“If you are thinking about rolling down the stairs, Son, I would advise you to bend lower and dive.” My father’s voice breaks my thought.
I smirk, stuffing my hands in my pocket, and jog down the stairs.
“What are you up to?” I ask.
“I’m hiding from your mother and her Balsam Hill ornaments. Join me in the study?” My father gestures for me to follow him.
Side by side, we walk in silence through the hallway, passing the sitting room, the dining room, and then reaching the study.
My father opens the door, and memories come at me. It still smells of cigar smoke and bergamot.
There is a picture on the wall of my dad on the phone and me under his desk playing with a train. My mother liked to call it the JFK picture. I look around, seeing a picture of Big Daddy Voss, my grandfather.
“You didn’t come back for his funeral,” my dad comments.
The smug look of my grandfather stares down at me. “I didn’t want to be here for it.”
“Son…”
“Why do you have his picture in here?” I ask.
My father pushes his hand in his pocket. “He is my father.”
The statement was so final. I exhale, feeling the old wounds wanting to reopen, but looking at my father’s posture, I know this is not the time nor the place.
“How has it been?” My dad asks as he opens the cigar box on his desk.
I shrug. “I can’t complain; work is work.”
I look back at the door. I want to leave. Everything about this house is making my skin crawl.
“I like Noelle. She looks like a good girl.” My dad brings my attention back to him.
“She is.” I think about her dancing around the room, the vase she threw at me. “Fun. Smart.”
My father cuts the cigar and nods. “Not really your type.”
I chuckle. “I have learned that my type wasn’t for me.”
“Same. But Noelle, she looks at you with love.”
I almost tell him she is a paid actor, but I hold back.
He cups his hand around the cigar as he lights it. “You need a woman who looks at you with love, Son.”
We both go silent. It’s like we have so much to say, but we don’t know where to start.
“I’m going to go get ready. See you at dinner?” I ask as I back away from the door.
“Yup.”
That’s all he says. I open the door and leave him behind. Just like I did three years ago.
***
After leaving my father’s office, I wander through the hall of the home I once knew. My legs take me to a place that I had no interest in being. The crisp air blows across my cheek. My eyes are locked on the white French doors of the pool house. Years ago, they were brown. I guess my mother replaced them.
I can still hear my grandfather screaming at me, telling me to come back.
