Catching Preeya (Paradise South Book 3) (23 page)

CHAPTER 33

T
he days of
traveling through the jungle, a blur. And when he’d gotten to base camp he’d been relieved that he’d made it. Strange, though. Relief for making it was never a usual thing for him. In the past he’d always felt disappointed somehow, that nature or man hadn’t snatched him up. But he couldn’t deny having wanted to arrive safely. Maybe it was the pending trial next month. That chapter coming to a close.

Or maybe it was Preeya lingering in his mind. And in his goddamn heart.
But that’s over, Ben. Over and
done.

*

Two solid weeks of refugees streaming in by train from South and Central America through the corridor. He’d probably supplied thousands of vaccines during that time, to those souls seeking a better life. Desperate and brave, all with no other choice. He felt their yearning, children and adults alike. How could he not continue and strive on? Like these poor souls had. If not for him, then for Jamie, and for these nameless seekers.

And with or without Preeya in his life, he’d push on for her, too.

But God, he had so thought it would be
with
her.

*

By week three, he’d found one tiny café with a
Wi-Fi
hotspot. He’d called Stacy, left her a voice mail—“I’m alive and well”—even though he wasn’t exactly well, but trying like hell to be. Fighting to put Preeya out of his head. He’d also checked for and got an email from Stanton. The hearing date was set for the last week of June. He’d probably have to leave the project early, out of Mexico City instead of Vallarta, if that was the case. Either way, he was looking forward to finally being done with the medical review board, his former
in-laws
, and the guilt. He was ready to turn the page. Really ready.

CHAPTER 34

“
H
ey, Prana, sweetie.”

Her sister’s eyes lit up and her hands began to clap and wave wildly.

And then, from the corner of the room, a deep voice. “Preeya,
bitay
.”

She spun around, breath halted. “Dad?”

He never visited Prana. What the hell?

Also so strange—the way he’d said
bitay
, “my sweet child” in Hindi. The soft lining around his utterance made her ears ring. Throughout her life, his use of
bitay
had always been unearned, unwelcome. He hadn’t deserved to call her his sweet child, or anything else for that matter.

“It’s good to see you,
bitay
.”

Again. She winced behind the fakest smile she could muster.

Hands in his pockets with obvious uncertainty, he didn’t move to hug her—maybe he’d caught on to her radiating fury. Instead he offered a warm and intent look, so
off-putting
that her throat went dry and her palms got moist. She couldn’t remember him looking her in the face, in the eyes, since…forever. Or at least since she was seven.

Prana yelped with excitement and impatience—her sister’s warning call before an
all-out
fit—and broke the strange…spell between Preeya and her dad. “Sorry, little sister.” Preeya turned from her dad to kiss Prana’s forehead. “I missed you, sweetie, so, so much.” A spring of fresh tears welled in Preeya’s eyes, but she wiped them away just as quickly. Not in front of her father.

Prana pointed to their dad.

“Yes, right.” For her sister’s benefit, Preeya made the move and went over to her father to kiss him on the cheek. Then Prana yelped and pointed toward the restroom door just opening.

Ah.
The real reason for Dad’s
super-sweet
act, no
doubt.

“Preeya,
bitay
…this is my wife, Sylvia. Sylvia, my beloved oldest daughter, Preeya.”

Beloved? She wanted to vomit from the
pseudo-daddy
act. But as she studied her father’s eyes, the unwavering goddamn warmth, he wasn’t breaking his gaze.

Was he kidding with this shit?

Still with the soft smile to go with the slow blinks over round, kind eyes.

No. He wasn’t kidding. Not in the slightest.

“I needed my love to meet my loves, Preeya. And here we are.” He reached for Sylvia and pulled her in to his left, and with his other hand, trembling, he invited Preeya to stand close, to stand near her father.

Her heart thudded in her ears—replacing the
high-pitched
ringing—but she was sure that his voice had never sounded so tender. Had his pitch changed? His demeanor, too? Had this
Sylvia
changed him?

Or…had Preeya’s hearing changed? Or her brain’s filter of his words, maybe?

“It is so wonderful to finally meet you, Preeya.” Sylvia held out her hand, slow and gentle. Taking Preeya’s, Sylvia leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Babe,” she said to Preeya’s father, “you were right about her eyes: sharp and brilliant. More so in person than in the photos.”

Huh.
Preeya just couldn’t imagine her shallow,
doctor-to
-
the-stars
father having the time or inclination to show anyone photos of her.

