“Whyever would I not?”
“Well…” Kerra looked away. How to put it? “You may have gone a bit off on the whole idea of marriage. You know what I mean.”
“Because of your mother.”
“It can’t have been a pleasant journey for you. I could see how you mightn’t want me to take it.”
Ben took his turn at avoiding Kerra’s gaze. He said, “Marriage is difficult no matter the situation the couple finds themselves in. Think otherwise, and you’ll be in for a surprise.”
“But there’s difficult and there’s difficult,” Kerra said. “Truly difficult. Impossible to accept.”
“Ah. Yes. I know you’ve thought that: the why of it all. I’ve been reading that question on your face since you were twelve years old.”
He looked so regretful as he spoke that Kerra felt pained. She said, “Did you never think…Did you never want to…”
He covered her hand with his. “Your mum has had her trying times. There’s no question about that. But her trying times have made her own path rockier than they’ve made mine, and that’s the truth of it. Beyond that, she gave me you. And I have to thank her for that, whatever her faults may be.”
At this, Kerra saw that the moment had arrived when she’d least expected it. She looked down at her Coke, but something of what she needed to say to her father must have shown in her features because he said, “What is it, Kerra?”
“How do you know?” she asked him.
“Whether to take the leap with another person? You don’t know. There’s never any certainty about the kind of life you’ll have with someone else, is there, but at some point?”
“No, no. That’s not what I mean.” She felt the colour come into her face. It burned her cheeks and she could imagine it spreading out like a fan towards her ears. She said, “How do you know about us? About me? For sure. Because…”
He frowned for a moment, but then his eyes widened a little as he took in her meaning.
She added miserably, “Because of what she’s like. I’ve wondered, you see, from time to time.”
He stood abruptly, and she thought he might stride out of the café altogether since he looked towards the door. But instead he said to her, “Come with me, girl. No no. Leave your things where they are,” and he took her to a coat rack, where a small mirror hung within a seashell frame. He stood her in front of that mirror, himself behind her, his hands on her shoulders. “Look at your face,” he said, “and look at mine. Good God, Kerra, who would you be if not my daughter?”
Her eyes burned. She blinked the smarting away. “What about Santo?” she asked.
His hands tightened on her shoulders reassuringly. “You favour me,” he replied, “and Santo always favoured your mum.”