He says nothing.

Of course, he never needed it. Didn’t matter anyway, since he didn’t finish college. I want to ask why, but that’s a question for another time. This is about me opening up. Not pushing him to open up.

“I read all the time. I still read a lot, but not like when I was a kid. When you grow up without TV and everything, books are your best friends.”

“Books?” he says.

“Yeah. Books. You do read, don’t you?”

“Not much. I mean, not for a while. What’s your favorite book?”

“Kidnapped.”

Dale goes rigid. Over a book?

I’m not sure what to do, so I say, “Anyway, back to my…”

“Your what?”

I draw in a breath. “My father. Back to my father.”

“You said he died.”

“Yes, and he did, in a way. But before I came here, my mother told me the truth about him. He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please. Don’t be.” I draw in another breath. “I don’t let myself think about what I’m about to say, Dale. It’s something I’d rather forget. In a way, I wish my mother had never told me, but I understand why she did. We have to know where we come from. We have to keep ourselves from making the same mistakes as our parents. Not that I’d ever do what my father did…”

He brings the back of my hand to his lips and kisses it gently. A sweet gesture, and I think I fall in love with him a little bit more, if that’s even possible.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Tell me.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Dale

Homeless.

Ashley was homeless.

When she told me she sometimes went to bed hungry, I never imagined…

My sweet Ashley.

She’s opening up, probably hoping I’ll do the same.

Unfortunately, she’s going to be disappointed.

“My father wasn’t a good man,” she says. “He died years ago. In prison.”

I lift my eyebrows. For some reason, though, I’m not overly surprised. A person doesn’t “not talk” about a parent if he or she is a paragon of society.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

“I didn’t know the man, and once my mother told me the truth about him, I’m glad I never knew him.”

“You mean he was a criminal.”

She clears her throat. “Yeah. And what he did. To her.”

A bad feeling lodges in my stomach—kind of like I ate some rank food and the acid is trying to digest it but can’t.

A feeling not unlike…

I shake my head to clear my thoughts. “Ashley, what did he do?”

Her neck moves as she swallows slowly. “He raped her, Dale. And I’m the result.”

That acidic lump in my stomach balloons into nausea that threatens to prick its talons through my flesh.

Ashley’s mother and I have something in common, then. I don’t want to go there, but I can’t help thinking about it.

This beautiful woman—this woman I love more than anything—only exists because a criminal forced himself on her mother.

What must it be like to go through life with a child of a rape? Did she remember the horror every time she looked at Ashley? Beautiful Ashley?

Ashley has nothing but good to say about her mother, though. Clearly, then, her mother loved her daughter more than she hated her rapist.

An amazing woman. Well, she had to be to raise such a wonderful daughter in such horrific circumstances. Homelessness. Hunger. Trauma.

And I know what all of those feel like.

I can probably relate more to Ashley’s mother than I can to Ashley herself.

But Ashley will never know. Ashley can’t ever know those things I keep so bottled up inside.

I’ve let enough out already.

Ashley gulps again. “Are you going to say anything? Please tell me I haven’t made a mistake by telling you this.”

I rub my thumb into the palm of her hand. “Of course not. I just… I hate the thought of you ever being cold or hungry. And your mother… What she went through…”

I can say no more without letting negative emotion overwhelm me, and I’m already on that perilous edge, sitting here while my degenerate of a birth father has life-threatening surgery.

I know how I feel, yet I don’t know how I feel.

“Thank you,” Ashley says softly. “I just wanted you to know.”

I don’t want any secrets between us.

Those are the words she doesn’t utter but that I hear plain as day anyway.

But secrets… Some secrets aren’t fit for conversation.

Some secrets have to stay buried forever.

I open my mouth but am saved from talking by a nurse approaching us.

“Mr. Steel,” the young woman says, “Dr. Larson sent me to tell you that Mr. Jolly’s surgery will take longer than expected.”

I wrinkle my forehead, wondering what I should be feeling. “Why is that?”

“We found an anomaly in his cardiac anatomy. His aortic valve has a deformity.”

“Didn’t you do an echocardiogram?”

“Of course, but it’s a minute deformity that wasn’t detectable. The doctor has to repair it before she can complete the bypass.”

“Did this deformity contribute to his heart attack?”

“There’s no way to know that without testing. Mr. Jolly isn’t in any further danger. The surgery will just take longer.”

“How much longer?”

“Probably several more hours.”

“You’ve already been in there for two.”

“This is a complex surgery, sir.”

“I understand that. But—”

Ashley takes my hand. “How much longer?”

“Probably at least four hours. Possibly five.”

“All right. Come on, Dale. We should get some lunch.”

“That’s a good idea,” the nurse says. “Make sure reception has your number so they can call you if anything comes up, but otherwise, it’s a waiting game at this point.”

Things jumble in my head. What does this mean for me genetically? If he has a heart deformity, do I?

I open my mouth to ask, but the nurse turns and walks back through the double doors.