But thankfully her sister started clicking her tongue and moaning, wanting attention. A perfect
out
of this awkward interaction. Preeya smiled at Sylvia politely. “Thank you, and please excuse me. My Prana awaits.”

At Prana’s side, Preeya’s brows lifted for effect. She slowly pulled from her purse the thing she knew Prana had waited for. Prana clapped as Preeya sat down on the chair next to her sister. Opening
The Giving Tree
to the first page, she began to read.

*

They strolled through the landscaped grounds in silence for some time, until her father cleared his throat. “I am glad for this coincidence, Preeya,
bitay
.”

“Dad, you’ve always said there are no coincidences.”

“Yes. True.” He chuckled. “I’m glad, then, that this timing has put us together. I missed you very much at the wedding. But, I can understand…”

“You can
understand
, Dad? Can you really?” She cocked her head at him and tried to hide the shake of her head.
Calm, respect, control.

But damn it! He’d never showed up for her, her entire life! And had let her live a charade, one that had shaped her and so many choices. But worse, with this new daddy act, she’d had to wait until age
twenty-five
for her father to, well, be her father and not just some funding source from afar!

“What is it,
bitay
? Tell me.”

“First off, this whole sweet father act… Spectacular Sylvia isn’t around right now, so you can stop. The usual lectures can resume. Our traditional
once-a
-year visitation should keep to script.”

“I’ve changed a lot since meeting Sylvia, and I’ve healed a lot.”

Healed?
Jesus
. Okay. Not going there. “Listen—Aunt Champa…she told me everything. About Mom, why she left. Why she
really
left.”

“I know. I didn’t want her to, and I am sorry for that.”

“No, Dad!
You
should have told me. Forever ago! I blamed you this entire time for everything! Thinking my mother was a
huge-hearted
giver. A world savior, for Christ’s sake!”

“I lied to protect you. A white lie, for the best. I weighed all the options, and really,
bitay—
”

“No ‘bitay’, Dad! Don’t you get it? Because of the story you made up, I put her on a damn pedestal. Tried to emulate her, the
ever-wonderer
, the aimless seeker. Sacrificial and…selfless.” She paused her words and her breath. Selfless? Aimless, yes, but
selfless
? Had Preeya really emulated the person she understood her mother to be?

I mean, you didn’t finish med school…and you didn’t go join the Peace Corps, Preeya
. No, she took an
always-mobile
going-nowhere
job as a glorified traveling waitress.

Hey, as a matter of fact, I saved a life just the other
day!

Preeya. Truth.

She sighed.
Truth?

Fuck. She’d just wasted all this time, years, and had used her ghost of a mother as an excuse. Her scapegoat. To put life off, to put dreams off. To wait for life to catch her, instead of her going out and catching life.

“How much time I wasted,” she mumbled.

“What’s that, Preeya?”

She sighed again, then shook her head. “I…I don’t know. Just that…everything. Just everything. I missed having a mother. And I missed having a father. That is what it comes down to. I just missed my parents.” Her mind was blank and swimming at the same time.

“Oh, my beloved…” He moved to hug her.

But she backed away. “No, Dad.” She lifted her eyes, narrowed, quivering with hurt and anger. Years—God, nearly decades. “Not that easy. You know, you looked at me today…the first time you cared enough to goddamn look me in the eyes since the day she left us.”

He sighed. “Your eyes,
bitay
. It hurt too much. I am so sorry, I just couldn’t….” He swallowed back emotion she’d never seen in him, not even that day he had to pry Prana from her
seven-year
-old grip. “Until Sylvia came, I had too much pain in my heart to look into those beautiful eyes of yours,” he said, obvious shame forcing his gaze away.

All she could do was shake her head. A father. Human, yes, but Jesus…he couldn’t bear to look her in the face, or parent her, or visit or call or,
damn it
, show love in any incremental amount except for monetarily—because it hurt too much?

Well, she didn’t ask for her mother’s eyes…or any of the shit her parents had put on her. What a fucking
cop-out
! And now, damn it, she was drowning with new rising rage and it was too much for her to make sense out of. Too fucking much.

She had to sit down. Getting
light-headed
, she caught sight of a bench across the way. She went without a word.

He followed. And sat down beside her.

“Preeya,” he whispered. “You’re not your mother. I know that.”

She heard words go in and sensed words being prepared in her head to come out, but damned if she knew what any of it was about anymore. “But I wanted to be
her
, Dad, because I didn’t want to be like you. Absent, heartless, greedy—”

“That wasn’t true, though—”

“Exactly. But Dad, you made it true. With your lie. Your lie about Mom—and
your
complete abandonment to follow it all up—made her the great sacrificing soul and you became the
money-hungry
son of a bitch who only visited once a year. And even then we had our status checklist of an interaction, Dad.”

