“I think that’s all you let them see.”
The remark stunned her; she should have been incensed, should have marched off the ranch like Robin did the time Dad had told her to quit seeing Jake, but honestly, she heard a hard clang of truth in his statement that left her feeling numb. She abruptly stood up, stepped over the dogs, and walked to the porch railing.
“I’m just trying to help,” Dad added.
“You have a strange way of helping,” she said sorrowfully. “You could be a lot more helpful if you would ask about what I was doing on the campaign and tell me how I might use it to find a job,” she said. “It would be helpful if you would think about what I want, what I feel, what I think instead of what you think I should do. And it would be a whole lot healthier if you saw me as an adult, not a twelve-year-old girl, maybe took some interest in what I’ve been doing. You could not have been less interested in the bingo bash, but that was a fund-raiser that I put together. I did it.”
“Tell you what,” Dad said through clenched teeth. “The next time you have something you want to show me, you just give me a call. Did you ever think to do that? Pick up the phone and call your old man? Show him what you’re so proud of?”
“Oh, I will, Dad, you can count—”
“What’s that?” he abruptly asked, interrupting her. “Was that a car? I think Robbie’s here,” he said, coming to his feet and tripping over Bean. “Goddamn dog!” he snapped as he began walking for the front of the house, leaving Rebecca to stare at his back. He hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
She and Dad never really talked again that weekend; after all, his advice was dispensed, and he seemed more interested in what Robin and Jake were doing, what Grayson and Cole were doing. Where Mom was, what Rachel was doing in the UK again.
It was, strangely enough, as if that weekend was meant to point up a few fundamental facts to Rebecca, like what was wrong and had been wrong about her relationship with her father since she could remember. He had never cared what was going on inside of her. For all of his philosophical bullshit, the bottom line was about appearances. Her looks, her marriage, her son . . .
This business about not wanting her to make mistakes was a lie—the truth was that he didn’t want her to embarrass him. She was so sick of appearances.
When Dad and Jake took Grayson and Cole fishing, and Grandma and Grandpa were out on the porch having lemonade one afternoon, Rebecca asked Robin, “Have you ever noticed that Dad is more concerned with appearances than he is the real us?”
“Have I noticed?” Robin laughed. “Did you forget? He hired me for appearances. Don’t tell me you’re just now figuring that out—didn’t you ever wonder why he was so hot for you to do the Miss Texas thing?”
“Yeah,” Rebecca said solemnly, guess I’m just now figuring it out.”
With a playful punch to the arm, Robin asked, “What’s with you, anyway? You’re so mopey.”
“I don’t know. Remember when Dad was really sick, and he handed down that ultimatum?”
“Ah, but there were so many,” Robin said with a roll of her eyes. “Which one?”
“The one about how we had to learn to stand on our own two feet, figure out the important things, or he’d cut us off.”
“Right. Well, I am trying to stand on my own two feet, but he’s worried that I am going to be a kept woman or some ridiculous thing like that. He doesn’t really care who I am or how I feel, just how I look to the rest of the world. He wants me to set up as some retiring social butterfly and do nothing but look after Grayson, because in his mind, that’s what I am supposed to be doing.”
“So? What else is new? Dad has always known what’s best for us without bothering to know us at all,” Robin said, almost cheerfully, having come to her conclusions about the old man and having moved on with her life.
It wasn’t so easy for Rebecca. “But I want him to care, Robin. I want him to see me for who I am.”
Robin shook her head. “My advice? Don’t care. Dad is never going to see you like you want him to see you. He’s never going to see anyone or anything other than exactly what he wants to see. But it doesn’t matter what he thinks. It’s your life, and you aren’t living it for him. Be who you are, Rebecca. And be happy. Life is too short to do anything else. If you give what he thinks a second thought, you will only make yourself crazy. Trust me on this one.”
Rebecca nodded, but she couldn’t do what Robin suggested, because she was already crazy.
“So what about that guy?” Robin asked, munching on some of Grandpa’s peanuts.
Rebecca glanced at her from the corner of her eye. “What guy?”
“The gorgeous one,” Robin said, nudging her with her shoulder.