Page 46 of Ebbing Tides (The Lighthouse Duology #2)

He wasn’t going to let me visit with them. I knew he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter that ten years had passed. It didn’t matter that his daughters were, at the end of the day, legal adults. He had made a threat years ago, and he was going to keep his promise.

“I’m sorry,” I said to him, releasing Lizzie from my arms. “I just wanted to see them one more time.”

The smile fell from Jane’s face as she looked from me to Brett. “What do you mean? What’s going on? You just got here. Why don’t you come in?”

“Yeah, come in!” Lizzie said, still grinning as she tugged on my arm. “You could have dinner with us. We were just about to start cook—”

Brett put his arm between his daughter and me. “I think Max—”

“I have to get on the road,” I told her with a smile I hoped said that I loved her and her sister just as much now as I had back then.

I hoped they knew I’d never stopped. “I’m heading to Connecticut tonight.

But I was in the area, and someone told me I should stop by and see you girls.

I’m glad I did. But I do have to get going. ”

It hadn’t been the plan. I was thinking of asking them to join me for a quick dinner or maybe a cup of coffee to catch up before I really did head south. But from the murderous look in their father’s eyes, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe another time. But not today.

Baby steps , I told myself, as if that could make this hurt any less. But at least I’d made the first one.

The hopeful glint in both girls’ eyes was extinguished. Deep sorrow drowned it out quickly, and I wondered if maybe I should’ve stayed away, as planned.

“You’re going to disappear again? Just like that?” Jane asked, her voice bordering on shrill. “Why did you leave in the first place? Where did you go?”

Lizzie frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. God, how they looked exactly like their mom …

it should’ve hurt to look at them, but, no.

It made me happy, knowing such bold, brilliant pieces of her remained in this world.

I wished I could’ve known them all this time.

I wished I could’ve known them now. But their father …

He thinks he’s doing the right thing. But he doesn’t have the right to control them. Not anymore.

My eyes turned on him to find he’d aged considerably over the years—but hadn’t we all? Yet he looked older somehow. Exhausted. Sad. So sad.

He’s never gotten over her.

“Brett,” I said, “hear me out for a second, okay?”

He glowered but offered a curt nod, gesturing for me to continue.

“What would she want you to do right now?” I asked quietly. “I know you did what you thought was best back then, and I respect that. I have respected that.”

“Until now,” he interjected.

I held up a staying hand. “And I apologize for that. But look at them now. Listen to them. What would she want you to do?”

Lizzie and Jane both turned to their father, twin looks of betrayal on their faces.

They were putting the pieces together, and they would be angry with him, and, no, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything in front of them.

But what other opportunity was I going to get?

This was the only one I had been given, so I had taken it.

“What is he talking about?” Lizzie asked.

“Daddy, what did you do?” Jane asked.

Brett frowned, his chest rising and falling heavily. Yet, somehow, I knew that frown wasn’t aimed at me.

It was directed inward.

“I won’t apologize,” he said to me, ignoring the questions and angry expressions from his daughters.

“I never asked you to,” I replied.

“But I guess, if they want a relationship with you as adults, it wouldn’t be fair of me to intervene,” he reasoned, speaking slowly, carefully.

I nodded, full of gratitude and feeling like, for once, I had finally won in this life full of losses.

I pulled my phone out. “Girls, give me your numbers,” I said. “Next time I’m in the area, we can meet up.”

“I have to go get mine,” Jane said hurriedly, bolting into the house. “Hold on!”

Lizzie took off after her. “Same!”

I watched them run through the house and up the stairs.

They looked like young women now, a far cry from how they’d been when I last saw them.

But in my eyes, I only saw the little girls I’d helped to raise for a handful of years.

Little girls I tucked in and read bedtime stories to.

I braided their hair and made their lunches and wiped their runny noses when they were sick.

They had been mine, and all those years between then and now, I had missed.

They’d been taken from me, just as Laura had.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Brett said once again, as if reading my mind.

“I know,” I assured him. “I never blamed you for that.”

He had hurt his daughters—that much was clear.

God only knew how many times throughout the years they had mentioned me, asked about me, wondered about where I was, what I was doing—and God only knew what Brett had said in response.

The lies he must’ve told, the panicked diversions of conversation.

Perhaps it should’ve angered me more than it did …

but hadn’t I thought I was doing the right thing by obeying his orders and staying away?

As it turned out, we’d both been wrong.

The girls were quick to return, phones in hand. They asked if they could call me, text me, video-chat, and to every request, I said, “Of course.”

As I punched their numbers into my phone, Jane looked over my shoulder and exclaimed, “Oh my God, you got a dog?!”

With a glance behind me, I saw Lido’s tongue slobbering out the open window to taste the air, and I chuckled. “Yeah, that’s Lido. Uncle Sid and Aunt Grace gave him to me a while back,” I said, the titles and names rolling off my tongue easily, like we hadn’t skipped a single beat.

“Lido?” Lizzie asked, awestruck. “Like that song you used to play for us?”

I turned to look at her, shocked she remembered. It had been so long ago, they’d been so young …

“‘Lido Shuffle’ by Boz Scaggs,” I said. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“I remember that,” Jane chimed in, holding her phone, a mournful expression befalling her face. “Mommy loved that song. And we’d turn it up really loud and sing at the top of our lungs during the chorus.”

Slowly, I nodded. “Yep.”

“I almost forgot about that,” Lizzie said, leaning against her dad, who had remained courteous and quiet as the girls and I exchanged numbers.

But he never left, and I didn’t mind.

I let go of a sigh and looked toward the sky above.

The sun was starting to set, and I thought of Laura.

I thought of all those times she’d sit outside with me, watching the sunrise despite how tired she was.

And never, not once, had I taken the time to watch a sunset with her.

Sure, we saw them in passing, but I had never grabbed her by the hand and dragged her outside with the sole intention of taking in the sight of the sun as it kissed the earth and disappeared into the horizon.

I could’ve been a better man.

I could’ve been a better husband.

But, God, how I loved her. I’d loved her then, I loved her now, and I knew I always would. No matter what the future held for me.

I took a deep breath and tucked my phone into my jeans pocket.

“I’d better get going,” I said regretfully.

Lizzie and Jane both nodded, though they didn’t bother hiding their sadness.

“We will see you again, right?” Jane asked.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” I replied. “I’ll be back soon.”

Lizzie stepped in to give me one last hug. “We missed you so much, almost as much as we miss her.”

I hugged her tight and pulled her sister in to join us. “The feeling is mutual.”

Brett extended his hand, and I graciously accepted that one small gesture. As we shook, he offered me a smile, and I smiled back, knowing Laura was likely watching somewhere, thrilled that the two men in her life were finally playing nice.

Then I turned to head toward my truck, exhilarated that I’d regained the most important living piece of my past, ready to take it with me into the future.

Assuming, of course, that the future would have me.