Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk 3)

“My mom believes that, Bailey. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I was born to hurt the people I love.”

Frustration flashed in her eyes. “No. I won’t hear it. And I won’t let you do this to yourself. Not again. Christ almighty, this isn’t the Dahlia I know and love. You’re stronger than this.”

“Bailey.”

We both jerked around, surprised to see my father standing in the doorway. We hadn’t even heard him approach.

“Can I talk to my daughter alone, please?”

Bailey turned to me, silently asking what I wanted, and I loved her for that too. After I nodded, she got up and strode toward Dad. “I’ll make some tea.” And then she squeezed my dad’s shoulder in comfort, treating him like she’d known him her whole life.

My dad gave her a fond smile, and I was not at all surprised that she’d endeared herself to him already.

Dad walked into the room, eyeing me in concern. I was getting sick of that look, but I guess if I didn’t stop wallowing and buck up, they’d continue to look at me that way.

“We’re all allowed to have weak moments, Bluebell.” Dad sat next to me. “It’s not a failure to admit that you can’t cope with something. It’s not a failure to admit that you need people to help you through.”

“Bailey, you mean?” I dared to look at him.

“She’s your family now too. It’s okay that she can help you in a way that we can’t.”

“It’s not that,” I hurried to assure him. “She’s not part of my mistakes. I don’t feel guilt around her. I get to be sad around her. No judgments.”

“And you feel like you can’t be sad with me?”

“I don’t deserve to.”

“Oh, Bluebell …” He put his arm around me, his voice cracking a little. “That breaks my heart, dahlin’.”

We were silent as I burrowed into my dad’s side.

“I overheard what you said to your friend, and I need to tell you something. I need to explain something that I probably should have explained a while ago.”

I stiffened against him. “Okay?”

“You are not to blame for Dillon’s death. I have never thought that. Your sister and brothers have never thought that. And Michael Sullivan has never thought that. I don’t know what happened between you and him last night and Dermot couldn’t tell me, but whatever it was, it wasn’t about Dillon. As for your mother,” he said, letting out a long exhale, “that goes way back. Way back before Dillon. Way back even before any of you kids came along. Deep down, your mother is a good person, but she has her problems. There is a reason we don’t talk to her parents or her sister.”

I pulled back to stare at him, surprised. My maternal grandparents were another thing my mom pretended didn’t exist, along with her sister. The only reason I knew about them was because Davina had found a shoebox full of pictures and asked Mom about them. She’d told Davina a little about it and then proceeded to pretend they didn’t exist again whenever Davi tried to mention them.

“Your mom’s dad was physically abusive, but your grandmother was emotionally abusive.”

I sucked in my breath. Despite everything she’d said and done to me, I hated that for my mom. “What did they do?”

“Her dad had a temper, and he was quick with his hands. As for her mother, well, her affection wasn’t freely given. It had to be won. She would play off your mom against her sister. It was a competition to see who could do better that week and win their mom’s love. Sometimes your mom won, and sometimes her sister won. It bred ugly competitiveness in your mom and jealousy like I’ve never experienced. That jealousy destroyed her relationship with her sister. I knew all about it, and I loved her so much I tried to understand when she acted a little nutty. She was always possessive and resentful whenever someone she cared about showed someone other than her more affection. It wrecked a lot of her friendships, and I had to be very careful about how I acted around other women.”

“But you stayed with her.”

“I loved her. When we were younger, your mom was hilarious and fuckin’ cute. I loved making her laugh.” He smiled tenderly at the memories. “No one needed laughter and unconditional love more than your mother. And we managed through it. The more she trusted me, the less jealous she seemed to get. Then we started to have kids, and our relationship got stronger. Until you.”

My breath caught in my throat, my heart pounding. Had Mom lied? Was I not hers after all? “Dad?”

Seeing my fear, he understood and shook his head. “It’s nothing that dramatic. No matter how bad things got, I never cheated on your mother. But when you were born, you and I formed this automatic bond that was a little different from the one I had with your brothers and sister. Don’t get me wrong, I love all my kids, but from the moment you were born, you were definitely more mine than your mother’s. It became more apparent why as you got older. You were my little mini-me, a McGuire, through and through.”

He grinned down at me with so much love, it almost obliterated all the pain. Then his smile fell. “Your mom hated it. When you were little, you would come to me when you were hurt or cry for me when you’d had a nightmare. When you were sick, you didn’t want anyone else. Only me. Your mom and I used to fight about it all the time. She said I was taking you away from her. And then when you got a little older, even though you were still just a kid who didn’t know what she was doing, the hurt festered in your mom. I knew because she was harder on you about everything. She’d started to resent you because she thought she was losing out on the affection game.”

Shocked, I stared at Dad with a feeling akin to horror. “But I didn’t mean it.”

“I know that.” He tightened his hold on me. “And your mom should have known that, but what her mother did to her and her sister screwed her up in ways I couldn’t fix. It concerned me so much over the years, I even asked her to go to therapy to talk to someone about it, see if it would help, but she refused. I hated the way she treated you, and I should have done something about it a long time ago. For that, I am to blame. No one else.”