MY DAD WAS LOOKINGa little better the morning following his shooting. His face wasn’t a deathly gray, but he was still really pale and weak looking. There had always been a part of me that wanted a closer relationship with my father, but I always thought I’d have time to make it happen. I realized how foolish my thinking had been. Time wasn’t always on our side, it owed us nothing, and it had a habit of running out on us with no warning. Standing in his room, I promised myself that I wouldn’t waste any more time on foolish pride or fear of rejection. It was better to know than to be kept wondering for the rest of my life.
My dad reached out his hand to me and I immediately went to him once I got over the shock from his gesture. He gasped in pain as he struggled to sit upright in bed. “Help me sit up, son.”
“Take it easy, Father.” I rearranged pillows and pushed the button on the remote so the bed slowly rose to a sitting position. “Is that better?”
“Yes, thank you.” His throat sounded dry so I poured him a cup of ice water from the pitcher beside his bed. He let me hold the cup for him when his hands shook too hard to hang onto it. Father took several small sips from the straw before he pulled away. “I don’t have much time before nurse Ratchet throws you out. We have serious business to discuss,” he said, sounding like the former CEO he was.
“Your son said you know who shot you, sir,” Detective Fowler said. “Did you see his face?”
My father shook his head and then said, “He wore a dark helmet so I couldn’t see his face, but it didn’t matter. I know who’s behind the attacks; it can only be one person.”
“Who?” the detectives and I asked at the same time.
“The feud began with my father and Bartholomew Nicholson. According to Bart, he and my dad won a lot of money gambling illegally and decided to build a hotel and casino of their own. Bart said he gave over his winnings to my father who turned around and cut him out of the deal. Bart didn’t have any proof of what he claimed, because he said he’d trusted my dad. They had been lifelong friends and he’d never had any reason to believe that George would screw him over.” My father snorted and chuckled darkly. “It’s like he was talking about a different George Heston, because the man I knew would screw anyone over to get what he wanted.”
“So, what makes you think he’d wait decades to launch an attack?” Detective Harmon asked.
“It happens with every generation,” my father replied. “I was confronted and accused by Bart’s son, Simon, and I think Bart’s grandson is getting in on the action.” His voice was starting to crack and sound dry again so I held up his cup for another sip of water. “Thank you, Mitch,” he said when he was finished. “I’ve kept my eye on these people over the years. Even if they’d never made actual death threats, they still had a threatening presence.” The insistence that I needed a security team finally made sense to me.
“They went public with their story from time to time. I’d have my legal team send them a letter warning that I’d sue if they didn’t stop and it would work temporarily. I probably should’ve sued them, but it would’ve only made me look bad in the press. Timothy Nicholson is a different story; he became unhinged when he came home from the war.” My dad was quickly losing what little energy he had left when we arrived. His color worsened, if that was possible, and he sagged back against the bed instead of trying to hold himself upright.
“How so?” Fowler asked.
“He’s been in constant legal trouble these past few years and even served hard time for a bar fight that went really wrong. Still, he made no threat toward us so I really didn’t give it much thought. I figured the feud died with Bart and Simon.”
“Did Simon pass away recently?” Harmon asked. He was probably thinking what I was: if Simon died recently then it could’ve triggered a response from Timothy.
“It’s been over a year, but Timothy was in jail at the time. He’s not been out very long. I have a gut feeling that all of this leads back to the feud between my dad and Bart; although like Bart, I have no proof.”
“We’ll look into it, Mr. Heston,” Harmon promised.
“You just focus on getting better,” Fowler added.
I turned my attention back on my dad once the detectives left the room. “Can I get you anything?” I asked him.
“Forgiveness, Mitch,” he replied softly. I saw that his eyes were starting to droop and I knew I wouldn’t have much time with him before his meds pulled him back under. “I’ve been a lousy father to you and… I’m not sure how I can ever make it up to you.”
I patted his hand where it rested on his bed rail. “Just get better.” Tears burned the back of my eyes because it was the first time he’d ever hinted at having regrets about the distance between us.
“Then we can talk more, yes?” The frailness in his voice scared me, but I had to believe he was going to recover from his gunshot wounds. The alternative was just too cruel and unfair for me to consider.
“Absolutely.” Reacting on instinct, I leaned forward and kissed him on the head. “Rest now, Father. I’ll be back during next visiting hours.”
“Okay,” he said, tears leaking beneath his closed eyelids.
I squeezed his hand one last time, wiped the tears from my own eyes, and left his room. Mark was waiting for me right where I left him. I stepped into him and he hugged me tight. “I hate seeing him like that.”
“I know, babe.” It was the first time that Mark had called me an endearment, unless “asshole” counted. “He’s strong and he’s going to pull through. Just have a little faith.” He linked his hand in mine after we pulled back from the hug. “There’s a decent coffee shop on the ground floor if you want to get a cup while we wait until you can see him again.”
“Sounds perfect,” I replied.
Mark didn’t pull his hand away as we made our way to the elevators. Once inside the elevator, he released my hand and pulled me into another hug, but that time he threw in a sweet kiss. I wanted to share a lingering kiss so that the warmth of his body could penetrate the cold that had seeped into my bones, but we arrived on the ground floor too quickly.
I took a seat in the back of the coffee shop while Mark placed the order. Even though Edna made us breakfast, I hadn’t been in the mood to eat then, I was grateful for the cinnamon roll that Mark bought me to go along with my coffee.
“I thought you might be able to use an extra boost of sugar right now,” he said with a smile.
“I’m really sorry that my father got shot, but it might bring us closer than we’ve ever been,” I said after a few bites of my sweet roll. “I always wanted a close connection to him. I used to fantasize that one day he’d look at me and see me as his son, not the bastard born out of an affair he had with his secretary, and not the pitiful replacement to Stephan, his true heir.”