“Look,
bitay
, I had to support you, but I couldn’t be an effective parent, too, so I put you in the care of someone I thought could.”

“You thought wrong again.”

“I’m sure Champa did her best, but she’s human. And you are a strong spirit, a strong soul…”

“Again, just like the pretend mother you created for me, I’m not strong. I’m weak—like her!”

“Preeya. You aren’t even making sense. Don’t you see the mother I made up stemmed from the person I knew you had in you to become. I still haven’t met a
seven-year
-old anywhere with the capacity for empathetic and selfless love like you had. And
have
. The way you’ve always been with Prana…your nature is beautiful. You’ve always had a beautiful, selfless inside. Always.”

“No. You’re wrong. I am not caring or selfless.” God, she’d dropped Evan flat, visited Prana maybe once a month, quit med school instead of sticking it out to become someone who truly helps people, and then there was Ben. She’d been so cruel and apathetic to him. He was a
truly
selfless person.
Shit!
“How can you even know, Dad? You don’t know me from a stranger on the street. Other than these purple curses in my head…I mean, really!”

“You are a wonderful person, Preeya. Your energy is factually…brilliant! So brilliant,
bitay
, that I worked in an industry I despised so that I could give you opportunities, an expensive college education, and medical school, so that you could soar—”

“And I
crash-landed
, Dad. Time and time again. All on my own, I failed. Just like Mom…” Her brain and heart were officially clobbered. “I don’t…just…damn it, Dad, I don’t know who I’m trying to be, or not be….”

“What is wrong with being you, my love? Your namesake,
beloved
. Be love. My smart, beautiful, beloved Preeya. Just be you. Stronger than me, than your mother…just be you.”

She couldn’t stop it then. The heaving hiccups of emotion. Not brimming over but busting at the seams of her soul. From her chest, her eyes, her head pounding out the years of collected everything. Right there in the pristine courtyard of SafeHaven. And as she gasped for air through her sobs, her father took her in his arms, held her through the earthquake of it all. And if she wanted to shove him away, punch him, cause him immeasurable, infinite pain, she couldn’t even muster the strength.

But she didn’t want that. She honestly didn’t want him in pain. No, what she wanted was finally being given to her. His loving arms. His fatherly security wrapped around her tight, steady and strong.

“I can only say that I’m human, Preeya,
bitay
.” He sniffled and cleared his throat. “And thank God that I have changed and learned so that I can be here now for you and with you, my love.”

She buried her face deeper into his chest, crying through unknown time and space, there on the cold, hard stone bench while he continued to hold her tight.

*

She wiped her eyes and nose, let her face lift to see her father’s, and took in a clearing breath. “Your shirt, it’s a mess…from me.”

“It’s fine,” he said through a light laugh. “Sylvia says the mess inside our hearts is the hard thing to clean up. A shirt’s a dime a dozen.”

“Hmm.” She let a hint of a smile form as she sat up to collect herself, the sunshine hard on her swollen eyes, but much needed. Eye opening, warming sunshine. Hopeful,
restarting
sunshine.

“Preeya, I would like you to get to know Sylvia. She’s wonderful, and you both have such huge hearts. After those decades of being closed to the world, Preeya, she opened my heart again.” He lifted her face with his index finger. “I really was crushed, too, when your mother left us.”

“
Us
, Dad.” She opened her eyes and looked at him and tried to find a soft smile. “Operative word
us
. Not just me and not just you, and not just Prana.”

“I know…now.” He squeezed her shoulder. “And again, I’m so sorry for leaving you all alone with your pain, my sweet girl.”

Her breath had become shallow but had slowed, eased.

“We’re together now. Better late than ever?”

“Better late than
never
, Dad.
Thirty-some
years in the States now?” She couldn’t help but smile. His idioms and figures of speech were always a little off, the one thing that she remembered that had made her laugh when they were together.

And the next thought that flew in was another possible fitting common phrase:
too little, too late
. Was it? Was it too late for them? She looked at his face. Softened. Aged. Kind. Maybe this was real, this change in him? And why didn’t she and he deserve this chance, a second chance?

“Dad, she didn’t even say
good-bye
—”

“Your mother was scared. And deeply ashamed. Wherever she is, she’s awake at nights with shame.”

Moments passed as she considered his words.
Pity
toward forgiveness. Forgiveness? Maybe. But she wouldn’t ever forget.