“The four of you were the reason she tried to stay. But—” Their father ran his hand over his eyes again, as though he wished he could hide. “It was my fault. I drove her away. With my paintings.”
“How could your paintings have driven her away?” Suz asked. “You worshipped her in them.”
“I more than worshipped her. Just as you said earlier when you didn’t know I was in the house, I was obsessed. And that only made things worse.”
Drake watched his father at war with himself, as if he wasn’t sure that he should continue. “Whatever you’ve got to tell us, we can take it.”
“I know you can. The only one I’m not sure about is myself.”
“We’re family,” Suz reminded him in a voice drenched with tears that were clearly about to fall. “We’re supposed to be here for each other. For you.”
Harry nodded. “Keep going, Dad.”
Only Alec didn’t look completely on board with finally hearing the truth about the end of their parents’ marriage. His face was stony, his eyes hard.
Regret heavy in his voice, their father finally continued. “After we were married, I found out things about Lynn’s past. About how she’d often closed into herself as a teenager and tried to shut out the rest of the world, and then she did it even more as a young woman in her twenties. Noise, crowds, speed—she couldn’t take any of it. But whenever she was pregnant, whenever she had a baby in her arms, she seemed at peace. Content. As close to grounded as she could be.” He grimaced. “At least, until my paintings of her started to find an audience all over the world. When one of my paintings made the cover of Time, it was similar to having something go viral today on the Internet. And she hated the spotlight.” He shook his head. “Hated isn’t the right word for it. It was more that she worried that everyone walking down the street was looking at her. She became more and more paranoid that people were saying things about her. She stopped wanting to go out. Stopped wanting to see anyone, even family, because she swore they were all judging her. Shaming her.”
“I know that feeling,” Rosa said, the first thing she’d said since Drake’s family had begun this difficult discussion. “I know how much easier it seems to run and hide from the world, rather than to face it.”
“She wasn’t strong like you are, Rosa,” William said. “She could never have weathered what you’re dealing with right now. Five minutes in the kitchen with you was all it took to see that you aren’t going to let anyone back you into a corner and keep you there. When Drake told me he was painting a woman who didn’t want anyone to see the paintings, I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t stand the thought of his stepping into my shoes, desperately trying to hold on to a woman who was always meant to float away. Repeating history. But I now know that isn’t going to happen, because you have a resilience that my wife never did.” Grief was etched into every line on his face. “I thought that if I painted Lynn enough times, I’d finally find her hidden vein of tenacity. The fearlessness that is in each of our children. Only to realize too late that all my paintings ever did was drive her farther away. Higher up into the sky. Until one day, she simply disappeared. I’ll never be able to forgive myself for driving her away.”
A dark and ominously heavy cloud threatened to descend over them. But Drake was tired of his family being shrouded in darkness. As his father had said earlier, thirty years was long enough.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Everyone but Rosa started in their chairs. She simply kept holding on to his hand while he fought to finally heal the wounds that had torn his family apart for his entire life.
“It is,” his father insisted. “I just told you the truth. A truth I’ve been so ashamed of for so long. And I understand if all of you hate me.”
“I hate that she left. I hate that she wasn’t strong enough to withstand fame, the heat of the spotlight. I hate that she couldn’t figure out a way to get some help so that she could stick around and see her kids grow up. But I don’t hate you, Dad. I’ve never hated you, even when you were gone all the time and it would have been so much easier if I did.”
“Are you saying—” Hope lit his father’s eyes, so much hope that Drake’s chest clenched tight to realize just how badly his father needed to know his kids loved him. “You actually forgive me?”
Fierce heat rose again inside Drake, but it wasn’t directed at his dad anymore. Shame had made his mother so paranoid that she couldn’t imagine living. Shame had made his father bottle up his feelings for thirty years. Shame had sent Rosa into hiding.
“I’m saying we should all give shame and guilt a big fat kick in the ass and start the hell over.”
“A fresh start.” A tear rolled down his father’s face as he reached out to put a hand over Drake’s. “That’s what I want too.”