I checked the time.
It was seven o’clock.
Was that too early to show up to someone’s house unannounced?
What if Wayne was in bed?
What if he had a wife and a family and she has no clue about my mother?
Maybe that was why the house was so eccentric, his wife.
Or maybe he was crazy?
Had I been romanticizing what and who my father could be?
Of course, you have. You’re such a silly girl.
I heard my grandmother’s voice in my head. She’d called me silly a lot when I was growing up and it was never used as a term of endearment. There was never any affection in her tone, just disdain.
This time, she might be right. I hadn’t given any thought to the fact that he could be psycho or just an asshole. I was basically opening the door of my life to a stranger and saying, “Come on in, the water’s great!”
He could be a crazy person. A mean person. Or just a person that didn’t want their life upended by a long-lost daughter. I’d had blinders on when it came to finding my father and hadn’t taken into account that I could be seriously disrupting this man’s life.
I took a deep, shaky breath.
“We don’t have to go up to the door. We can leave. We can go get breakfast and come back when you’re ready. Or we can just drive back to Firefly.”
Cash had the patience of a saint. Not only with me, but with patrons at the bar, his neighbors, namely Miss Shaw, and just everyone. Nothing ever rattled or upset him.
He’d changed his vacation plans at the drop of a dime, drove the past ten hours while I’d been sawing logs, and because I was nervous he was ready to abort the mission completely without batting an eye.
“Or I can go up to the door and feel things out if you want,” he offered.
That might not be a bad idea. I bit down on the inside of my mouth. “What would you say?”
The left corner of his lips curled in the bad-boy half-grin that had my stomach feeling all kinds of funny, but not from nerves. “I’ll think of somethin’.”
One grin. That was all it took to soothe my frazzled nerves, to give me a sense of calm and security. To anchor me to the moment.
That was the effect that Cash had on me. This past year had been like a roller coaster. I’d felt insecure, out of place, and experienced more anxiety than I’d ever known I could feel. But just looking into Cash’s eyes, hearing his voice, even being in his presence grounded me.
“No.” I dug into my purse and got a breath mint, popped one in my mouth then offered the container to Cash. “I’ll go.”
I’d come this far. Even though everything in me was screaming for me to drive away, I needed to face this.
All my life, I’d never felt like I was in control of my life. One of the first drawings I ever did was an assignment we got in first grade to draw a self-portrait. I drew myself as a marionette being animated by puppet masters who resembled my grandparents.
I was seven at the time. I had no idea then, just how insightful that self-portrait had been.
Moving down to Firefly had cut the strings that had been manipulating me, but I still hadn’t been moving on my own. I was being controlled by circumstances, expectations, and uncertainty.
This trip was about taking back control of my life.
It was time to become a real girl, or not girl, real woman.
I opened the door, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the sidewalk. My legs wobbled slightly. Before I could reach out to steady myself Cash was by my side. I wasn’t sure how he’d made it around the truck so fast, but I was glad that he was there. Having his support, both literally and figuratively was invaluable.
“You ready?” he asked.