It was then Julia completely lost control, her vision exploding into fireworks of fury. Her fists clenched and her body tensed from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
She leaned forward stiffly from the waist and hissed, “Make amends? You can never make amends. Even if I was to spend the next fifteen years telling you, you will never know what a good man your son was. You will never have the chance to meet the glorious woman he chose for his bride. You will never have her joy and light shine down on you. You’re too late.”
“I know that, Julia,” Trevor replied, his voice conciliatory. He began to walk forward and she threw her arm up to fend him off. It registered somewhere in her brain that Douglas had pushed away from the doors when father started to approach daughter but Julia was too overcome to think about what that meant.
“So now, because I have a little bit of my brother in me, I’m going to let you have Thanksgiving dinner with your grandchildren. Not for your sake, but for theirs,” Julia went on. “Their parents just died and I don’t want anything disturbing what, up until now, was perhaps their first lovely day in months. And afterwards, you’re going to go back to your wife and family and never darken our door again.”
At the mention of his second family, his face grew pale and his carefully controlled expression faltered.
“Felicia’s left me, Julia.” His voice cracked on this admission and instead of Julia feeling an ounce of compassion, which she saw his eyes beseeching her for, it all became blazingly clear why he was there.
If his wife had left him then now he was alone, only now would he come back into her life. Not of his own accord, but because, perhaps, he had no one else.
She didn’t care. She could not believe his selfishness, it took her breath away. But he wasn’t finished.
“My children, they’re all…” He didn’t complete that thought and she didn’t wonder at it. None of her half sisters or brother had ever made any advances to her or Gavin either. “And then I heard about Gavin and I just had to –”
She advanced on him, taking two swift strides and barely registering his wince and recoil at her quick, furious charge. She realised then how old he looked, how faded and defeated, his handsomeness nothing but a memory.
Gavin would have never looked like that. Never.
She jolted to a halt.
“If you have problems, they’re your problems. We, Mom, Gavin and I, had problems too but we managed to sort through them without you! There was the time when Mom had nineteen cents in the bank and you hadn’t paid child support and we had no toilet paper, where were you when Gavin had to break open his piggy bank so we could go to the store? There was the time when Gavin won All-County in football and all the other boys stood on the stage with their fathers and Mom had to be at work and my brother had to stand there alone, where were you then?” She hurled every word at him like a spear. “So, now you can take my offer and then you can go away and I swear to all that is holy, if you ever approach my mother, I’ll hunt you down and –”
“I believe,” Douglas cut in firmly, quieting her with his calm words, “dinner is getting cold. I would imagine the children are missing their aunt and likely becoming concerned.” Both father and daughter swung to Douglas who was now standing several feet from the doorway. “If Julia has anything more to say after supper, perhaps she can do so then. Now it’s important to get back to the children.”
Julia was still shaking but she took a deep breath while she watched Douglas. He looked completely unperturbed at this turn of events and she tried to suck some of his energy from across the room.
“Of course,” she agreed with a stiff nod, because he was right, she should be thinking of the children. “Father, would you like to meet your grandchildren?” she inquired, but her tone was barely civil, making these lovely words sound nearly threatening.
He simply nodded, looking back and forth between Douglas and Julia.
She took another breath and motioned with her arm to the door. Trevor started to exit the room and she followed him, her movements jerky. As she passed Douglas, he caught her hand and pulled on it gently to stop her.
“You have to get control of yourself,” he told her from between his teeth. “You can’t let the children see you like this.”
“And how do you propose I do that?” Julia flashed back. He may be able to stand cold and controlled in the face of just about anything but she wasn’t built like that.
Douglas turned.
“Dr. Fairfax,” he called to the older man and her father, already in the hall, stopped. “If you’ll give me a moment with Julia?”
Trevor looked relieved, obviously believing that he had an ally in Douglas as he had in Monique and therefore he nodded gratefully.
Julia also wondered where Douglas stood on all this drama and decided that it was likely exactly where Douglas always stood, casually removed.
“Please close the doors and wait for us in the hall,” Douglas requested. “And please do not approach the children until Julia and I are there to make introductions.”
Trevor nodded again before he closed the doors behind him and Douglas pulled Julia back to the windows where his gentle tug on her hand made her halt.
He turned her to face him but didn’t let go over her hand.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she muttered under her breath, her body still shaking, resolving to worry about Douglas some other time.
“Julia, you lose your temper, you let him see he can affect you and you give him power. You cannot give him power. You need to control yourself,” Douglas informed her, like it was as easy as that.
“He does have power!” she burst out. “He’s my father. He’ll always be my father.”
It was all too much, losing Gavin and Tammy, losing her old life, playing this game with Douglas and now this. She didn’t have the strength, never had, Sean had shown her that.
She lifted a hand and raked her fingers with agitation through her hair.
“He’s never been your father,” Douglas stated and her entire body jerked at his pronouncement, her arm dropping listlessly, because, in his statement’s exquisite simplicity, she realised he was right.
She stared at him, stunned with the knowledge shared eloquently, through five little words, that Douglas didn’t stand casually removed, not from her but instead, from Dr. Trevor Fairfax. Gone was the fury she’d seen the moment her father entered the hall. Douglas gave Trevor Fairfax nothing and this was because he was worth nothing to Douglas except his casual indifference. And telling her this, showing her, Douglas was indicating this was how she should also behave.
The tears she’d pushed back sprang to her eyes. She pulled her hand from his and swung away, putting distance between them as she fought back her emotions and tried to find the strength to follow his lead. She stopped, her back to Douglas and pressed the fingers of both of her hands to her mouth.
Douglas didn’t follow her and she used the moment of semi-privacy to battle for control.
“You know, I don’t really miss him,” Gavin said once when they were talking about their father. “Whenever we had to go to his house for the weekend, I always couldn’t wait to get home to Mom.”
Tamsin had kissed the top of her husband’s head.
“Yeah, Gav,” Julia had agreed quietly, “I know.”
“I was glad when he stopped coming to pick us up for visits,” Gavin had muttered. “It was a relief.”