“Where’s Lex?”Cassie asked when I reentered the bar.
I gestured. “Out on the dock. I think she needs to…shit, I don’t know.”
Cassie stared at the door as if she could see Lexie. “She’s kept us all at a certain distance for…years. I never really realized how distant until now.”
Charlie was standing behind Cassie’s chair. “She hides it with her sarcasm and being funny and super, like, bold, but I think deep down she’s…”
“Insecure,” Liv said. “And I just wish I knew why.”
Charlie sighed. “She told me she had a dream of moving to Nashville and becoming a singer-songwriter.”
Liv blinked. “She did?”
Charlie frowned. “You didn’t know? How do you not know that about your own daughter? I mean, Mom, I’m not trying to, like, think I know anything about being a mother, but that seems like something you would know.”
She shook her head. “No, and I feel horrible for not knowing that about her.” The pain on her face was agonizing to see. “You say shehada dream. But she doesn’t anymore?”
Charlie shook her head. “No. She told me one time when she was like seventeen and close to graduating that Dad came into her room while she was practicing her music, and told her that she needed to face reality that she just wasn’t talented enough to make it as professional musician, and that she needed to find a more practicable and realistic goal for her future.”
Liv blinked, and a tear trickled down her cheek. “No. No, no way. He didn’t.”
Charlie shrugged. “That’s what she said.”
“Oh, Darren.” Liv wiped at her cheek. “How could he crush her dream like that?”
Cassie laughed bitterly. “He never believed I would make it as a professional dancer. He paid for the lessons, went to the recitals, but he never really believed in me. He never told me I wouldn’t make it like he did Lex, but I knew that he didn’t really think I could do it. He was always like, sort of just waiting for me to fail, to come to my senses. I knew it. I also knew that dance was the only thing that made sense to me. It just…defined who I was. I’ve learned to define myself other ways now, but then, it was all I had, so I believed in myself despite Dad not believing in me.” She smiled at Liv. “And you were there for me, so that made a huge difference.”
Liv shook her head. “I was there for you. But clearly not for Lex. Darren just…how could he crush the dreams of his child like that? Howcouldhe?”
Cassie shook her head. “I don’t know, Mom. Like, what’s weird is, I loved him. He loved us and I assumed that my whole life. I didn’t feel, like, UNLOVED, by him. But it just felt…shaky. I don’t know how to put it—I think I’m still working through it.”
“Dad was an asshole, that’s what it is,” Charlie said in an uncharacteristic outburst of anger. “He tapped out. Gave up. Stopped trying. With you, with all of us. Why, I can’t even begin to understand. But it’s an undeniable truth. And I’m getting the impression that of all of us, Lexie suffered from that the worst.”
“He was musically talented,” Liv said, musing half to herself. “Once upon a time, at least.”
Cassie stared. “He was? How? I never saw him with an instrument, never heard him sing a note unless it was in the car or the shower, and he wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t have called his singing voice exceptional.”
Liv sighed. “He played the guitar, acoustic and electric. He was in a band. A pretty good one, too. Back when he was in high school. He actually took a gap year to try and make the band work—of course, back then nobody called it a gap year, we just called it not going to college. His dad gave him a year to make a go of being in a band instead of going to college. He was lead guitar and did backup vocals, and he was…really, really good. He could play almost anything—The Allman brothers, ZZ Top, Black Sabbath, even a decent cover of some Jimi Hendrix songs. The band did well, for a while. Started gaining notoriety in the local scene where we grew up in Connecticut, started booking gigs on the coast and even a few in New York. But they never quite got the break. They got close, got heard by some producers a few times, but never got the contract offer. And then the year came and went, and his dad forced his hand. Choose—pursue the band, but if you do, I won’t pay for college when you realize your band isn’t going anywhere and you don’t have a future.”
Charlie winced. “Ouch.”
“And let me guess,” Cassie said. “He chose college?”
Liv nodded. “Gave up music, went to college, got a job, made that his career, and that was it. I don’t think he ever looked back.” She was staring up, to the left—remembering. “He never talked about music. He enjoyed listening to it, but after he quit the band, he never even thought about it again, as far as I know. Not with me anyway.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I know this is your personal family business, but from an outsider’s perspective, it seems to me like he never really did get over it. Just shoved the dead dream down into the back of his head. For you, Cassie, your dream was dance, and when his own dream didn’t pan out he was skeptical anyone else’s could. Your dream being different from his meant it didn’t hurt him as much. For Lex, having a dream that had beenhisdream? It must have cut. He was jealous. Sorry to seem like I’m shittin’ on his memory, but…he cut Lexie to the bone when he said what he did—and I got no reason to think she was lyin’ or makin’ that up. I don’t think she recovered from it. And for the record, Alexandra is goddamntalented. I’ve only managed to tease a few little snippets out of her, and even that little bit blew me away. Just her and her little ukulele in the back of my bus––she was hesitant and quiet, but she…” I growled a sigh. “She’s got real talent. I’m sayin’ this as a professional, not as someone who has feelings for her.”
“And you think her dad killing her dream is what has her so upset?” Liv asked me. Her eyes were sharp.
I knew I owed her the truth. “I think that’s part of it, but not all.”
Liv tilted her head to one side. “What else would there be?”
“I honestly don’t know. She won’t talk about it.” I shrugged. “Not to me, not about the past, but I know there’s something. You don’t walk around with the kind of anger she’s got without somethin’ big lurking way down deep.”
Liv’s sigh, then, was pained. “And I have no idea what it could be—which means I missed somethinghuge.Something beyond the fact that she had a dream and the talent to pursue it, and her father crushed it because of his own insecurities.”
“I wish I could offer more insight, but she keeps me at bay as much as she does everyone. And I confess I don’t know what to do.”
