"Online courses," I replied, standing up and walking over to the large windows overlooking the gulf.
"You trying to hurry up and finish?"
"No. I'm making up for lost time." He didn't deserve anymore of an explanation. He'd opted out of my life.
Turning around before he could say anymore I asked,
"Where's the wife?"
"I asked her to let me do this alone."
"Why? Afraid I'll hurt her feelings?"
My father shook his head, "No, I just didn't want her here while I visited with my kids."
"I'm only here for Amanda."
"And Larissa. I'm not a fool son. I see the way you look at her. You may not want to care about her but you do." No reason to lie. "I cared about Larissa before I knew.
She's a baby. None of this is her fault."
"And she's your sister."
"And she's my sister," I agreed. No point in arguing. It was the truth.
"Have you spoken to Will ow since..." he didn't finish. He didn't need to.
didn't need to.
"No."
He didn't have a response for that. I started to go find the girls when his voice stopped me. "She didn't know." I froze.
"She was devastated. She'd just figured it out. She was there, at the house, having a complete emotional breakdown when you walked in."
I swallowed hard. Did I want to hear this?
"She stripped me bare by listing every person I'd hurt with my actions. She pointed out every sin I'd committed and she praised the one person who'd been left to pick up the pieces. She praised him rather passionately. How he'd been the one to hold the family I'd betrayed together. She also told me how much she loved him and how my actions and her sister's actions were going to be the reason she lost him."
I grabbed hold of the chair beside me. My knees went weak. The ache from hearing Larissa ask for Will ow was nothing compared to the pain searing through my chest.
The things I'd said. Oh, God no.
"She's been left her whole life. She's a good girl. Larissa adores her. Where her sister lacks in many honorable traits Will ow seems to have them in abundance." I'd left her.
Just like she feared.
The memory of her face when she'd walked into the bedroom that day before my sister had called. She'd looked completely broken, devastated, lost. She'd just found out. She'd come to tell me. And I'd had to leave.
She hadn't known.
"What's wrong?" Amanda ask as she walked into the room.
I lifted my head and looked at her. "She didn't know," I whispered horrified as the words echoed in my head that I'd yelled at her that night as she pleaded with me to stop.
"I never thought she did," Amanda replied. The sadness in her voice was unmistakable. "I tried to tell you that I was pretty sure she was innocent but you wouldn't listen to me. I wasn't allowed to even speak her name. Every time I tried to talk to you about Will ow you ended up so stupid drunk you couldn't walk."
She knew as well as I did that I'd lost Low, and it was all my fault.