“Oh, could she? That would make things so much easier. I know I’m probably being silly about wanting to stay so close to him, but I’m his wife and that’s the way things are.” Her tone was defensive, as if someone had challenged her on staying so close with Dad. I wanted to yell at whoever had made her feel that way. God forbid she love and be concerned about her husband after he’d had a heart attack. What a horrible thing to do.
“It’s no problem at all. So how about three on Saturday?” She agreed and I hung. Lucah passed me a glass of wine and sat down next to me on the couch. He’d already taken off his tie and had unbuttoned his white shirt.
“Everything good?” he asked. I shifted until I was leaning on his chest.
“Yup. We’re going to do the fitting at the house because Mom doesn’t want to be away from Dad for very long,” I said as he took down my hair and I kicked off my heels. This was one of my favorite times of day. Unwinding with Lucah. Getting comfortable after a long day of work. Listening to the quiet with just him and a glass of wine. Just us.
“I can understand that. Remember when we had people to babysit Ryder?” That had been fun. He’d lived with us, too. I was more than a little relieved that he had his own place now and when he was here, he stayed with Sloane.
“Yup,” I said, yawning.
“Want me to get dinner started?” he asked and I nodded, but didn’t get off him so he could get up.
“Or I could call for takeout, if you don’t want me to do that.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay, what? Cooking or takeout?” I yawned again.
“Takeout’s fine. I don’t care. Whatever.” I was just so tired all of a sudden. It wasn’t even seven and I was more than ready for bed.
“You okay, Sunshine?” he asked, cupping my chin and moving my head so he could look into my eyes.
“Yeah, I’m just really tired. You know how it hits you all of a sudden?” He put his palm on my forehead.
“You look a little pale and you’ve been low on energy for a while. Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?” I shook my head.
“I don’t think so. I mean, I had that stomach thing, but I’m pretty sure alcohol contributed to that.” I paused and decided that it was time for me to tell him that I hadn’t been sleeping well.
“Oh, Rory, why didn’t you tell me?” I closed my eyes.
“I don’t know, Lucah. I just thought that it would get better and that I’d learn to deal with it, but I just… I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be my dad. I can’t do his job and mine. I just don’t know what to do.” He brushed a few tears away from my cheeks.
“You don’t have to do everything, Rory. You don’t have to. It’s okay to say that you need some help, that you can’t do everything on your own. It doesn’t make you a weak person. It makes you a strong one, since you know how to ask for help. You know this isn’t good. You know it. I support you no matter what, but I can’t stand by and watch you run yourself into the ground. Walter wouldn’t want you to do that.” They were hard truths to hear, but I’d rather hear them from him than anyone else. He was my external conscience. My external voice of reason.
“I know,” I said, my voice choked with emotion. I’d been extra emotional lately. Guess I was just having bad PMS.
“I love you so much, but I can’t bear to see you hurt yourself for this. It’s not worth hurting yourself for.” I opened my mouth to argue with him, but the words refused to be spoken. CE was so important to me, but it wasn’t the most important thing to me. It had been, at one time. Well, except for my parents and Sloane. Now things were different.
Love made you reprioritize everything.
I took a breath and tried to organize my thoughts.
“I know. I know it’s not. But I don’t know what else to do but what I’ve been doing. I think that since my father did this, I should do it. Because I’m his daughter and it’s my job. I should be able to handle it.” I wiped away a few more tears.
“I should be able to handle it,” I said again.
“I know, Sunshine, I know.” He gathered me up and I cried into his shirt. I let it all out. I let out the past few weeks. I let out my emotions about Dad’s heart attack. I let it out and soon I was shaking and sobbing and Lucah was trying to hold me together. I was going to break apart into dozens of bits with jagged edges and I couldn’t let that happen. It wasn’t easy, but I took one deep breath and that led to another and another.
My tears stopped at last.
“I’m okay,” I said. I still sounded shaky, but I was coming down. Wow. I hadn’t been that completely intensely emotional in a long time. As much as I liked a good freakout, dealing with something like this wasn’t one of my favorite things.
“Oh, Rory. I wish it hadn’t gotten this bad. I wish things had turned out different,” he said.
“Me too. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. This is where we are and we have to move forward.” Lucah passed me a box of tissues. I definitely needed them. Now that the crying had stopped, a headache was starting to build in my brain.
“Together. We have to move forward together. I’m not letting you do this alone,” he said and I gave him a kiss even though I probably wasn’t too pretty at the moment.