Stef Ann Holm by Lucy Back (books to read in your 30s TXT) 📗

he’d waited for her to come home from school. Caroline had been at work, so he’d sat on the porch alone.

Mackenzie had walked up, seen him and stopped. Gone was that look of wonder and hope that she’d given him when she’d been two years younger. This time he’d been met with resentment and distrust.

“When I saw you there, I was mad at you,” she said.

“You had every right.”

“But when you started talking to me about the trouble I was having in school, I knew Momma must have told you, and I wondered why she was even telling you my business if she was so angry with you.”

“Caroline kept in touch with me throughout the years, and when she said you’d been struggling, I knew I had to come see you and try to make things up.”

He blamed himself for hurting her so bad that she might never recover as an adult. To Caroline’s credit, Mackenzie had never had issues with drugs or alcohol. A true testament to Caroline’s well-grounded parenting skills.

In a lifetime of mistakes, Drew felt worst about how he’d treated Caroline and Mackenzie. It was the one thing after becoming sober that he knew he needed to go back to and correct.

Mackenzie shifted her weight, put a hand on her hip. “I remember you said sometimes adults make mistakes that fall back on children, but it’s not their fault.”

“I did.”

“Do you realize you said I was a mistake?”

Drew felt the breath knocked out of him. “Mackenzie, I never.”

“Yes, you did. You said I was a mistake.” Mackenzie’s chin rose, a quiver in her lower lip. “How can I ever forget that?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry! That’s all you’ve ever said!” She balled her hands into fists. “I wrote you letters! After you came to see me the first time, I wrote to you. I wanted you to be my dad.”

Drew had received her letters, but he hadn’t responded. He didn’t know how to. He’d been dealing with stuff from rehab, but having a brain messed up from alcohol abuse was no excuse. If he could throw a baseball, he was capable of picking up a pen.

After those first few letters, her enthusiasm changed and she’d wanted to know how come he was so rich while she and her mother lived in a two bedroom house?

In Drew’s mind, he felt it best not to reply, because ultimately, he would just let her down. But because of Mackenzie’s long letters, he did start to send Caroline money. He had more than made up his financial responsibilities.

Only once did Caroline ever threaten him—that was when Mackenzie had been entering her senior year and Caroline wrote to ask if he could pay for college. For some reason, he never got that letter. To this day, he didn’t know what had happened to it. So Caroline called him and the first words out of her mouth when he answered was, “I’ll see you in court.”

After he’d calmed her down and got her to believe he knew nothing about her letter, he’d agreed about the college tuition. Mackenzie needed that education and she had to go.

Even when Caroline got sick with cancer, any hope he’d had of having a mock family was nixed. He would have gone to see her in the hospital, but she was adamant he stay away. She didn’t want his memory to be of her dying. Up to the end, Caroline never displayed a bitter hatred toward him—and she had every right. She only wanted what was best for their daughter.

The hot sun beat down on his face and a bead of sweat trickled down his neck. Lucy’s words came back to him, reminding him of the differences between actual remorse and actual forgiveness—even if what he’d done had been entirely wrong.

Sorry and forgiveness were two different things.

His eyes burned from the lack of sleep last night. But if he was being honest with himself, he’d admit they burned from the hot sting of unshed tears. He knew there was no hope, could feel it in his heart. “Mackenzie, when I think about all the birthday cards I never sent, the phone calls I never made, no Christmas gifts, no regard for you whatsoever when you were growing up—I don’t deserve any chance you might give me.”

He couldn’t even beg for one. He didn’t have that right.

“I do want to ask you something, though.” He swallowed the saliva in his throat, blinked hard once, then twice. “If you can’t, I understand, but it has to be said. Can you forgive me?”

Mackenzie glanced away, unable to look at him. He knew it, and didn’t blame her. Bees droned in the nearby brush, their sound so loud it was deafening. Someone down the street was mowing a lawn. Life moved on. And here they stood. Stagnant. And he was helpless to fix it.

“After Bobby left…and then I found out who you were, my reality was no longer real.” Mackenzie’s soft voice carried to him and she met his gaze. He saw years of fear, loneliness, hope and despair, a deep longing, rejection, fondness, and something else. He couldn’t dare to probe deeper in case he was wrong.

Tears spilled from her eyes, coursing down her cheeks. She cried without noise, the sight going straight to his heart. “All I ever wanted was someone I could call Dad—who knew he was my dad. Bobby knew he wasn’t. You knew you were…but you never—” Her voice cracked. “You never said you wanted me to be your little girl.”

Drew took a step closer. So close, he smelled her skin. That distinct scent that he’d come to know as Mackenzie. Flowers, shampoo, a certain lotion. It scented her sheets, the bathroom, his house. It was something he’d never forget.

He wanted desperately to draw her into his arms and hold her tight, but he wasn’t sure.

“Momma always told me,” she said, wiping at her tears with her fingertips, but they fell faster