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“Yes,” she breathed heavily. “I did. I got his address, and I don’t know. I’m debating calling him, and I’m scared. I’m scared that he might say he doesn’t want to meet me. That he would laugh at me when I bring up the idea of him coming to Henry’s graduation.”
I felt an anger bubbling inside me at the idea of Chloe having to doubt her parent’s love for her.
“If you need me to accompany you—” I began, and she nodded.
“I know. I’ll ask if I need it. But I need to do this on my own. Not even with Henry,” she said, her voice faltering. “It’s the second secret I’ve kept from him.”
I held her tight. “It’ll be the last,” I promised.
I thought back to an earlier conversation and realized I hadn’t registered some key details back then. “I know I’ve asked you this before, but when did your dad leave?”
“When I was eighteen,” she replied after a minute’s hesitation.
I frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I muttered. “Wasn’t that the year he was in the accident?”
She inhaled heavily. “Yes. He left a few months after Henry’s diagnosis. When the doctors predicted that he couldn’t bemobile again and he’d be confined to a wheelchair, well, my dad said he couldn’t take it again.”
Again.
“He said he wasn’t cut out to be a caretaker for the rest of his life. He didn’t want to go through caring for another … invalid. Like Mom had been before she passed on.” Her voice broke. “He actually called Henry that.”
“So, he left?” I asked, rubbing my hands over the length of her arms, deciding to take her attention away from this. Wishing I hadn’t brought this up when it was still hurtful.
She nodded. “He left. And Henry still doesn’t know why.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I wanted Dad to pay for my tuition at The Juilliard School and Dad refused to do so and left in anger. I would rather Henry think Dad left us because of something I did rather than his condition.”
So, that was the first secret she’d kept from him.
In the silence, she shifted in her position so that her eyes could face the ceiling. “I still can’t get over it. How could it have been that easy for Dad to give up on his family?”
“It shouldn’t have been,” I said, and I started to feel a sense of doom for her upcoming visit to her dad. “And you’re Henry’s sole caretaker?”
She nodded. “Up until he was eighteen. Now that he’s an adult, well, I am still involved in his life. I can’t imagine it being any other way.”
I knew with certainty that Chloe would never give up on Henry.
Looking back, I should have seen that as a warning.
49
SEAN
Itook a swing and watched the golf ball fly in the air and bounce on the ground and roll toward the hole.
“Nice shot!” Desmond shouted. “Ouch,” he groaned when the ball stopped a mere inch away.
A gentle breeze wafted past me, and I held on to my golf club as I walked over to where Desmond, Jonah, and Alex—my partners from the Lead Capital Group—were standing. The four of us were assembled on the lush green lawn of a private club in the Hamptons. We had a beautiful view of the ocean in the distance and smooth, rolling hills around us. All I found myself thinking about was what Chloe was doing right now.
The past week with Chloe had involved lots and lots of sex, us wearing each other out with how often we were going at it.
Besides the kitchen and the bathroom, we even had a few adventurous moments in the balcony. The only downside was that she still wasn’t willing to spend the entire night at my place. She always ran back home, no matter how late the hour.
Someday, I’d get her to stay over with me, but for now, I was willing to wait.