The truth is that Mike still takes my breath away and that’ll be a problem if I’m going to survive in Empire. But Una needs us, whether she admits it or not. That means I’m not going to run away from Empire again.
And that means I have to be cool and indifferent to Mike, so he’s not encouraged to believe that we could start again – so there is no temptation.
Easy peasy. I’ve been unreceptive to men for fifteen years.
I’ve got this.
7
MIKE
Without planning to do so, I’ve become a contestant on Name That Dad. As I work through my endless To Do lists, I find myself playing the not-Luke game.
If Sierra isn’t mine and she isn’t Luke’s, whose daughter could she be?
There aren’t that many options, and I don’t like any of them.
We’re in the season of peak production and fortunately, the workers have been recovering steadily. By the end of the week after I go to the café, I’ve got full teams on most shifts and those trucks of tomatoes are heading out on schedule and I’m working less overtime. We got through the prunings this week and the plants are flourishing.
The machine is in gear now, and it’s a bumper crop already this year. The magical alchemy of variables has come together and we have tomatoes for our tomatoes. I’m not the only one watching the new hybrid in greenhouse seven closely. It’s stillsetting fruit, running a little later than our familiar varieties. Fingers crossed.
I pick for five or six hours each night after I’m theoretically done for the day, just so we can keep up. I may never eat a tomato again in my life.
The riddle of Sierra’s paternity is like a gerbil on a wheel. It spins constantly, distracting me from pretty much everything.
Meanwhile, Dad is more intent than usual on finding fault. Augustine Rhodes seems to be on the same proverbial page, unfortunately. We’ve had a bunch of minor complications and accidents, all clustered around the property line between Cavendish Greenhouses and Rhodes Vineyards. Just giving Augustine the title to that sorry piece of dirt is a no-brainer to me at this point, but Dad doesn’t share my view.
Sadly, I’m the most accessible to him – and I’ve failed to close down The Carpe Diem Café, too. The way I see it, it’s an ill-fated venture. The café will close with or without my intervention. Empire doesn’t exactly deliver up a line of hungry patrons. That’s why we don’t even have a donut shop. (Yes, there is one municipality in Canada without a Tim Horton’s. Now you know.)
Back to my gerbil. Sierra’s father can’t have been my older brother Jake. He was at university by the time Sylvia and I were dating, and would have been in Toronto when the conception occurred.
It can’t have been my brother Austin. Two years younger than me, the same age as Luke, he wasn’t that interested in girls then. And later, when he brought women home at Christmas – which hasn’t happened often – they’ve been of a type. Polished. Arty. Edgy even. Consumed with appearances. The polar opposite of down-to-earth Sylvia. I always wondered if he chooses them to terrify Candace, because they invariably do.
Dad’s second and current wife, my stepmom, Candace, hasa son the same age as me, but Grayson isn’t a Cavendish except by name. He was five when she married Dad and could never have given Sierra those blue eyes. His are brown, like Candace’s.
Ethan, Candace’s son by Dad, is eight years younger than me. He would have been just a kid and wasn’t that precocious.
Which takes me to my cousins, Kade and Nick. The surgeon and the bush pilot. They both have a strong physical resemblance to Dad, as does their mom, Grace. (Dad’s sister, my aunt.) Kade is the same age as Jake. Nick is the same age as me. So technically, they could be contenders, but Grace and family moved out to Alberta when we were kids.
Which leaves Dad, an idea that is so troubling on so many levels that I can’t even think about it.
The inevitable conclusion is that Sylvia has to be lying about Luke. It’s out of character, but I’d want to protect Sierra from Luke, too.
The thing is that I wish Sierra’s father had been me. I know it could have been me. I remember every moment we spent together and I’ll never forget that first magical night. We only did it a couple of times, but as the story goes, it only takes the once.
Why wouldn’t Sylvia tell me, if I was Sierra’s father? There’s no reason. She would have done it, even after we argued. She’s Una’s granddaughter, after all. She was in the line to get her measure of ‘forthright.’
Which means I’mnotSierra’s biological father.
Luke wins. His paternity is the only answer that fits, the only explanation for his crazy meddling in people’s lives to get Sylvia to Empire. If Sylvia lied to ensure that she didn’t have to share custody with him, I can’t blame her for that.
We all do stupid things when we’re kids – example being my harsh accusations on that particular morning, words I’d loveto take back, if not make them vanish forever. Sylvia and I were in love. And it’s true, we argued – mostly because she chose Luke over me on prom night, and short-circuited my plans for the evening. I was angry and hurt. Embarrassed in front of my friends. I know I said things I shouldn’t have. I was only eighteen and crazy in love.
And yet, when we parted, my harsh words were the last ones between us.
If nothing else, I owe Sylvia an apology. I’ve owed her one for a long time, but I’ll make it now since I finally know where to find her. I don’t know whether it will matter or not, but that’s not the point. It’s the right thing to do.
Because if Sylvia thinks I’m an asshole – not without cause – I need to try to fix that.
