The Sister (The Boss 6)

“Not at all,” I promised. “She talked about him a little, but I didn’t want to hang all my emotional shit on her. She lost her father, she doesn’t need to hear about how he treated me.”

Sasha nodded slowly. “I appreciate that. It’s been hard for her. They had their normal father-daughter spats from time to time—he hated the idea of her coloring her hair or wearing too much makeup—but they loved each other.”

“That’s…nice.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I’m glad she had a good relationship with her dad.”

Sasha nodded, her expression thoughtful. “It was hard for the girls to find out about you.”

Hard for them? I wanted to scoff. It was hard for me growing up without a dad. But I had to step out of my bitterness if I was going to make any forward progress for myself. “How did they find out?”

It took Sasha a moment to start talking. I didn’t know if she was thinking or trying not to cry. Maybe both. “We made the decision to tell them when Molly’s condition started getting worse. Joey was already dying. Pancreatic cancer is… Well, we pretty much knew from the time he was diagnosed that he wouldn’t be around much longer. I thought it would come as more of a shock to them if I waited until he was gone.”

A shock to them. As if it hadn’t been a shock to me to find out he was dead from a Google search.

“Did you ever think about looking me up?” I asked. “To tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear from me. Or about him. I didn’t know if you were even aware of who your father was.”

“He came to my graduation to give me a card. I knew who he was.” I stopped just short of calling her a liar, which my wounded heart very much wanted to do. “Did you know about that?”

She shook her head sadly. “He wouldn’t have told me anything like that. He was ashamed of himself for not being there for you.”

My jaw clenched. “Yeah, well. He should have been.”

“He was.” Her face was full of concern and sympathy, despite her defense of him. “I don’t know how much you know about our history, the boarding schools and families being torn apart…. Joey’s father was white, and he kept Joey away from anything to do with the tribe. When he finally left his parents’ house and started discovering who he was, he recognized how important children are. And he deeply regretted not being a part of your life.”

“Then, why didn’t he come back for me?” I asked, trying hard to keep my tears at bay. I didn’t want to feel bad for Joey Tangen. I didn’t want to think of him as anything other than a deadbeat dad without any other element to his character. “He could have—”

“He could have,” she agreed. “But whatever his reason, he thought it would be better to stay away.”

“Well, it wasn’t.” A tear spilled down my cheek. Fuck it. I would just cry.

Sasha reached into her purse and pulled out a packet of Kleenex. She passed one to me, her expression crumpling. “I know it wasn’t. But I think he thought he was protecting you. All he ever wanted for any of his girls was that they were happy and loved. And he knew that you were loved.”

“How would he have known?” I demanded. “For all he knew, I was being beaten and starved and neglected. For all he knew, I was laying in bed every night, praying that he would come rescue me someday.”

The sick thing was, I hadn’t been beaten and starved and neglected, and I’d still prayed he would show up. I’d had wild fantasies that he would show up and scoop me into his arms and tell me how much he loved me. That he’d been away in a war, or held prisoner by criminals, and that’s why he hadn’t come to my birthday parties. I wanted something to have been holding him back, and I’d wanted that something to be a force beyond his control.

Instead, he’d chosen what he’d thought would be best for me. And he’d been wrong.

“We actually heard about you, every now and then,” Sasha said. “Through a friend of a friend who knew your mom at the hospital. We knew you were fine.”

“But I wasn’t fine.” It was a struggle to keep my voice down. “I was abandoned. I spent my entire childhood thinking something was wrong with me. That I was broken or unlovable. To this very day, this very moment sitting here, I’ve wondered what it was about me that made my father reject me.”

“That’s not what he wanted for you,” Sasha tried to explain.

I cut her off. “No, it’s not. But it isn’t about what he wanted. He was my father. He should have cared about what I needed. Instead, the two of you decided for me.”