Isabel looked between us. “What am I missing?”
“You’re about to find out,” I exhaled. “Come on, might as well get it over with.”
Lewis muttered something to my parents, and my dad gave him a tight nod.
My father looked older, just as my mum had, and he gave me the same nod he’d just given my brother. “Jude. Nice to see you.”
My mum was staring wide-eyed at Lia’s stomach. There was no part of her even attempting to hide it.
“Dad, Mum.” I motioned to Isabel with my free hand, the other was occupied by holding Lia’s like she was a bloody life preserver. “Isabel is here from the States. She’s Lia’s sister. Mum, you remember Lia.”
She nodded, giving Lia a small smile. “Hello again. It’s … it’s nice to see you.”
Lia smiled back, her hand reaching up to rub her stomach. I’d seen her do it so many times but never had I been so aware of it. For her, it was probably a comfort, to be able to reach down and feel that warm curve of flesh as I’d done all the times we’d been in bed together.
My dad’s forehead wrinkled when he watched her. “I was working when you two stopped by the other day. Lewis thought we should make a trip down and try to … talk.”
Isabel and Lia pulled out heavy wooden chairs, and I did the same once Lia was seated to my right. Upon sitting, she slid her hand over my thigh and squeezed. Isabel looked at Lewis. “A pint would be great.”
“Of course. Would you care to see our tap list?”
“Nope. Just … any kind will be perfect.”
I looked away, a feeling of shame coating every part of my skin. On the drive here, they’d been all warmth and ease.
And then there was my family. Dysfunction and discomfort.
My dad whispered something to my mum before he met my gaze. “How was your match tonight? Did you win?”
Lia blew out a slow breath as Isabel hastily grabbed the beer Lewis brought back for her. I inhaled slowly, then exhaled even more slowly. It didn’t help.
“No. We got our arse kicked.”
Mum frowned, and Dad looked away. Lia’s hand squeezed on my leg again, and I looked over at her.
“
Try,” she mouthed. “
Please.”
For the first time since I met Lia, I was furious at her. She was asking me for something without any bloody idea of how much it might cost me. But that was the point, wasn’t it? She had no idea because I’d never told her.
It deflated most of the fiery righteousness that fueled my anger. But the frustration, the underlying sense of uselessness didn’t dissipate. Maybe because it wasn’t fire. It wasn’t hot, something that could be stoked and tended.
What I’d been feeling all day was more like a fog. Murky. Dark. Everywhere.
Nothing you could touch, but it absolutely swamped the senses.
Fire could be extinguished, but fog … it had the ability to destroy everything in its path if you didn’t watch carefully enough.
I swallowed, laid my hand over hers, and looked up at my parents.
“This may surprise you,” I said lightly, “but football is actually the last thing I’d like to talk about right now.”
My parents exchanged a loaded glance. “All right,” my dad said. His hands, big and rough and hardened from the farm, curled around his glass of water. “That’s fine. What would you like to talk about, Jude? We’re …” His voice stumbled slightly. “We’re here to listen.”
Lewis finished setting waters in front of Lia, Isabel, and myself and sat in the last free chair at the table, eyeing us carefully.
“Maybe Lewis should tell us why he scheduled this family event,” I said.
My brother gave Lia and Isabel a sheepish grin. “Can I blame being drunk at the time?”
I rolled my eyes. “If you drank more than a beer a week, I’d believe that.”
“Maybe it was a really strong beer.”
“Lewis.” Mum sighed. “It’s not the time for jokes. Your father and I drove a long way to come down here, took time away from the farm. You said it was important.”
“It is.” He spread his hands wide. “This is our family, and we’re doing a shit job of acting like it. You hate that he plays football, we get it. But he’s been playing for over a decade. Bloody hell, move on already.”
My brow furrowed at his vehement defense. I’d never heard Lewis—the happy one, the man in the middle of our little mess—speak up for me like that.
He turned to me. “And you, quit walking around like you’ve got a war to fight every time you see them. They don’t understand the game, they don’t understand how good you are, and you don’t bloody need them to in order to do your job. Let it go.”
I clenched my jaw tight and stared down at the table.
“We understand how good he is,” my mum said in the loaded silence that followed. The pub wasn’t silent, but our table was like a graveyard for how deathly quiet it was. “But you’re right, Lewis, we don’t understand his life. We don’t understand how you can sacrifice all the things that really matter for a game that won’t be there for him. Once he’s done, once the crowds stop cheering his name, what will he have left? He’s pushed away anyone who loves him for the empty praise of strangers.”
My eyes lifted slowly to hers, and I felt that fog cloud over my vision for one moment.
From the corner of my vision, I saw Lia and Isabel trade a look. Isabel’s beer was gone already. But I never pulled my eyes away from my mum.
“Is that what you think of me?” I asked quietly.
“It’s what we know, son,” Dad answered. “You changed. And not for the better. You may be a god to them, but to us, you’re just the son we don’t even recognize anymore.”
“Dad,” Lewis said sharply.
Lia leaned forward while I struggled to catch my breath. “How dare you speak to him like that,” she said in a frigid tone. Icicles hung from her words. “Shame on you.”
My parents stared at her in stunned shock. Hell, so did I.
“I know you’re in a relationship with him,” my dad said stiffly, “but you’ve no part in this, Miss.”
“She’s having my child,” I said.
A bomb could’ve gone off on the table with less dramatic impact than what I’d just said. My mum’s eyes fell shut, and my dad’s widened. Lewis rubbed his forehead.
“She’s a bloody part of this because she’s having your first grandchild. Congratulations to both of you,” I said smoothly. “And I’ll tell you why what you’ve just said can’t touch me, Dad. Because that child will have every-fucking-thing that you never gave me. I will give support. I will give encouragement. I will give anything they need or want because I’ve learned from you what not to do.”
I curled my arm around Lia, whose shoulders were stiff as a plank.
“If my child wants to play football, I’ll be at every bloody game. If they want to be a painter, I’ll buy every single print. If they want to dance or sing or … be a farmer, I’ll be there every step of the way. Because that’s what a good parent does. And you taught me how to be a brilliant one.” I shrugged, feeling the fog roll insidiously off my body with each word I hurled at them. “All I have to do is not be like you, and I’ll be the best fucking father in the world.”
My mum wiped a tear from her face as she stood from the table. “I won’t sit and listen to this.”
My dad followed, as he always did, giving me a stunned look of defeat.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.