Chapter Fourteen
The next day Andie brought her father home. He wore a gauze bandage on his forehead, and his face was pale and sweaty beneath the mottled purple and yellow bruises ringing his eyes. The doctors had performed all the necessary tests and were certain there was no internal bleeding and no permanent damage.
It was a quiet drive home. With Andie tense and anxious, and her father stubbornly silent, hardly a word was spoken.
She'd stayed the night at her dad's place to take care of Daisy and had gotten, if she was lucky, a few hours of sleep near daybreak. Keyed up and jittery, her nerves twanged like the strings of an out-of-tune guitar. But at the same time she was resolute about what she needed to do.
Daisy, with tail wagging, greeted Mr. Benedetto as soon as he entered the house. He stroked her head and looked wide-eyed at the disarray around him, as though seeing it for the first time.
"I left everything the way it was," his daughter told him, gesturing at the dirty dishes and soiled clothing scattered around the room. "I'm not cleaning up after you anymore."
She shoved aside a pile of books and papers on the sofa, gesturing for him to sit. It was time for The Talk.
"What happened, Dad? You were doing so well. But everything seemed to fall apart after your trip. What went wrong?"
To Andie's shock, her father suddenly burst into tears.
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"I've done something really stupid, darling. I'm a fool."
Andie's heart stopped and whatever words she meant to speak turned to dust on her tongue.
"I lied about the trip. It wasn't to go meet some college friends. It was...it was a woman."
Andie dropped into a chair, dazed. "A woman?"
"After...you found me that time, I knew I needed help. I was so lonely, honey. So I...well, I got involved with an online group."
"Some porn thing?" Andie's stomach churned.
"No! No, nothing like that. A support group for widows and widowers, people who lost their spouses. People like me, who'd understand..." He glanced at her hesitantly.
"All right."
"Well, I began chatting with this woman who'd lost her husband and had two little girls. She was younger than me, quite a bit younger. She knew my age, I didn't try to hide anything, but we got along so well. We really understood each other. We started e-mailing each other every day, and having private chats...and she told me how tough it was trying to raise her daughters on her own—"
"Dad—"
"Her husband had died very suddenly and they had no insurance. And she seemed like such a good person."
"Dad!" Andie stopped him, not wanting to hear any more.
"Please tell me you didn't send this woman any money."
Her father's gaze wavered, then sank guiltily to the carpet.
"Just a little, at first. She was struggling..."
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"Dad." Andie's teeth were clenched so hard her jaw ached.
"Please. Don't. Don't say anything."
She wanted to scream, overcome by a horrible sense of betrayal. And it wasn't even about the money. It was because he'd fallen so easily into some scam-artist's clutches only months after his wife's—her mother's—death. Vicious accusations swept through Andie's mind. Are you out of your mind? Your wife's not even dead a year and you're taking up with some floozy you met in a chat room? This is how you respect your marriage vows? This is how you honor the memory of your wife? My mother?
Andie battled the anger bubbling inside her. Her emotions were hopelessly tangled. She had always respected her father, and now he needed that respect and love more than ever. As hard as it was for her to lose her mom, how much harder for him to lose his wife of thirty years? She wanted to sympathize with her father. But at the moment her compassion was diminished by a sickening disappointment.
"So the whole trip thing." She spoke at last, forcing her tone to remain even. "It was never about a reunion with some college buds. You were planning to meet this...woman..."
He nodded. "Danielle."
Andie stiffened. She didn't want to know the name. "Who suggested it? You? Or her?"
Her father's gaze flashed to her, then flickered away. "It was me. I was getting nervous about the money. At first it was because one of her daughters got sick. Then she got laid off from her job and couldn't pay her rent. Then her car—"
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"I get it, I get it."
"You see, I thought if I met her—"
"How much was it altogether?" Andie demanded.
"Altogether?" Mr. Benedetto's face turned red with shame.
"A few thousand dollars."
"A few thou—" Andie clamped her lips shut as she heard the hysterical note in her voice reverberate around the room.
She hadn't missed the fact her dad wouldn't cop to exactly how much he had shelled out to Danielle. If that was even her name. How could a grown man be so gullible? Of course people had been scammed for much greater amounts, hundreds of thousands or millions even, but she never imagined her own father falling into that kind of trap. "Let me guess. When you got there—where was there, by the way?"
"Orlando."
"Orlando, Florida? You mean as in Disney World?" Andie's mouth fell open. Mr. Benedetto, red faced with shame, couldn't meet her eyes. She had her answer.
"Wait." She was starting to see the big picture. "If this woman was struggling as much as you say, there's no way she could afford air fare and all the rest to Orlando. Are you telling me you paid her way?"
"Yes." Her father looked completely defeated. "And her daughters', too. I wired her the money."
Her daughters. Of course. "My God, Dad." She wanted to say more, but the look on his face silenced her. She shook her head in disgust.
"I bet I know what happened next. You got to your hotel in Orlando and Danielle never showed."
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"She left a message on my cell phone that there'd been a delay. Something with one of her little girls. She said they'd be catching a later flight...but you're right, they never arrived."
"She made a nice little bundle, with the cash for those airplane tickets. A few thousand? More like ten." Andie shook her head, sickened that this woman had abused her father's trust so cruelly. "You were taken, Dad. You realize that, right?"
His response was basically a non-sequitur. "I tried calling her number, but no one ever picked up. At first I was worried something had gone wrong. I couldn't believe Danielle would...she seemed so nice, so good to her little girls."
"What did you do down there?" Andie was horrified by the thought of her father sitting in a hotel room all that time waiting for some mystery woman to show up.
