It wasn’t until Katherine disappeared into the kitchen to bring back the pie that I finally found a moment alone with Trevor. I hated the idea of other people asking the question, but I needed to know. This business was my living too.
“How are things, Trevor?With the company?”
He shrugged his shoulders and shifted in his seat. “Slow with the season.” He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He bounced nervously and reached for some water to gulp it down quickly.
My hand twitched. For the first time in my life, I wanted to stand up and slap someone.
“How bad is it?” My voice had become a low rasp of frustration.
His eyes lifted and he finally met my gaze. “Bad.”
I felt that one small word like a punch to the gut. The room tilted sharply and then started to spin.
“I’m not sure what we’re going to do. Things are bad,” he continued.
I felt my heavy Thanksgiving dinner churn in my stomach.How could he do this to me? How could he take Grady’s gift and destroy it so flippantly?
Didn’t he care?
I had kids to feed!Bills to pay?Didn’t he care about me?
“How are you going to fix it?” My words came out measured and labored, betraying the fury burning through me. I wanted to stand up and scream at him. I felt like I had finally tipped over the edge of insanity with the sheer volume of rage spiraling through me.
In a choked voice, he admitted, “I don’t know if we can.” He ran a hand through his dark hair and turned his head toward Blake.
“How dare you.” My voice scared even me. I hadn’t expected to react so violently, but I couldn’t help it. “How dare you take my husband’s company, his gift to you and run it into the ground.”
Trevor jerked back in his seat, shocked by my accusation. He reached forward with a timid hand, “Liz, wait…”
“He trusted you,” I spat out. “He didn’t die suddenly. He died slowly! He had time to reflect on his company. He could have sold it and made a lot of money, Trevor! But no! Grady wanted to give it to you! He wanted to give you a future. He wanted to give you a job! And you’ve destroyed it! That was his dream. Do you know what that meant to him? Do you know how hard he worked to build his company and make a name for himself?”
“I know what he did, Liz. He was my brother.”
“Then act like you give a damn!”
Katherine chose that moment to walk back into the room, although it might have had something to do with my hysterical screaming.
Jaceand Lucy both started to cry. Lucy jumped out of her seat and ran to my side. She wrapped her little arms around my waist and held onto me tightly.
I was too ashamed to look at Blake or Abby. My kids had never seen me behave this way. They had been through enough; I didn’t need to put this on them too.
And yet, I couldn’t stop.
“I do give a damn!” Trevor shot back, just as infuriated as me. “You can’t even imagine how this iskilling me! How much of a failure I feel like because I can’t make this one thing work. Theone thingI want to work mostin the world! You don’t think I know how much Grady loved this company? You’re wrong! I worked with him every day for nearly a decade. I watched him build it from the ground up! I know that the only thing he loved more than that place was you and his kids. So don’t think for a second that I would intentionally run this thing into the ground. But I am not Grady, Liz. I’m not even half the man he was.” Trevor ran a rough hand over his eyes but couldn’t stop his angry, hurt tears from falling.
I felt like the worst person in the world for making him feel that way, for making him admit things I didn’t even think were true.
Katherine collapsed in her seat. Silent tears ran down her face, but she didn’t’ try to wipe them away.
When Trevor spoke again, his voice was broken, a picture of what I knew had happened to his spirit as well. “I want to try, Liz. I want to make this business run as successfully as it did when Grady was alive. But I can barely get myself out of bed in the morning. I know you lost your husband. I know how hard this hit you. But you’ve got to know that I lost my big brother. He was mybest friendand now he is gone. I can barely walk into that office without breaking down and losing my goddamn mind. I want to do this right, Liz, but I am just sosad.”
His last words were what finally broke me. I had had enough. I couldn’t take it anymore.
I couldn’t take Grady’s mother looking at me with pity. I felt Katherine’s eyes on me constantly. I felt her waiting for me to break. I could feel her just waiting for me to lose it.
Well, maybe I finally had.
And Trevor was so much worse. He didn’t just look like his older brother, he acted like Grady too. And Trevor was in the middle of his own pain. I could see him suffering. He was a shell of the man he used to be.
