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"Just giving you a hard time. Believe it or not, I do understand.
Better than you'll probably ever know. Sometime when you've
got about ten hours, I'll tell you how me and Ruth tied the knot.
Taught me one thing: You don't choose love. It chooses you, and
then you work like the dickens to keep it."
On the way home, I thought about the true reason for my
reluctance to date Destiny. It wasn't because of any of the things
I had said out loud.
Rather, I think I was afraid that if I attempted a relationship, I'd
have to let go of most of my defenses, ones which had served
me well for a time, but now were limiting.
I looked at my hands clutching the steering wheel and thought
about why I bit my fingernails, often to the quick. I had done it
ever since I could remember. Over and over again, I had tried to
stop, and sometimes I was successful for a period of time. But I
could never seem to grow long nails.
could never seem to grow long nails.
One day over the summer, I remembered a piece of my
relationship with my father, and it related to my fingernails.
I was six or seven years old. Ann and Gail and my dad and I
were in the living room playing rummy. I could see the cards, and
I could almost hear Neil Diamond playing in the background.
After the game came a time I hated, the time for exchanging
headrubs and backrubs with my father.
If I had long nails, I had to use them to scratch my father's body.
So instead, I bit them, sometimes to the point of bleeding. I
effectively got out of giving backrubs, leaving the chore to my
older sisters.
But in the process, I destroyed a part of myself. A part I never
stopped destroying.
I had survived growing up in an abusive household, but at what
cost? My parents had abused me the first seventeen years of my
life, and then I had continued the abuse for the next thirteen.
When would it end?
It was time for it to stop. Right then and there, I made a decision:
With everything I had, I was going to pursue Destiny Greaves.
Somehow, I would open up and find a way to tell her I loved
her.
Then I'd hope like hell the feeling was mutual.
Chapter 13
Friday, I woke up two hours ahead of the alarm and lay in bed
thinking about what I would say to Destiny. My practiced
versions varied, but all stressed the same points: I'm attracted to
versions varied, but all stressed the same points: I'm attracted to
you; I care about you; I want to start seriously dating.
I dressed more carefully than usual, meaning I chose clothes
from the closet, not the floor. I put on a starched blue shirt that
highlighted the color of my eyes, a pair of my best-fitting faded
jeans, and bright white deck shoes.
At the office, I was in a buoyant, generous mood. I barely
stopped myself from offering my employees big raises and my
clients deep discounts. I bought croissants for everyone and
joyfully answered the phone every time it rang. Of course, I
didn't get a scrap of work done.
At noon, I met Destiny outside Sappho's, a coffeehouse on
Capitol Hill. She looked more radiant than ever. Even with dark
circles under her eyes, clothes askew, and hair tangled, she
made my heart ache.
We climbed the steps to the second-story restaurant. At the top
of the landing, I gestured to a table that overlooked Colfax
Avenue, and we seated ourselves. When the waitress found us,
we placed our order.
After the woman ambled toward the kitchen, Destiny said,
"Lunch is on me today. I owe you one for finding my father."
My appetite vanished. "Really?"
"I can't tell you how glad I am that I met him," she said, a glazed
look in her eyes. "I think he's going to be someone really
important in my life."
"You know all this from the one meeting we had with him?" I
shifted in my chair.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed in an artificially high voice. "He invited
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed in an artificially high voice. "He invited
me to lunch yesterday."
"And you went?" I felt a headache coming on, thanks to the
intensity of my frown.
"Sure, and I had a great time."
"I thought you told me you were busy all week."
"I did. I am."
"Not too busy for your father, obviously. What were you doing?
You could have been in danger. Why didn't you call me?"
"Kris, you worry too much. I'm not a fool  I met him in a
public place. We ate at a restaurant near his office. And I am his
daughter, you know. The man wouldn't rape his own daughter,
would he?"
I let out a sound of disgust.
"Anyway, we had an unbelievable lunch. He told me he'd seen
me on the news and wondered for years if I was his daughter.
He wanted to call and tell me how proud he was but thought he
shouldn't disturb my life. Wasn't that nice of him?"
"Lovely," I answered sarcastically. I took a sip of ice water and
pressed the glass to my forehead.
"I have this incredible sense that even though we were apart for
thirty years, we're so much alike. It gives me goose bumps just
thinking about it. He even took off the cross he wears around his
neck, the one the bishop blessed, and he let me hold it. I felt so
connected to him when I touched it."
"Excuse me?" I was ready to hit the ceiling.
"Look at the work we do  we're both involved with nonprofits
that help women. He's devoted his life to activism, of a sort, and
that help women. He's devoted his life to activism, of a sort, and
so have I. We even talked about working on a project together,
and I'm going to start referring rape survivors to his center."
 You can't!" I implored.
"Why not?"
 You just can't. You want to hear what I've found out about
your father in the last week?"
"Is it good?"
I rubbed my temples. "Not exactly."
"Then I don't want to know." She softly clapped her hands.
"Well, I still have to tell you  that's the whole point of why you
asked me to do this." I took a deep breath. "Let me start by
saying I never liked your father, not from the second I met him.
He's an evil man. Every time you weren't looking, he shot me
hateful sneers."
She stopped peering out the window long enough to meet my
gaze and raise a challenge. "Don't you think you're a little
paranoid?"
"Maybe, but then I visited Chase Weston who runs the Denver
Rape Crisis Center, and she had nothing but bad things to say
about the man. He rapes women every day, Destiny. Just in a
different way. He assaults them with religion and hypocrisy. After
the worst experience of their lives, they come to his little center
for help, and most walk out more disturbed than when they came
in. They take tests to see if they're telling the truth, and many fail.
They sit in sterile rooms with naked portraits of Jesus hanging
behind them. They're encouraged, or more like forced, to bear
behind them. They're encouraged, or more like forced, to bear
children if they have the terrible misfortune of becoming
pregnant. This is not a good place, and Richard Freeman is not a
good man, trust me."
Destiny's eyes stretched wide before they contracted into a hard
glare. "How did you become an expert on the Monarch Center?
Because you listened to Chase Whoever? I've met that woman
before, and I wasn't very impressed with her. Why are you
taking what she's saying at face value, anyway? Because you
have a crush on her? Maybe she's just jealous that my father's
rape center is more successful than hers. Did you ever think
about that? Why don't you go visit the place yourself?" she
asked churlishly.
"I went there Monday."
That seemed to throw her, but not for long. She fixed a laser
stare at me. "You're such a genius, you gathered all this in one
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