"I finally realized she wasn't coming. But the trip was supposed to last entire weekend. I couldn't think of an excuse to come back early. And I couldn't face anyone after I'd been so stupid." Mr. Benedetto's voice trailed off.
"Oh my God." And that explained why her father had been so happy before his trip. He hadn't been "moving forward" at all. He'd been falling for someone who wasn't even real, someone who was using him while he was vulnerable.
Andie wanted to throw up. Her revulsion toward that bitch scam artist had no outlet, rendering her helpless with frustration. Her emotional tumult must have shown on her face because her father tried again to explain. "I know you're 158
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upset. What I did was stupid. But I miss your mother so much. It's been so lonely—"
"I miss her, too, you know," she snapped. "It's not just you."
Her father looked stricken at her outburst. "I know, Andrea."
Andie forced a lid down on her churning emotions. As disappointed in her father as she was, she understood why he'd shown such poor judgment. He'd been lonely and desperate to fill the yawning hole in his heart. Hadn't she in her loneliness turned to Matthew? Be honest, Andie. It wasn't just loneliness. You wanted him. Be real. You were hot as hell for him, even before you knew about Douglas and Gretchen.
She was angry at Matthew for using her to feel like a hero, a good guy—but hadn't she been using him, too? To bolster her self-worth, to play out her fantasy of being a bad girl?
It's the truth, she told herself glumly. No more moral high ground for you.
"Let's...let's not talk about this right now. We've got to focus on making sure you're all right," Andie told him. "I know you were drinking yesterday. You could have died, you know. Plenty of people have died from falls. Remember that famous actor? He fell and hit his head. He bled to death. That could have been you, Dad."
"But it wasn't. I'm all right." Her father shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. "I'm lucky Matthew found me when he did."
"Yeah, you are lucky. You're lucky Daisy started barking.
You're lucky Matthew heard and came over when he did.
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You're lucky for a lot of reasons." She wondered if even now he realized how fortunate he was. "But you might not be so lucky next time." She paused. "Do you want to die?"
Her father looked at her as though she'd lost her mind.
"That's crazy. What happened was an accident."
"What's crazy is the way you're drinking. You didn't accidentally happen to slip in the kitchen and hit your head.
You were drunk."
"Andrea..."
"You were drunk, Dad." Her tone brooked no argument.
She stared him down, refusing to let him hide from the truth any longer. "So I'm asking. I really want to know. Are you trying to kill yourself? 'Cause that's what you're doing."
Shame made him drop his eyes, but his tone was defensive. "It's not like that."
Andie realized she was not getting through to him. She had to show him some tough love now.
"All right. Here's what's going to happen. I'm taking both sets of your car keys with me. Until you get some help, I'm going to make sure you're not driving. If you need groceries you'll have to take a bus or a cab. The Kwikie Mart is close enough for you to walk to if you need milk or bread. I'm not going to have it on my conscience if you're out there driving under the influence."
Her father's eyes flashed and his face flushed with anger.
"I've never done that."
Andie looked at him coolly. "Well, I can't trust you won't. If you want to risk your own life, I guess I can't stop you. But I'm going to make damn sure you're not endangering 160
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anybody else. And one more thing—I'm taking Daisy with me.
You're not even taking care of yourself, now. I'm not leaving her here so you can neglect her, too."
"I don't neglect Daisy! You have no right, she loves me..."
"I love you!" Andie burst out, startling herself as much as her father. Angry tears flooded her eyes, but she blinked them back. "I love you, and I'm not going to watch you do this to yourself. So I'm not going to clean your house or do your laundry or anything else you've neglected because of the alcohol. When I come to see you, if I think you've been drinking, I'm going to turn right around and go home. That's it."
Her father looked bewildered, as though he didn't understand what she was telling him. She took a deep breath.
"I made some calls this morning. I called AA. They have a meeting every day at different places around town, churches, and other spots. For someone just starting the program, they suggest ninety meetings in ninety days. I left the number by the phone. You have to call them and decide to get help. I can't do it for you.
"I called Al-Anon, too. The man I spoke to was very kind and spent a lot of time talking to me. I learned a lot, and I'm going to learn more. I'm going to start going to their meetings. I'm not going to make it easy for you to hurt yourself. That's over."
And wasn't that what Matthew had been trying to tell her?
But she hadn't wanted to listen. Why was it easier to accept advice from a faceless stranger over the phone than from the man she cared about? She never meant to care. It was never 161
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supposed to come to that. A sickening sense of loss passed through her.
Resentment flared as she gazed at her father, but he looked so shrunken and scared her anger dissolved into pity.
Resolutely, she pushed it aside. Pity was what had allowed matters to get so out of hand.
Her dad was shaking his head, his mouth set in an obstinate line. "I'm not an alcoholic."
"Dad, I don't know if you are or not. But you can't keep going like this. I'm scared for you." This time she didn't even try to hold back her tears.
His stubbornness wavered when faced with her unhappiness. "I didn't mean to scare you." His voice was hoarse. "If your mother was here—"
"She's gone." Andie knew she had to be blunt, even cruel, to keep her father from living in the past. "We're never going to see her again. Except maybe in heaven. But she'd hate to see you like this. She'd want you to be happy."
Her father sounded almost childlike as he asked "Do you think so?"
"Yes. I do believe it, with all my heart. She'd want us both to be happy."
But Andie's certainty was undercut by a sense of despair.
For her, happiness included Matthew, but she'd lost him. No, she hadn't. How could she lose something she'd never had in the first place?
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