“Okay, so . . .” She realized she didn’t have a lead-in. No disrespect to Clark’s trauma confessions, but they had come with those handy visual aids.
“Um, my dad left, when I was nine—This part is backstory, for context,” Riley clarified, intimidated by Clark’s perfectly stoic expression. “Anyway. So, yeah. As it turns out, my mom had kept the whole curse-breaking thing a secret from him and he didn’t find out until after Gran died when she left me a bunch of her practitioner materials.”
She could still remember her dad sorting through the carefully wrapped contents of a cardboard box that had come back from West Virginia after the funeral. The way his face had gone white and then red.
“He, um . . . didn’t like it. He said Gran was unnatural, and my mom and I were tainted by association.”
Riley wished Ceilidh would bring her water. For some reason her throat hurt, though she was barely speaking above a whisper.
“There was a lot of screaming and big sweeping hand gestures after that. And then . . . that was it. He just stopped loving us. At least, that’s what he said. For context.”
“That’s enough.” Clark’s expression was complicated, restrained, but what killed Riley was how gentle he’d made his voice. “You don’t have to keep going for my sake.”
“I think I do.” It felt good—scary but good—to air out the place inside of her that had been shut up dead for so long.
Had Clark experienced a fraction of the same relief with her? She hoped so.
“The worst thing about me”—Riley took a deep breath— “is I didn’t have to make the choice. My mom made it for me. And I love her for that. So much. But . . .”
Jordan Rhodes might not have chosen to pursue the “family talent.” She might have left Appalachia and her mother behind to make her own path. But no one, including—perhaps especially—a husband, had ever stood a chance of shaming her for where she came from.
Late that same night, after they’d cleaned up the dishes and lay together in Riley’s twin bed, she’d explained as best she could that Daddy’s anger hadn’t been about them, not really. Had promised that even though it was just the two of them now, they’d be okay.
Riley had believed her.
“But . . .” Clark prompted when she’d sat silently for too long.
“I can’t help but think sometimes that if he’d asked me . . .” Riley fiddled with the stitching along the edge of her napkin. “As much as I love my gran, love curse breaking . . . I think I would have given them both up.”
Her cheeks heated in shame from the traitorous thoughts. “If it meant I could have had a dad, that my mom wouldn’t have had to do everything on her own.”
Clark clenched his fists suddenly, the movement made more prominent by the way the iron chain jerked between them in response.
Riley raised her gaze. Was he okay?
Slowly, he relaxed both hands until his palms rested flat on the table.
“It’s not wrong,” he said, his voice tight, “for a child to want to be loved and accepted by their parent.” Clark shook his head a little. “You can see it clear as day when it’s someone else’s family instead of your own.”
In the low yellow light of the bar, his troubled eyes looked more green than gray.
“Your father failed you. And he failed your mother. Not the other way around.”
Riley swallowed. Nodded. It was how she felt about his father. His brother, in a different way.
In fact, as she sat there, the mirror image of his pain and hers cracked her open a little down her sternum, until it felt like her guts might spill out onto the table.
“By turning curse breaking into a career, you’re defending your mum and your gran. Their choices. Their power.” Clark stared at her intently, in that way he did sometimes that made her feel like a butterfly pinned for his inspection. “You’ve been defending them your whole life.”
“Yes,” she said, holding his gaze even though it felt intense, too raw.
When Ceilidh rushed over to drop two plates in front of them, they both jumped a little in their chairs.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, grabbing their drinks from an equally frazzled-looking colleague and placing those down too, fast enough that some liquid sloshed over the sides. “I just realized, I think I mixed up the tickets for tables seven and eight.”
She shot concerned glances at a pair of couples near the front. “Do you guys need anything else?”
Clark peered first at his burger and then at Riley’s salad. “Didn’t you say no on—”
“We’re all good,” Riley cut him off. “Go check on those tables.” She shooed away the younger woman with her free hand.
After Ceilidh had scampered off, Riley nudged the pile of caramelized onion on her plate, wielding her fork awkwardly with her left hand. Damn. They weren’t just on top. They had been mixed into the salad. She might have managed to pick around them if she could use her dominant hand, but alas . . .
“It’s fine,” she told Clark, who had made a far wiser choice for his meal in a sandwich he could hold in one hand, though, she noticed, he’d yet to reach for it. “I’ll just eat the fries.”
He frowned. “Do you want me to call her back?”
“Oh no. I would rather die,” Riley said sincerely.
The frown, impossibly, deepened. “Are you allergic to onions?”
“No.” She just hated the texture. Leave it to onions to ruin her attempt to feed herself something green.
Clark beckoned the offending plate forward. “Give it here.”
“What are you gonna do?” Riley swore if he draped his napkin over it like a shroud or something she would drag his snooty ass right out of here.
He raised his fork as if there was no doubt his order would be followed. “I’m going to pick them out, obviously.”
“You’re gonna pick out my onions,” she said, disbelieving.
“I am if you’ll push the bloody plate toward me.” He glared at the manacle chain between them. “Afraid my reach’s a bit hampered at the moment.”
“That’s okay.” Riley pushed the plate to the side instead. “You don’t have to.”
She didn’t want him putting himself out just because she’d told him a sad story.
“Riley,” he said dangerously. “I’m going to pick out those onions whether you like it or not, so I suggest you hand me your plate before I have to stand up and make a scene.” He put his free hand on the edge of the table like he was threatening to scoot his chair back.
She didn’t smile, but it was a near thing.
Clark picked out her onions with the same steely-eyed diligence he applied to every other activity, placing them on his own napkin, as far away from her as the table would allow.
“There.” Job done and her plate returned to her, he sat back in his chair and finally reached for his burger.
It was probably cold by now.
Only when he raised his eyebrows at her did Riley realize he was waiting for her to try the salad. She did, quickly.
“It’s good.” She would have said so either way after that, but it was true. The acid in the dressing cut nicely through the richness of the goat cheese. “Thank you.”