I hung up, a smile playing over my lips. It faded seconds later. I could feel bad about how Dad only called when his route took him through town, how he was another man in my life with hurtful priorities. But this time it was about my brothers. Dad never called them. He’d send a Christmas card to Jason and Matt, include some money for the kids. The effort of facing their wrath and answering for his behavior kept him from two-way communication. I’d seen what that kind of behavior had done to my brothers. How they’d acted out as kids. The anger they still carried as adults.

I’d seen the effects from the perspective of a child and an adult. I’d observed it and acknowledged it on an unconscious level, until now.

Before the wedding, Aiden and I had discussed having kids. I’d wanted a family. I’d been bearing down on thirty, I’d been getting married, and I’d felt it was my time. He’d asked me to wait for a while. Work and all that. I’d waited. More unconscious acknowledgment. We weren’t going to have kids. We were never going to have kids.

Work and all that.

I didn’t want my kids to feel like my brothers did. If I stayed with Aiden, would he change his mind? If he didn’t, then what?

The bustle of the café, and the constant stream of vehicles and semis outside the five-foot-tall picture windows, made it easier to tell my dad about the last month of my life.

“I’m really sorry to hear that, kiddo.” Dad took a long pull from his black-as-tar coffee and pulled his teeth back like the cup was half filled with vodka. He’d quit drinking shortly after he and Mom had split, and no coffee was safe around him. If they figured out a way to give it via IV, he’d be first in line.

“It is what it is.” The good thing about spilling my story to him was that he never got overly emotional. If he wasn’t going to ooze sympathy and give me a hug, then I wouldn’t cry while telling him.

His smile was small, crinkling extra lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen them, along with the additional gray at his temples and the widening thin patch of sandy-blond hair on top of his head. “Just like your mom.” I shot him a questioning look and he elaborated. “You aren’t going to put up with anyone’s bullshit.”