He sat back, gazing over my shoulder. “We moved here when I was young. My father was a mean, sorry drunk, and he liked to use his fists on me and my mother. She planned and saved, and one day, we were able to run. We came here—a small town where we could start again.”
“Your father never found you?”
He shrugged. “He might have tried, but a couple of weeks after we left, he got so drunk, he fell down the stairs. He never woke up. A friend of my mom’s knew where we were and let her know. She got the life insurance and total freedom to live her life again and not look over her shoulder all the time.”
“I’m sorry for what you went through.”
He lifted a shoulder. “The point is I recognized what was happening to you, Linc. I saw the signs. When your mom died, you changed. The happy kid I knew disappeared, and a frightened, standoffish person replaced him. I tried to let you know I understood, but I got it when you refused to get close to anyone but Sunny. Your father was a force unto himself and, frankly, scary. Still, when I could, I tried to let you know you had a friend.”
“Like the day in the diner.”
He met my gaze, both of us thinking of that day. “Your father was so angry, and I knew if he found you hanging with Sunny, hell was going to rain down on you. I heard him, more than once, talk about his plans for you and that they didn’t include some low-level waitress.”
I was surprised at his words, and it must have shown on my face.
“I was a clerk in the dry cleaners and the drug store. A nothing to your father. Invisible. He would be on his phone talking, and I could hear him. He never even noticed me most of the time.” He barked out a laugh. “Unless he wanted his dry cleaning carried to his car, then he’d snap his fingers and tell me to get it done. But that was the only time he ever spoke to or took notice of me. I can guarantee if I passed him on the street, he’d have no clue who I was.”
“Yeah, he was like that.”
“So, I understood your wariness, Linc. I know a lot of kids thought you were a snob and too good for them, but I knew you were just trying to survive.” He met my gaze. “And protect Sunny.”
“I was.” I sucked in a long breath. “Thank you for being a friend, even when I wasn’t.”
“You were okay. You kept to yourself, but you were never a jerk.” He paused. “Until you left her.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I know how it looked.”
“Your father?” he guessed.
“Yeah.” I laughed bitterly. “My father.”
Then I did something I never thought I would do. I told the truth about where I had been and what I had done. He listened in silence, whistling low when I finished.
“Wow. He was some piece of work.”
I acknowledged his words with a nod. I felt exhausted after telling him. Drained. But I was done hiding. I was also done talking about myself.
“What about you, Michael? What has life been like for you?”
For the first time, I saw a cloud of sadness pass over face, and his smile faded.
“I’m still here,” he stated.
“Here, as in Mission Cove? Or the world in general?” I asked.
He scrubbed his face. “Both, I suppose. There were a few years I wanted to leave Mission Cove, but the bottom line was, despite your father and his underhanded ways, I loved this town.” His voice dropped. “I loved Molly Jones, too.”
I remembered they had dated all through high school. “And now?”
He was quiet for a moment, filling his cup, then taking a long sip. “She got pregnant the last year of school. We got married.”
I kept silent, knowing there was more to his story.
“It was hard to give up on my dreams. I wanted to go to university—into business management. But I had a family I needed to look after.”
“It must have been difficult.”
“At times. But my son, Jesse, and my wife made up for it. Then a few years later, we had a daughter.” He hesitated, his eyes blinking rapidly. “My mom died not long after Jenny was born.”
“I’m sorry, Michael.”
He cleared his throat. “Not long after that, I was able to buy the dry-cleaning business from Old Man Tate. Molly got a job at the day care, and things were going good for us. Some unknown benefactor gave a bunch of people in town the chance to buy their buildings outright—dirt cheap.” He cocked his head, studying me. “Happened after your father died. Know anything about that?”
I shook my head, trying to look surprised and puzzled. That had given me a lot of pleasure. Giving back to the people my father had stolen from for years, but I intended to keep it anonymous.