“Well,” I say, all the breath leaving my lungs in awhoosh. “Fuck. I’m sorry. That was shitty of him.”
Cal laughs, and I look away as he swipes a hand under his eyes. “Yeah. I guess. I mean, when you first left, I thought youwere being selfish. That you had this great thing here, and you were just…squandering it. Then, eventually, I think I realized that things with you and Frank might not have been that great, either.”
I think of all the expectations. The lack of social life in high school so I could take a million AP classes. The pressure to live up to the Burch family name. At times, I’d assumed Dad was just doing his best. At others, Alena and I clung to one another, feeling completely and totally marooned without another parent there to balance things out.
In a two-parent household—I assume—the adults can balance one another. Maybe, if our mother hadn’t died, she would have been there to argue Alena’s case for attending a school dance, rather than staying home and studying. Perhaps our mother would have softened our dad up.
But I’ll never know.
Now, with my dad dead, the relationship is closed on the way it was. I’ve lost the chance to ever go back and mend it. To tell him how he affected me. To face him head-on.
He’s passed, and every soul in Chicago thinks of him as a saint.
One of the only other people who knows what Frank was really like is sitting across the table from me. And Idohave the chance to fix my relationship with him.
Sighing like he’s having a lot of the same thoughts as me, Cal says, “I wasn’t being…completely honest about my motivations around the clinic. I mean, yeah, I really do think it’s a huge money suck—I mean, that’s just a fact—but I think there was also a part of me that just wanted, in a way, to scorch the earth for him. He was always there, always raking in the adoration from people who saw him as this selfless, perfect man. I never admitted to myself that was part of it. Kind of makes me the villain, I guess.”
I let out a bitter laugh, trying to hang on to the good feelings I had toward my cousin just a minute ago.
If anything, this is just re-enforcing how fucking complicated relationships can be. Especially with family.
“Yeah, well, you got your wish on that, I guess.”
Cal holds my gaze, apology clear there, and somehow, it actually makes me feel better. The knowledge that he and I are, in a way, both collateral damage left in the wake of Franklin Burch.
“You really hired the PI that found that shit on Matt?”
Cal lets out a surprised laugh, and the tension in the room eases. “Yeah. Fucking hated that guy since they got married, honestly.”
“Me too,” I agree, and for the next ten minutes, we make plans to get back at the fucker for messing with Alena.
When we’re leaning back in our chairs, laughing, I add, “Although, it’s not exactly like you know how to pick them…”
“Fuck,” Cal rolls his eyes, “Evony and I have been on and off for a while, but it’s done. I mean, not like I was thrilled to have you back, but Ineverwould have gone to Grande like that. They could bring a suit against you for fraud, man.”
I bite my tongue and look away, knowing that’s true. Just another messy angle of this thing that I haven’t been looking at.
“Should be hard to prove it, though,” Cal adds, giving me a look. “Seeing as how you were giving her moon-eyes at the gala, and Iknowyou’re not that good of an actor.”
I scrub a hand over the back of my neck, not really sure how I came around to talking to Cal about this. “Yeah. Well. I fucked it up big time.”
Cal is quiet, then he says, “Not to go all philosophical, but I think as long as she’s stillhere,” again, the weight of my father’s absence makes itself known, “I think you still have a chance. No matter how slim it is.”
Since having that talk with Orie, I’ve tried calling her, but I didn’t want to go too far. Didn’t want to show up at her place or force her to see me if she didn’t want to.
But maybe Cal is right. Maybe I still have a chance.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Maybe, in order to make this up to Jules, I have to do something pretty fucking drastic.
“Hey,” I say, glancing at Cal, “how long do you think it would take to get a rush order on a paternity test?”
“With our last name?” Cal asks, his eyebrows raising, “No fucking time at all.”
Chapter 36
Jules
“Ican’t believe this is coming to an end,” Sienna says, shaking her head as she places out little oils and creams for the second-to-last weekend of the season. After next weekend, we’ll be cleaning up, and they’ll clear out the Christmas village altogether.
