I scanned the parking lot like I was looking for the police after committing a crime. I saw plenty of students rushing to and from classes, even recognizing some of the dancers from my Dance Theory class that I had skipped out on this morning. Instead, I opted to study for my finals inside my car behind The Bex, hoping no one would know I was there before I could rush off to my meeting with Professor Petit regarding my audition on Friday with the dreaded fall.
My phone had been off. The strength it took to shut it down and not turn it back on was something I possessed like a sixth sense. Avoidance apparently ran in my DNA, if it was true that Tom Gardini was actually my father.
I stepped out of my car, cursing at the creaking of the door, as if Theo or Chad were hiding in the bushes, ready to pop out at the sound of it. I crinkled my nose before pulling my light-blue beanie down on my head, angling my face away from the harsh wind. Fall had turned to winter in the last couple of months, but I hadn’t noticed until now.
My hand shook slightly as I peeled open the door to the auditorium and walked farther inside. I pushed down the top of my book and glanced at my ankle. It was still bruised. I could have really used that ice bath, but I would rather chop off my ankle than face Theo at the moment.
“You need to ice it.”
My keys fell, and the sound clattering against the floor sounded like a thousand bricks falling around us. I removed my gaze from the floor and slowly latched onto the voice from across the expansive, open room.
I wasn’t sure how I would feel seeing Tom again, but it didn’t surprise me that it was anger that fell from my lips. “A little too late for advice, don’t you think?”
I swiftly bent down, swiped up my keys, and backed away from the man claiming to be my father. I had given up a long time ago wondering if he’d ever come back. I was a baby when he left, so it wasn’t that I missed the tender presence of my father after all these years—I didn’t even know him. Instead, I felt the sharp sting of disappointment and betrayal, and I was on a warpath for destruction.
“That’s fair,” he said, pulling himself to stand with his cane. I thought back to the story that Theo had told me about Tom before his claim had come to light, and I wondered how much of it was true. “Well…” Tom stopped my thoughts from progressing any further. “It would be fair if what you knew of me was the truth.”
“Excuse me?” I wanted my words to come out as fierce as I was claiming to be, but instead, they were weak and brimmed with confusion.
“Do you know how long I’ve searched for you?”
My stomach twisted, but my chin raised as a defense mechanism.
“And do you know how many times I’ve been lied to in my life? Trust is a fleeting thing as of late, Tom.” Trust. I wasn’t sure I’d ever trust anyone again.
Tom slowly sat back down, placing his cane beside him. I stood several feet away, and he made no move to ask me to sit. Instead, he jumped right into what he had to say with this no-bullshit attitude that somehow doubled as cautious.
“I guess that man does know you.” Tom stared at me from across the shiny floor, and I swallowed, refusing to ask what he was talking about. “Theo said that I ruined the trust between you two, and for that, I’m truly sorry.”
Tom wanted to get right to it? Well, so did I. “Is it true?”
“Which part?”
All of it. “Did you seek him out to get closer to me? Did he know you were my father?” I paused. “Are you even sure you’re my father? Is that why you came to my audition? Catching up on all that you missed out on when you left?”
There was a hint of a smile on Tom’s face, and it was soft and warm instead of smug or all-knowing. “Would you like to sit? There’s a lot I need to tell you, Claire.”
I hesitated at first, but before I knew it, I had taken a seat—three down from him, just out of spite, but at least I was sitting. Just hear him out.
“Firstly, no. Theo did not know until he showed up late to the hockey game, and I pulled him aside afterward.” I saw him glance at me from my peripheral vision. “He thought I had pulled him into his coach’s office to yell at him, but you know what? The second he heard me say that I was your father, he went into total defensive mode. And I’ll admit, I wouldn’t stand to be talked to like that by any of my players—or anyone in the industry, for that matter—but the fact that he was potentially throwing his career away to stand up for you was okay by me.”
What?
My mouth opened, but I closed it a second later. There was a rush of guilt that went through me, thinking Theo was throwing away his career for me. Then, came the undeniable fear that I was going to lose the one person who was on my side no matter what.
“He went off—respectfully. He was poised as he dished out all that you had told him about your nonexistent father and the financial hardships you have gone through with your mother. He was quick to put everything on the line for you.” Tom’s sigh was an exact replica of mine, and I sucked up my tears as he continued to talk. “That’s when I realized that the story you’ve been told isn’t true, Claire.”
I looked over at him immediately. “What are you talking about?”
He caught my eye, and it was like he knew something I didn’t. His face was merciful, and truth was in his eyes, burning as brightly as a blue flame. “I didn’t abandon you. I didn’t even get a chance to meet you.”
Each word plucked a stitch from a wound that I wasn’t aware was there.
