Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes

the dickens not?”
    “He was so abusive. I couldn’t tell him.”
    “Abusive? or angry?”
    I shrugged. “How do I know he won’t be that way with her?”
    “How do you know he will? It’s not your job to control the results, only to relay the message. He has a right to know he’s a father.”
    “He hates me.”
    She squeezed my hand. “It doesn’t matter if he hates you, hates Jack, or hates me. He’s her father. Her father , Jenny. If he loves her , then that’s all that matters.”
    “His father will tell him,” I mumbled. “I’m sure he probably has already.”
    “He should have heard it from you.”
    I slid my hand from under hers and wrapped my arms around myself, feeling suddenly cold. “He should’ve let me speak. Besides, I don’t want my daughter being raised in that family.”
    “That’s not your decision.”
    Not my decision? Having metastatic melanoma was not my decision. The headaches, fatigue, palpitations, and mood swings I’d been suffering from were not my decision. David’s breaking up with me was not my decision. My mother’s dying was not my decision. Mama Peg’s emphysema was not my decision. My father’s coldness toward me was not my decision. But this? This was one of the few things that was my decision. “She’s my daughter. While I still have breath in my body, I have a say.”
    I looked down at the pile of tiny paper balls I had made, then closed my eyes. It’s time, I told myself. After months of worrying about what would be best for my daughter, all choices but one had vanished. I now knew what Isabella’s future would be and it was time to meet fate halfway.
    I stood and swept the mess I’d made into my palm.
    “Where are you going?” Mama Peg asked.
    “To tell Dad.”
    “Tell him what?”
    I walked to the sink and emptied the scraps into the garbage disposal, then turned around. “What do you think?”
    She went into a coughing fit. I grabbed a glass from the dish rack, filled it with tap water, set it before her, then set out to find my father. As I neared the stairwell, I started to call his name but remembered Isabella sleeping.
    Standing before my father’s closed bedroom door, I clenched my fist and gave a light tap. Not surprisingly, no reply followed. Of course he wouldn’t be in his room. All he did in there was dress and sleep. Most of his time was spent in his office teaching himself the banjo or in the basement studio painting, or rather, trying to. The truth was, he was even less talented in the visual arts than he was at music.
    I made my way back down the stairs and found Mama Peg waiting for me. Her skin appeared ashen and her breathing resonated louder than usual. “You can’t tell him today,” she managed around coughs. Cyan outlined her lips.
    “You don’t look well,” I said.
    “You’re perceptive.”
    “I mean more not well than usual.”
    The slamming of a car door in the driveway turned both of our heads toward the window. I walked over and drew back the curtain, revealing a blue pickup in the driveway with Allen Landscaping stenciled in white letters on the door.
    “Who is it?” Mama Peg asked.
    “Craig.”
    She frowned. “What’s he doing home already?”
    He leaned against the truck with a cell phone to his ear.
    I shrugged, let the curtain drop, and turned around. “You think Dad’s in the basement?”
    “Didn’t you hear me?”
    “I can’t tell him. Why not?”
    She grabbed the stairway post to steady herself. “To everything, there is a season.”
    I let out an exasperated breath. “First you get on my case for not telling him; now you’re telling me not to tell him?”
    She opened her mouth to answer but hacked instead. She continued to cough until her face turned an alarming shade of purple. I took the handle of her tank in one hand and with the other I led her to a chair to sit. Pink returned to her skin as she sucked in several breaths.
    I sat on the armrest and rubbed her back. “In case you forget