn’t force it out of her, no matter how much he wanted to.
With a shrug he knew wasn’t as carefree as she intended it be, she said, “My father was a cheater. A serial cheater, according to Kandy. There were a lot of women over the years. Every time he’d cheat and Mom found out, he swore it was the last time, they’d…make up.”
Ky’s breath caught when a red flush spread up her neck and cheeks.
“Nine months later I’d have another sister. It went on for years until finally Mom’d had enough.”
“What happened?”
“It was right after my tenth birthday, a party he missed because he was out with another new woman. When he came home two days later, drunk and mean, Mom told him to make a choice. His family or his girlfriends. He couldn’t have both anymore.”
She stood with her plate and brought it to the kitchen, Ky following. He pulled the dishtowel he’d tucked into his pants out and laid it across the sink counter.
Gemma ran hot water into the sink, added dish soap. While it bubbled, she continued. “He packed a single bag and left. He never said goodbye to any of us. Kandy, my sister Abby, and I were huddled together at the door to our bedroom, listening. The front door slammed and then we heard Mom go into her bedroom and close the door quietly.” She took his dish from him and put it into the water with hers. “A millisecond later we heard her crying. Kandy went to her, since she was the oldest. Abby and I went to the others and told them Daddy left.”
Ky didn’t even think she realized she was washing the dishes while she spoke. She ran a soap sponge over the plates and utensils, rinsed them under a running water stream, and then laid them down on the towel he’d spread out. Ky leaned back against the counter, arms crossed in front of his chest, just listening.
“I always wondered, if he’d stayed, if we’d been raised with two parents who loved and supported one another, and us, would I or any of my sisters, have turned out differently.”
“How so? I mean, I don’t know your other sisters, but you and Kandy are highly successful women. You both have enviable and thriving, high-powered, lucrative careers.”
She nodded, wiped her hands dry on a paper towel and turned to him. “We do. But until a few years ago when Kandy met Josh, she was basically a workaholic with no other real life. Much like me.”
“I’m not getting your point, Gemma. How do you think your life would have been different if your father had stayed?”
*
How would it have been? It was question she’d tossed around in her head thousands of times.
Kandy had told her when Gemma had been introduced to Josh Keane, he’d pegged her as having trust issues with men immediately. He told Kandy he figured it had something to do with feeling abandoned by their father.