“That’s not what I was told.” My voice was shaky, and I glanced at the auditorium door, knowing my meeting was approaching.
“I’ve gathered as much. I’m not sure how much you know of me—”
I interrupted him. “Brilliant hockey player. You were destined for the NHL but got into a car accident and destroyed the nerves along your spine, and it ruined your career on ice, but you worked up into the position you are in now being one of the most idolized men in hockey.”
Tom’s eyebrows flew up, and he smiled. “Wow, Google search?”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from mirroring his smile because there was nothing to smile about in the moment, but for some reason, I felt the teeniest, tiniest blip of something warm.
“Theo.”
“Ah.” Tom nodded. “I see.” He looked over at me once more. “That’s all true, but you’re missing what happened after the crash.” He rubbed a hand over his face in apparent exhaustion. “I’m not sure how to say this without being insensitive or seeming angry because I’ve been angry for the last twenty years of my life. The anger has been fleeting, but seeing you sitting here looking at me like I left you makes it hard to ignore.” He pinched the bridge of his nose before dropping his hand to his lap. “Your mother left me.” I stared at the little crinkles of age around his eyes. “Right after the crash, while I was in the hospital. She was seven months pregnant with you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she do that?” The number of times I’d had to untangle a mess of words that flew from her mouth that resulted in her cursing my father for pushing her into single parenting and how she had to raise me herself made zero sense if she was the one who was responsible.
I looked up at Tom again after trying to find an explanation. “Did you cheat on her? Did you abuse her? Did you…” I ran every route, and each time I threw out a variation of a potential truth, he winced.
“What? No. Of course not!” He glanced at me briefly.
“I’m sorry.” I shrugged, throwing my arms over my chest again. “Then I don’t understand.”
“She was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to take care of a…cripple…and a baby all on her own, and at first, I understood. I wasn’t in a good place after the crash, and I thought her concerns were valid.”
Wait, what?
“Are you telling me that my mother—who has told me time and time again that you left us because you didn’t love us—lied?”
“Yes.” He threw his hand out in frustration but lowered it quickly, as if he were hiding his anger. “The way it played out wasn’t how it was supposed to go. When Angela addressed her concerns, I told her I understood and that I didn’t blame her for wanting what was best for you. I did too. Before she left that evening, we’d talked things through. I told her she didn’t have to take care of me and that I understood where she was coming from. She was right. I didn’t have much to offer either of you as I was lying in a hospital bed with my future completely obliterated. But I never would have let her walk out that door if I knew she’d take off the next day. She changed her last name and moved into a town that I didn’t even know existed. I didn’t realize she was going to cut me out of your life completely.” Tom took a breath. “I’m sorry it took me so long to pull together the resources to find you.”
I placed my head in my hands, trying to process the information. Anger roared in the back of my mind at my mother’s stupidity. I tore my face from my palms and looked over Tom, who was peeking at me curiously. “She has no idea where you ended up.”
Tom’s forehead furrowed, and I prodded forward.
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t have grown up the way I did.”
I stood up with rising resentment. I wasn’t sure if I should have been understanding, or angry, or both. There was no way in hell that my mother would have stayed away from my father this long if she knew that he was as successful as he was. She wasn’t as shallow as it seemed, but money was the biggest obstacle in our life—always. Things could have been so different if she had stayed, or at the very least, stayed in touch. He was my father after all.
Tom stood, holding onto his cane with a strong hand and an even stronger brow line. “How did you grow up?”
“Poor.”
His face fell, and I began to back away from him.
“I have to go to my meeting,” I explained. “And then I need to go home to talk to my mother.” I needed confirmation. I needed to understand my mother’s decisions.
Tom nodded as he watched me head toward the auditorium doors, seeming to give me space. There was a hint of fear there, as if he was afraid he’d never see me again.
“Here.” I quickly walked over to the empty reception area in the lobby and tore off a piece of the sign-in paper. I scribbled my number on it and rushed back to hand it to him, knowing I was late to my meeting, but somehow, it seemed so trivial of me to worry about being the lead soloist in the show at this point. “That’s my number.”
Tom held the piece of paper in his free hand and looked at it as if it were a piece of gold, but I said nothing else as I propelled around and headed for the doors.
“Claire, wait.”
I peered over my shoulder as he stared at the ripped paper. “Theo is refusing to come to the team tryouts unless I fix what I broke between you two.” His eyes flew to mine in panic. “I’m not telling you this so he will join my team. That doesn’t matter to me as much as it probably means to him. I’m telling you this because it’s obvious that he loves you, and love is hard to come by in a world like this.”
My eyes welled up, but I only nodded at him before turning my back and heading into my meeting to think of nothing regarding dance and everything regarding my mother, Tom, and the guy who literally threatened to give up his dream for me.
